Feature
The Gist
- Story, structure and signal matter more than volume. As AI floods the content landscape, differentiation comes from emotional storytelling, semantic structure, and content that generative engines — and humans — can actually understand.
- Calendars and shortcuts are losing their edge. Winning teams design content around moments of truth, real buyer friction, and clearly defined AI use cases — not fixed publishing schedules or generic automation.
- Scale requires alignment, not just tools. From BOFU content to sales enablement, the strongest programs treat content as a cross-functional system — with governance, guardrails, and humans firmly in the loop.
Has there ever been a year in B2B marketing like 2025? Tried-and-true content strategies no longer delivered the same results, as buyer behaviors changed and AI-powered approaches disrupted everything. Content remained core to marketing success, but with modifications—a growing list of things to stop or start, things to learn or unlearn.
In 2026, how should you adjust your approach to content? Ten B2B marketing leaders share their advice.
Why Storytelling Is the Last Real Differentiator in AI-Saturated B2B Content
Renu Upadhyay, Chief Marketing Officer at Omnissa
Stop: Over-rotating on product differentiation
Start: Telling a better story than your competitors
In 2026, it’s time to stop over-relying on product differentiation to drive impact. AI-generated content focuses heavily on facts and logic, and let’s be honest—competing products often sound alike when reduced to features and data points. As the volume of AI-driven content grows, so does this sense of sameness.
To truly stand out, top-performing teams will focus on telling more compelling stories. Storytelling forges an emotional connection that cuts through the noise, boosts recall and replaces abstract features and facts with relatable content that drives results. We must keep "humans in the loop" of the content generation process. AI leans into what the audience should know, but only you can define what the audience should feel.
Designing Content for Buyer Moments, Not Marketing Calendars
Katie Ryan O'Connor, Head of Content & Social at Asana
Stop: Publishing content on a fixed schedule
Start: Designing content around customer “moments of truth”
In 2026, top-performing teams should stop treating content solely like a calendar exercise. Sure, there's always room for seasonal content—who doesn't love a good back-to-school feature or International Coffee Day creative—but those are tactics not strategies. The real leverage comes from mapping content to the psychological moments that shape buying and adoption: the moment a team feels friction, the moment a stakeholder needs alignment, the moment a user hits an activation wall.
Let's build content systems that anticipate those inflection points and allow prospects and customers to see themselves in the story. In an AI-saturated world, resonance beats rote automation.
Related Article: The Story Gap: What's Missing From Your Marketing?
How Structure, Taxonomy and GEO Determine Visibility in Generative Search
Christine Zender, Senior Content Strategist at Autodesk
Stop: Creating content that generative engines can’t read
Start: Treating taxonomy and structure as your GEO superpower
Stop publishing content that isn’t structured, tagged or modeled for generative engines.
Most B2B marketers still write for traditional search, producing long-form pages with vague or click-baity headings, inconsistent terminology and little metadata. This content performs poorly in LLM environments because engines can’t reliably parse intent, relationships or authority.
Unstructured content = invisible content.
Start investing in strong taxonomy, structured content models and authoritative data signals that generative engines can understand. GEO rewards clarity and consistency. When content is structured, tagged and semantically rich, LLMs can surface it more accurately, answer user questions with your authoritative information and maintain your brand’s position in AI-generated responses. Structured, governed content is what will make us visible (and credible) in 2026.
Why AI Only Works When Strategy Comes First
Taylor Narewski, Global SMB & Mid-Market, Partner Marketing Leader at Cisco
Stop: Looking to AI as a shortcut
Start: Developing your own AI use cases
When it comes to AI in marketing, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. For 2026, marketers should stop viewing AI as a cheat code or shortcut. AI is an accelerant for marketing, but it will deliver value only if you know how it can augment your process and you’ve already crafted a coherent marketing strategy.
Without that foundational work, AI can still save you time but who cares about time savings if you show up in front of your customers with nothing memorable or valuable to communicate? This year, marketers should do the hard work of 1) figuring out AI use cases they can actually implement and 2) refining their marketing strategy for this moment.
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Taking Creative Risks to Escape Forgettable B2B Marketing
Karri Chamberlain, Director of Web Strategy at Sandisk
Stop: Limiting yourself to conservative marketing ideas
Start: Going for a bigger impact
When planning your editorial lineup or considering marketing campaign options, always include a risky idea. It's OK to create tension in your marketing, or to be polarizing. Show some brand personality. Right now, too much B2B content is simply forgettable; your goal should be to create memorable content while still being genuine to the brand.
Why Bottom-of-Funnel Content Determines Revenue Impact
Lashay Lewis, Content Strategy Advisor and Founder of BOFU.ai
Stop: Overlooking the power of well-crafted bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content
Start: Crafting BOFU content that converts because you did your homework
When you create BOFU content the right way, it can deliver conversions, get your brand ranked in LLMs and give your marketing team a seat at the revenue table. It’s so important to get this right in 2026. But too many marketers take shortcuts. The starting point isn’t skimming a few facts or researching a couple keywords to write a product comparison webpage.
Great BOFU content can’t be created in isolation. It results from establishing good cross-functional communication at your organization: content teams regularly talking with product, sales and customer experience teams and creating a single repository of customer insights that can inform content. If your BOFU content isn’t performing, you might not have a content problem so much as an internal alignment problem.
Scaling Content Creation Without Losing Brand Control
Alicia Saia, product marketing leader with past roles at Redjack, MarkLogic and i2
Stop: Taking on all content production
Start: Creating scalable, AI-assisted processes for other teams
Marketing teams need to unlearn the notion that they’re responsible for all content production, especially sales-enablement content. We’ve taken on this burden because we’ve seen what happens when salespeople create their own materials: off-message, off-brand, poorly designed, you name it. But at the same time, we understand that they have an urgent need for custom content to help close deals.
To streamline and accelerate this process, marketers should create custom GPTs that enable sales and other teams to create high-quality, brand-compliant materials. Marketing would still review and refine, but a scalable process with guardrails will make their job much more manageable.
Why Custom LLMs Matter More Than Generic AI Content
Rachel Burger, Content Marketing Manager at OneStream
Stop: Churning out generic AI content
Start: Building custom LLMs
Stop relying on off-the-shelf LLMs like Copilot or ChatGPT to churn out generic, one-size-fits-all content. These tools often dilute brand voice and fail to resonate with your specific audience. Plus, no one likes AI fluff. Instead, build and deploy custom LLMs trained on your organization’s proprietary messaging, tone and buyer insights. This ensures every piece of content is on-brand, contextually relevant and laser-focused on the pain points and priorities of your ideal customers.
Putting Human Judgment Back at the Center of AI Content
Anne McSilver, Senior Content Manager at LinkedIn
Stop: Writing boring B2B blather
Start: Incorporating the brilliance of human AI content bosses
As the AI slop tsunami gains velocity, marketers must unlearn their reliance on boring B2B blather. Some believe bots beat human content experts, but having a real brain to boss the AI tools is your best chance to cut through the bloviation. Original thinking, customer voices, proprietary data, valuable advice, and jargon-free language are the mandatory starting point. This is not an anti-AI screed; it’s your path to winning with audience empathy, creative discernment, and thoughtful execution that’s not at all artificial.
Replacing Static Personas With Living, AI-Driven Customer Models
Lindy Roux, EVP and Partner at Tendo Communications
Stop: Creating static buyer personas
Start: Developing dynamic AI personas
In 2026, marketers should rethink their traditional approach to creating and using buyer personas. The old way was to create static persona documents and feel satisfied that you’d checked a box. But those personas typically weren’t used often enough or effectively enough to shape content. And more fundamentally, those docs didn’t get us close enough to the customer—how they think, how they talk.
Instead, learn how to create virtual, AI-generated personas that can be trained on rich customer data that is updated regularly: behavioral research, surveys, sales call transcripts, customer support questions, etc. Then start having conversations with your AI persona or ask it to review webpages and content assets to assess whether you’re speaking the customer’s language and addressing their needs.
Content Continuity: The Fundamentals Haven't Changed for 2026
Staying on top of AI disruptions and content strategy evolution isn’t easy. A recent LinkedIn survey shows that 72% of B2B marketers feel overwhelmed by the pace of change, and more than half say expectations have never been higher.
But it’s important to remember what hasn’t changed and what still performs fantastically: powerful storytelling and resonant content that connects with your audience and builds trust and affinity. Getting those fundamentals right will remain the first priority for content marketing success in 2026 and beyond.
