I feel it’s protected to say that the world of B2B advertising and marketing is in a state of flux. And that change extends to B2B thought management content material.
Publicly, there’s enthusiasm for the efficiencies of AI. Privately, there’s concern in regards to the sea of sameness AI instruments create.
In my persevering with efforts to broaden my understanding of how thought management is evolving, I just lately attended a webinar hosted by the Global Thought Leadership Institute (GTLI) that explored this subject.
Moderated by Bob Safian, former editor-in-chief of Quick Firm, the panel introduced collectively some heavy hitters from the world of thought management together with: Lucia Rahilly from McKinsey, Anthony Marshall from IBM, Joss Simpson from Heidrick & Struggles, and Katherine Andrews from Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
The dialogue was wealthy with a concentrate on AI subjects that confirmed a pattern we’re watching intently right here at TopRank Advertising: as AI lowers the ground for content material creation, the ceiling for true authority is rising. To compete, B2B manufacturers should evolve their very own Reply Engine, a system that delivers reliable, experiential, and data-informed solutions to consumers who’re more and more skeptical of generic content material.
With that perspective as context, listed below are my prime takeaways from the GTLI webinar, together with a number of key information factors from our personal 2026 State of B2B Thought Leadership Report in partnership with Ascend2.
1. The soul of Thought Management content material is (nonetheless) data-informed
One of the vital telling moments within the webinar got here when Katherine Andrews of BCG talked about that whereas AI can produce grammatically good drafts full with subheads and formatting, it typically lacks the substance that senior executives really learn for. Lucia Rahilly of McKinsey added that AI will be “sycophantic,” giving excessive scores to mediocre drafts simply to be pleasing.
The consensus? AI has no soul.
“Solely a human author or editor can convey that soul,” Anthony famous. True “soul” comes from proprietary perception and hard-won research-the distinctive mental property {that a} LLM can not hallucinate.
That distinction issues: in keeping with our Thought Management analysis, 93% of B2B entrepreneurs say research-based content material is efficient at driving engagement and leads, with practically half calling it very efficient, a transparent sign {that a} significant, not a mechanical strategy is what earns consideration and credibility. If you wish to stand out in AI search, amongst the media and individuals who affect your clients in 2026, you can’t merely iterate what’s already on the market. There’s a distinct benefit to creating new information.
2. Belief is the brand new foreign money
Belief was a major theme all through the GTLI webinar dialog. With AI-generated hallucinations and “confetti” (content material that appears good however says nothing) flooding the market, consumers have gotten conditioned to confirm all the things.
Lucia Rahilly talked about that McKinsey doesn’t publish something that hasn’t been considerably re-edited and rigorously fact-checked. The chance of citing competitor information or hallucinated info is simply too excessive.
That warning is well-founded. 35% of B2B entrepreneurs from our survey say unique analysis is considerably extra invaluable than AI-generated content material for constructing belief and authority, whereas one other 32% say it’s extra impactful total. This underscores why verification and human judgment have turn into non-negotiable on the subject of any form of content material that’s AI assisted.
One other perspective on belief on the subject of thought management is that it isn’t sufficient to rely solely by yourself model to hold the load of credibility. Past model to viewers credibility, to ensure that thought management content material to be extra possible surfaced in AI-powered search, it’s advantageous to borrow and construct belief by way of a community of credible voices. These voices can add validation to the analysis itself or present context to be used in content material extensions from the analysis for demand gen.
3. The shift to experiential and interrogative content material
“We don’t write 10,000-word stories anymore. Individuals aren’t studying lengthy anymore. ”
This assertion displays a actuality many entrepreneurs are experiencing in the present day. As Katherine Andrews talked about, viewers conduct has basically modified and only a few persons are participating with prolonged, static content material. The GTLI panel highlighted a shift away from lengthy type PDFs. What’s the choice? I might recommend extra experiential content material that invitations participation vs. passive consumption. Supporting this shift in direction of content material as expertise, our analysis discovered that 48% of B2B entrepreneurs say interactive experiences make thought management extra impactful, tying with video and stay occasions as the simplest codecs for driving engagement.
Anthony Marshall from IBM shared an attention-grabbing perception: executives don’t simply need to learn content material; they need to interrogate it. They need to use AI brokers to ask questions of the information and get particular solutions related to their distinctive context.
This can be the way forward for thought management content material technique. It isn’t nearly publishing a white paper; it’s about creating an ecosystem the place that content material will be consumed by way of video, interactive instruments, and even dialog. As moderator Bob Safian mentioned in the course of the dialogue on video technique, many leaders now successfully have interaction with podcasts by watching them on YouTube. This in fact, is why we publish our Beyond B2B Marketing podcast in a number of channels and syndicate to all main podcast platforms.
4. Visibility means being discovered by machines and people
As B2B entrepreneurs we used to optimize for search engines like google and yahoo. Now, we should optimize for AI-powered Reply Engines.
Anthony Marshall shared that at IBM, being an AI firm means utilizing these instruments is necessary, joking that when requested “Who makes use of AI?” in a gathering, he felt it was a setup as a result of he can be fired if he didn’t say sure . Suffice it to say that AI is in every single place and it’s distinctly altering how content material is created and found.
Our analysis confirms this pattern, discovering that 32% of pros already use Generative AI instruments like ChatGPT or Claude to find thought management. In case your content material isn’t structured, cited, and distributed in a means these fashions can perceive, it’s possible you’ll be invisible to a 3rd of your potential viewers.
That is the core of contemporary content material and model visibility. You could be the place the customer is, whether or not that may be a Google search, a LinkedIn feed, or a immediate in an LLM. Or as we prefer to say, be the very best reply wherever your clients are trying.
What You Can Do Subsequent
The bar for thought management content material has actually been raised. It’s now not sufficient to be good; you need to be distinctive, reliable, and accessible.
In case you are trying to refine your thought management technique and listen to extra from the specialists shaping this house, I extremely advocate trying out the upcoming Global Thought Leadership Institute Symposium, occurring February 5-6, 2026, in Houston, Texas. It’s a uncommon alternative to get within the room with the leaders who’re defining the way forward for the thought management trade.
You may as well try The State of B2B Thought Management in 2026 report we produced in partnership with Ascend2, here.
In regards to the creator
Lee Odden has been acknowledged as a prime B2B Advertising skilled by Forbes, The Economist and the Wall Road Journal. For over 20 years he is labored along with his group at TopRank Advertising to assist elevate the B2B advertising and marketing trade by way of artistic advertising and marketing packages that ship extra genuine, experiential and inclusive content material for manufacturers like LinkedIn, Dell and Adobe. Lee is the creator of Optimize and has printed over 1.4 million phrases on his company’s B2B advertising and marketing weblog. As a trusted advertising and marketing thought chief, he has given practically 300 shows in 20 totally different nations on B2B content material, search and influencer advertising and marketing. When not advertising and marketing, Lee might be operating, cooking or touring.
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