The CMO’s guide to unifying brand and demand in an AI-flattened world
What we’re gonna say next may be a little tough for marketers to hear. Ready?
…AI doesn’t care about your funnel.
TOFU, MOFU, BOFU? NOFU. AI’s not interested in those distinctions. It’s all about what it can identify quickly and spit out in an answer, summary, or shortlist. It’s looking for strong, distinct, stories.
It’s a jarring shift, because for decades, B2B marketing has followed an orderly journey. People moved from awareness to consideration to conversion, politely shuffling through each stage like museum guests following those arrows on the floor. In the AI era, that tidy funnel’s been put in a blender.
That means brand is no longer top of the funnel – Brand is the funnel. And the CMOs who find success will be the ones who train both humans and machines to recognize their story instantly.
The AI Buyer Journey
Today, your next customer might never land on your homepage, read your whitepaper, or click your meticulously UTM-tagged “Learn More” button. (Sorry!) Instead, they might ‘meet’ you in a ChatGPT summary. Or a Perplexity comparison. Or a Slack message from a colleague who says, “I think these folks look legit.” The moment of discovery is now a single, compressed decision point: awareness, consideration, and preference, all-in-one. They ask things like:
- “Who are the top B2B brand agencies?”
- “Which firms specialize in unifying brand and demand?”
- “What’s a creative agency that understands tech?”
And AI answers.
But AI’s not magically writing the narrative. It’s remixing and arranging existing clues you’ve left scattered across the internet. If those signals aren’t coherent, the answer won’t be either. That makes an unclear narrative a brand problem, not a search problem.
Developing a unified story ensures your values, expertise, and POV show up accurately in the AI interfaces, analyst briefings, Slack group chats, and internal buyer debates.
Why brand matters more than ever
It’s certainly interesting that the rise of generative AI has made strong brand foundations more important, but think about it: large language models aren’t out there doing investigative journalism on your company – they’re just summarizing existing information. It’s all about what it can confidently stitch into an answer, summary, or shortlist, and that comes from strong, distinct stories and narratives.
Your brand story is now input to an algorithm. And if that story is mushy, inconsistent, or scattered, the output from gen AI will be too. When your story is fuzzy, AI will often fill in the gaps – and not always correctly. When it’s built on a solid brand platform, however… then you’re in business.
The modern CMO’s guide to build the foundation for an AI-defined future
A new era requires a new playbook. Luckily, you can start the journey to consistency with some basics.
- Stick to a central narrative that unifies everything (and everyone).
Consistency rules. Tell the same story, with the same vibe, expressing the same truths, across marketing, sales, creative, and leadership, so AI picks up on that story too. - Use a recognizable, repeatable vocabulary.
Machines latch onto clear language. Repetition builds authority. And algorithms reward cohesion. - Leverage a tone and visual system that cements recognition.
Consistency across sites, socials, ads, decks, and reports means consistent AI summaries made from those things. Without a solid brand foundation, your messaging is just debris, scattered across the internet. With it? You become unmistakable.
With a brand platform anchored in a single strategic narrative shored up, then it’s time to start executing.
- Build demand campaigns that reinforce your story
No more “brand vs. performance.” Every campaign should do both: build recognition and drive action. - Treat creative partners as strategic operators
Your agency shouldn’t just make ads; they should translate your narrative into creative systems that scale across markets, channels, and formats. - Measure the brand’s impact on discovery
Regularly test how AI tools describe you. Compare their summaries to your narrative and track how that changes over time. When your story is consistent, your performance usually is too. These signals matter now.
Why strong brands win in the age of AI
AI has put brand strategy under a spotlight – now that algorithms compress your entire company into a single sentence or paragraph, the brands with the clearest narrative win. We’ve watched this shift play out up close and the B2B tech brands outperforming their categories right now share the same DNA:
- A sharp strategy
- A confident, ownable visual identity
- A creative system that scales everywhere buyers show up
Brand and demand aren’t separate motions, but a shared engine for growth for successful companies. When AI is where people form a first impression, a distinct brand is your all-in-one competitive edge and growth driver. An unmistakable and unforgettable story starts there.
And hey, AI may not care about your funnel. But with the right brand foundation?
It’ll care about your company. Make sure the machines have the right story to tell.
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