As the landscape of sales and revenue operations evolves with **AI-driven workflows**, the **go-to-market (GTM) execution** is increasingly skewed towards **high-volume, sales-led outreach**. This seismic shift favors immediate demand capture at the expense of **long-term brand building and sustainable demand creation**.
While AI introduces significant efficiencies, it often diminishes marketing’s strategic influence and undermines the customer experience—especially in enterprise contexts where automated outreach can cause lasting reputational harm.
**Marketing’s foundational mission**—forging the customer journey, crafting brand positioning, and cultivating trust—is at stake. Without a stewardship role, organizations risk sacrificing long-term growth for short-term gains, thereby undermining their **brand equity** and enterprise relationships that sales alone can’t uphold.
To delve deeper into this evolving narrative, I connected with Markus Ståhlberg, CEO of N.Rich—a voice of reason in account-based GTM strategy.
Why Generic Outreach Fails in Enterprise GTM
According to the 2024 LinkedIn-Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report:
- 71% of decision-makers indicate that poorly targeted sales outreach can diminish their perception of a brand.
- 42% state they are less likely to consider a vendor after receiving irrelevant or overly aggressive outreach.
In the realm of enterprise sales, where the market focus is narrower and decision-makers are more senior, generic automated outreach can backfire. It showcases a clear lack of understanding, frustrating potential clients while causing long-term friction. Even if a buyer enters the market later, the damage may be irrevocable—effectively eliminating the vendor from consideration entirely.
Dig deeper: The GTM Revolution is Here. Are You Ready?
The Shift in GTM Power Dynamics
For years, marketing leaders have been trapped in a limited, often misunderstood role, largely confined to **brand awareness, lead generation**, and tactical campaign executions. As revenue strategies evolved, marketing should have claimed a broader strategic role.
“AI-powered workflows are redistributing control of GTM activities, shifting it away from marketing towards revenue operations and sales teams,” says Ståhlberg. These tools enable revenue teams to generate thousands of outbound messages at minimal cost, appealing to sales for their speed and volume.
However, scaling efforts in this manner carries potential risks that sales often overlook.
“Revenue isn’t concerned with whether it’s spam or not, as long as you’re getting results,” Ståhlberg cautioned. “But in enterprise contexts, you can’t afford to burn accounts. Spam tarnishes your brand’s reputation.”
Research from LinkedIn’s B2B Institute shows that **95% of buyers** are not in market at any given time. Prospective clients overwhelmed by irrelevant outreach quickly lose trust.
According to a 2024 study by Exclaimer, **79% of consumers** are inclined to switch brands that rely heavily on AI for communication, with **41%** believing that AI-generated emails undermine brand authenticity.
The fallout from alienating customers can take years to mend. The short-term benefits of a mass AI-driven prospecting strategy risk long-term brand equity, compressing future pipelines and jeopardizing sustainable revenue growth.
The Rise of the GTM Engineer
Amid this transformation, new roles such as the **GTM Engineer** are emerging—a hybrid position that melds technical, sales, and operational expertise to implement AI-driven outbound programs.
In theory, this role embodies a more scientific, data-driven perspective on revenue generation—something Ståhlberg advocates. “I appreciate the engineering mindset,” he shared. “GTM should be pragmatic, data-driven, and systematically designed.”
However, companies frequently fall prey to unrealistic expectations. They often assume a single “rainmaker” can resolve all GTM issues.
“The problem is not the role itself,” Ståhlberg explained. “True multidimensional talent is rare. Too often, firms hire someone familiar with the tools but who lacks the broader vision necessary to engineer buyer journeys, synchronize cross-functional teams, or balance demand creation with demand capture.”
AI workflows exacerbate this risk. While these tools enhance volume, they fall short in delivering **strategic design** or nuanced messaging.
“AI doesn’t outperform humans in messaging; it simply amplifies the sheer volume. If not managed well, it turns into spam,” Ståhlberg emphasized. Current conversion rates benefit from novelty, yet these effects will wane as buyers become adept at spotting AI-driven outreach.
Ståhlberg references initiatives like Jacco van der Kooij’s revenue factory as stellar examples of engineering-led GTM strategies, provided they are applied with precision and intentionality.
“The challenge does not lie in the engineering approach itself. It’s the expectation that one person can single-handedly manage the entire system.”
Dig deeper: The Hard Truth About What AI Will Do to GTM
The Demand Creation Gap
At its core, the real trial isn’t merely capturing existing demand—it’s the more formidable task of **creating demand** where none exists.
Sales teams excel in converting existing demand but often falter when it comes to generating new demand or nurturing lasting buyer relationships.
“Sales teams don’t inherently grasp market dynamics or the intricacies of demand creation. They are not marketers,” Ståhlberg noted.
Marketers understand that those not actively seeking solutions require nurturing through content, communication, and advertising across diverse touchpoints to engender awareness, trust, and lasting relationships as part of a demand-creation strategy. Sales messages often mistakenly presuppose that all buyers are current market participants.
Without marketing-led GTM design, AI merely amplifies sales’ short-sighted tendencies, inundating the market with high-volume outreach that disregards the customer journey, thereby jeopardizing long-term brand equity.
“It’s not about the tool fixing the issue. It’s the transformation of the GTM motion,” Ståhlberg remarked.
This philosophy encapsulates how N.Rich engages its clientele. While many SaaS companies focus solely on product adoption, N.Rich emphasizes the essential business transformation necessary for success.
“Our tool is user-friendly, but what clients genuinely need is guidance in evolving their business—from isolated teams to an **account-based GTM** where all departments operate in concert,” Ståhlberg asserted.
The Helsinki-based company applies a **Nordic design ethos** to its account-based go-to-market platform, streamlining sales cycles without inflating features. After refining their approach with European multinationals, they expanded into the U.S., where buyers now account for nearly half of new bookings—demonstrating momentum strong enough to fuel the launch of a dedicated U.S. subsidiary.
Customers utilizing the platform rave about its effectiveness in generating intent within target accounts and translating signals into orchestrated plays that enhance conversion rates and win rates, frequently outshining competitors.
Marketing Must Reclaim GTM Design
The design of GTM strategy is where marketing leadership becomes non-negotiable. Marketing’s mission is not to combat AI; rather, it’s to sculpt its application within a broader GTM framework.
“Marketing is the only function that can credibly oversee the entire customer journey,” Ståhlberg noted. “Revenue teams zero in on quarterly captures. Marketing must design the system.”
If left unchecked, **AI can morph into a volume-focused machine**, unanchored from strategic objectives. In the hands of capable marketers, it can facilitate precision in guiding buyer journeys rather than inundating inboxes with irrelevant offers.
Dig deeper: How AI Flipped the Funnel and Made GTM Tactics Obsolete
The Imperatives for Marketing Leadership
To reestablish itself as the architect of GTM design, marketing must:
Own the Customer Journey
Marketing must meticulously map and manage the entire buyer journey, ensuring that messaging, engagement, and content are in tune with buyer interests—rather than defaulting to generic outreach.
Architect the GTM Framework
AI is here to stay. Marketing must take charge of its deployment across revenue teams to maintain quality, coherence, and brand integrity.
Educate Revenue Leadership
Marketing should spearhead internal training on demand creation, sustaining brand value, and understanding customer psychology—shifting discussions away from short-term MQL volumes towards more sustainable revenue impact.
Guard Against Short-Termism
While the pressure to fill the pipeline will continue, marketing must shield organizations from **market oversaturation**, AI fatigue, and brand dilution resulting from irresponsible automation.
Lead GTM Transformation
Most importantly, marketing must serve as the orchestrator of GTM transformation—unifying sales, marketing, revenue operations, and customer success into a cohesive system that aligns with how buyers engage and make purchasing decisions.
The Path Forward
In an AI-enhanced GTM environment, sales teams will continue leveraging AI to secure short-term gains. SDRs and RevOps should be empowered to optimize execution. However, marketing—not the GTM engineer—must own system design and set the long-term strategy.
Organizations that succeed will entrust marketing with the role of **GTM architect**, creating systems that leverage AI for targeted buyer engagement rather than inundating markets with indiscriminate outreach.
“In an AI-driven GTM world, tools can automate outreach, but only marketing can design a system that encompasses the entire customer journey,” Ståhlberg concluded.
