As AI reshapes how marketing operates, B2B marketing teams are facing growing pressure to deliver on tighter timelines without adding people. According to new Demandbase research revealed at the company's annual GO conference in New York City, nearly three-quarters (72%) of teams are the same size or smaller than they were two years ago, even as 70% of marketers report facing shorter timelines. Company leadership is the biggest source of that pacesetting, highlighting a critical gap between expectations and resources in the AI era.
B2B marketing is at an inflection point. While AI has driven system-level change in engineering, marketing has not made the same leap due to go-to-market complexity. The result is a resource crunch where teams must produce more with less. Demandbase commissioned research firm G2 to conduct in-depth interviews with 124 frontline B2B marketers in the US in September 2026, ranging from individual contributor to director in demand generation, growth, digital or field marketing roles at companies with 250 or more employees.
The research shows distinctly human skills are becoming more valuable. Among marketers surveyed, 56% said strategy, creativity, judgment, communication and leadership matter more today than two years ago, compared to 38% who said AI, prompting, tool fluency and data literacy matter more. Half of marketers expect their jobs to look more like a creative director's in the future and 58% say it now takes more creativity to produce work that stands out, while just 16% believe creativity matters less because AI handles more execution.
AI is becoming part of the B2B buying journey, but it is not replacing brands' own channels. Only 35% of marketers systematically track how their brand appears in AI search, yet 62% have already changed their search strategy for AI search and 64% have attempted to influence how AI describes their brand. At the same time, company websites remain resilient, with 44% reporting increased site traffic over the past year versus just 15% seeing a decline. Marketers need to treat AI search as another audience while continuing to invest in owned platforms.
The biggest organizational challenge is how work moves among teams. Processes and cross-functional workflows were cited by 56% of marketers as their biggest challenge, compared with 21% who named tech stack, data and tools. This indicates adding another tool across marketing, sales, product and legal will not help unless it eliminates a handoff.
Junior and entry-level marketing roles have largely held steady, with 49% reporting unchanged headcount over two years. Meanwhile, 50% said their company was outsourcing less or bringing more work in-house, suggesting AI is shifting work from agencies to internal teams rather than eliminating entry-level roles. Teams expect acceleration to continue, with 74% expecting their jobs to change more over the next two years than the past two, while only 2% expect less change.
The research follows Demandbase's push into agentic marketing with the launch of Mojo, a B2B marketing agent that turns strategy briefs into cross-channel campaigns. Mojo defines audiences, develops briefs, launches and manages campaigns, monitors performance and learns from results to inform future execution, while keeping marketers in control of key decisions.
GO is Demandbase's biannual customer conference where industry experts discuss the future of AI-driven go-to-market strategies. GO NYC is taking place October 19-20, 2026.
The findings reveal that marketing teams are being asked to do more, faster, with fewer resources. Agentic marketing offers a path to give marketers capacity by removing operational mechanics and freeing them for strategic and creative work, aligning with the growing need for speed, efficiency, and human-led oversight in B2B SaaS and technology marketing.
About Demandbase
Demandbase is the AI GTM leader defining the next era of agentic marketing, helping B2B revenue teams coordinate sales, marketing, and advertising around the accounts most likely to drive pipeline. By connecting buying signals, account intelligence, and go-to-market execution in one platform, Demandbase helps teams prioritize what matters, improve visibility into performance, and move faster across the customer journey. Thousands of businesses use Demandbase to simplify go-to-market execution, reduce wasted spend, and drive measurable revenue outcomes.
