Missed Day 3 of the Forrester B2B Summit in Phoenix? Here’s what you need to know—from data strategy and adaptive marketing to how AI is reshaping the future of B2B.
Making the Case for Data Investment
Presenter: Brett Kahnke, Principal Analyst, Forrester
The Data Dilemma
High-quality data is expensive, yet data teams remain underfunded. As Brett Kahnke put it, competing for data investment can feel like a rigged carnival game—no matter how hard you try, someone else walks away with the prize.
Even when data drives major wins, credit often goes to sales or marketing, who are more directly tied to revenue—making their funding asks easier to justify. The problem? Focusing solely on ROI or cost-cutting fails to capture data’s full value.
Why Traditional Funding Fails
As Brett explains, there are three reasons why the traditional approach to data funding falls down:
- Diluted ROI: Revenue gains from data are shared across teams, so data doesn’t get direct credit.
- Cost-cutting backfires: Arguments focused on saving money don’t generate much excitement for additional funding.
- The big picture gets overlooked: Data doesn’t just improve the bottom line; it enhances overall business performance, but that’s often hard to measure.
When seeking funding, it’s natural to focus on financial results—but that often weakens your ROI case and overemphasizes cost savings, missing the bigger impact.
Three Dimensions of Data Value
Brett advocates a new framework to make the case for data investment, focusing on three types of value:
- Financial Value: Savings from reduced storage, improved conversion rates, and new revenue from untapped buyers.
- Experiential Value: Better personalization, faster purchases, fewer errors for customers, and improved internal team morale and efficiency.
- Operational Value: Streamlined workflows, reduced compliance risks, and better use of existing tech.
Making it work
Brett shares four top tips for a more enlightened view of investing in data:
- Stop thinking of data investment as a competing budget priority.
- Frame it as a “ride-along investment”—essential to make every other initiative work better.
- Prove your value using metrics your stakeholders already care about.
- Build accountability into your own operations—track how your work impacts others.
Everyone knows that data is one of a firm’s most valuable assets, yet securing funding for it can still be a struggle. The key is to stop thinking of data simply as a cost and to position it in a more strategic context. By doing so, you can attract the investment it deserves.
Making the Move to Adaptive Programs
Presenter: Kelvin Gee, Principal Analyst, Forrester
From Horse-Drawn Carriages to Self-Driving Cars
Kelvin opened with a sharp analogy, comparing the evolution of transportation—from horse-drawn carriages to self-driving cars—to the shift marketers must make to stay relevant in a buyer-led, AI-powered world.
90% of buyers use generative AI to guide their journey, with decisions increasingly shaped by consultants, peers, and analysts. They also prefer to stay anonymous longer, only engaging vendors when they’re ready.
That’s why marketing must move from manual and rigid to automated, adaptive, and intelligent.
From Traditional to Adaptive: A Three-Phase Journey
Kelvin went on to break down the path to marketing transformation into three clear stages.
- Traditional Programs: Manual, linear, and slow to respond. These programs depend on static segmentation, batch campaigns, and siloed data.
- Hybrid Programs: Combining automation with manual oversight, hybrid programs respond to signals and personalize—but they still face integration issues.
- Adaptive Programs: The gold standard. These programs are AI-driven, run autonomously, and adapt in real-time. Data silos are eliminated, and decisions are made dynamically across multiple channels.
Five Dimensions of Adaptive Programs
So, how can marketers make the leap from traditional to adaptive? Kelvin argues that marketers need to build across five core areas:
- Technology: Invest in revenue marketing platforms and maximize the tools you already own.
- Insights: Move from historical data to real-time signal responses. Enhance lead scoring with contextual factors and AI.
- Buying Groups: Move beyond personas and identify real stakeholders. Pass rich insights from marketing to sales to close the loop
- Orchestration: Integrate multiple channels into unified programs. Deliver a “surround-sound” experience across email, web, social, content, and more
- Customer Lifecycle: Think beyond the funnel—focus on post-purchase engagement, including upsell, cross-sell, and retention.
The Future: Where We’re Headed
Kelvin’s vision includes prescriptive AI, conversational interfaces, prompt-based marketing, and seamless agent-to-agent collaboration, where marketing, sales, and customer success teams work together without silos.
It’s further proof that the single source of truth is dead. Adaptive marketing depends on connected, real-time systems—not rigid, one-size-fits-all models.
Key Takeaways
For marketers still operating in a traditional or hybrid mode, the message is clear: start now. Get busy connecting your tech stack, cleaning your data, and moving toward signal-based engagement. Adaptive programs aren’t just the future—they’re fast becoming the expectation.
Kelvin closed with a quote from Doc Brown: “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
Turn GenAI Possibilities into Reality
Presenter: Lisa Gately, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Flying Bicycles to Supersonic Jets
Lisa Gately opened her session with a metaphor comparing today’s generative AI to the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903—full of promise but still clunky. B2B organizations are at the “flying bicycle” stage, where GenAI is underutilized and often doesn’t live up to expectations. However, buyers are already ahead, with 89% using GenAI at every stage of their journey, compared to just 19% of B2B organizations using it in production.
This signals a major shift in how buying decisions are made—one that aligns with Forrester’s broader perspective on when AI becomes the buyer.
Three Areas of Readiness
Lisa identified three key areas for organizational readiness to adopt GenAI effectively:
- The Engine: Strengthen foundational tech, clean your data, and align processes. A disjointed tech stack and poor data quality will derail your GenAI efforts.
- The Wings: Close the AI literacy gap by fostering hands-on learning and using frameworks like Forrester’s AIQ (Artificial Intelligence Quotient) to assess team readiness.
- The Team: Build cross-functional AI councils that align marketing, sales, IT, legal, and customer success teams to drive collaborative GenAI initiatives.
Beyond Speed and Efficiency
Lisa emphasized that leading marketers are shifting GenAI’s role—from pure efficiency to driving real effectiveness and impact. The goal: deliver personalized experiences, streamline workflows, and improve decision-making.
Key Takeaways
Whether you’re leading or still observing, the opportunity to act is now. As Lisa puts it: “Don’t get grounded while others take off.”
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Day 3 spotlighted where B2B marketing is headed—smarter data, adaptive programs, and GenAI at the core. The takeaway? Evolve or fall behind. In a trust-fractured market, these shifts aren’t just tactical—they’re survival. Trust is the last competitive advantage. Start building.
Clean your data. Embrace what’s next.
That’s a wrap on this year’s B2B Summit. We learned—from bold ideas and fresh frameworks to the evolving role of AI and trust. We connected with familiar faces and new ones. And we talked shop in the Valley of the Sun.
Until 2026, B2B Summit.