More budget doesn't automatically mean better marketing.

In this episode of MarketingEDGE, Abby White and Alexis Gajewski unpack three of the month's top stories and what they reveal about where B2B marketers are investing their money, technology and attention.

First, they dig into EndeavorB2B's 2026 Marketing Benchmark Report. While 56% of marketers expect their budgets to increase, lead generation remains their biggest challenge—and there's still no single channel that clearly dominates in producing the highest-quality leads.

Then comes the AI bill—literally. Abby and Alexis discuss why the era of blind AI adoption may be ending as companies confront rising costs, unclear returns, governance challenges and questions around content ownership.

Finally, they tackle the "secret sauce" AI can't provide: a genuine point of view. As competent content becomes easier for anyone to generate, original expertise, experience and human judgment become more—not less—valuable.

In this episode:

• What rising B2B marketing budgets mean for 2026
• Why there may be no "magic channel" for generating quality leads
• Where marketers should look for gaps between spending and performance
• Why AI investments are facing greater scrutiny
• How marketers can think about AI cost, value and accountability
• Why generic content becomes riskier as AI adoption grows
• How to use AI without handing over your brand's perspective
• Why human judgment may be one of marketing's most important competitive advantages

The takeaway: More tools and more budget don't automatically create better marketing. The advantage comes from knowing what deserves investment, where human judgment matters and what should probably stop.

Featured MarketingEDGE Stories

• Key Takeaways from EndeavorB2B’s 2026 Marketing Benchmark Report, Leah Marxhausen 

• The AI Marketing Reckoning: Costs, Copyright and the End of Blind Adoption, Alexis Gajewski 

• Podcast: The Secret Sauce Missing From Your AI Strategy, Erin Hallstrom and Seth Hastings 

Prefer to read? Here's an excerpt of the podcast transcript:

Abby White: Alexis, we're changing up the format a little bit this month. For the past several months, we've been covering the top five stories, and we realized that we were rushing through everything. So this month, we're just going to tackle the top three and give ourselves more time to go through the insights presented there.

We're going to talk about research from our corporate marketing team that suggests B2B marketers still cannot agree on which channels produce the best leads. We're also going to talk about some recent coverage you put together that suggests companies are spending heavily on AI without always knowing what they're getting in return. Lastly, we've got a podcast from a couple of our colleagues that looks at how AI makes competent content easier to produce, while sounding like everyone else is becoming a bigger risk.

Alexis Gajewski: It's time to start planning for next year and getting budgets in order, so now is the time to think about where you want to put your efforts and your dollars.

Abby White: Let's start with the money. The first article is by our colleague Leah Markhausen: “Key Takeaways from Endeavor B2B's 2026 Marketing Benchmark Report.”

Our Corporate Marketing team works with Endeavor Business Intelligence, our research and intelligence division, which publishes this report every year. They poll B2B marketers and get useful insights on how they're planning to spend their budget, what trends they're seeing and what challenges they're encountering.

Suddenly, it's August, and we have to think about planning for next year. So it's a good time to ask: What did we think was going to happen in 2026? Where did we think we were going to be? It's a good gut check before planning for the upcoming year.

Alexis Gajewski: For me, a couple of things stood out. One is events, and how important that's going to be. With the proliferation of AI, events fit into that middle ground of a mostly analog experience where you can still take digital and AI components and make the most of the event.

I also found the ROI versus where we actually want to put our money interesting. The report talks about multimedia, video and podcasts, and even though those have a really great ROI, people are still focusing on written content.

There's still that idea that the written word is king. I think that's something we're going to have to deal with a little bit and make it clear that video and podcasts are going to be just as important, maybe more so, moving forward.

Abby White: It's reassuring to see events come back in a big way and to see people want to attend. A big part of that is trust and building relationships. But that seems to contrast with the underfunding of things like videos and podcasts, because marketers know podcasts and videos are great ways to build trust with an audience.

Alexis Gajewski: The contrast between events and multimedia is authenticity. When you go to an event, you know the speaker is rehearsed, but they're going to flub lines. They're talking to you directly. You acknowledge that it's a person in front of you, not a perfectly polished picture.

With videos and podcasts, our default is polish. But people will probably take you more seriously if you're looking more authentic. Be thinking about that as you're deciding where to put your money and how you want your brand to show up.

Abby White: Another nugget from this report is lead generation. Lead gen still gets a significant investment, but it's the top challenge for marketers. We're all trying to understand what the new marketing mix looks like, as zero-click search and other factors AI has unleashed have changed the way we reach customers.

The report challenges your team to look for places where budget, performance and buyer behavior are out of alignment. Are you investing in certain formats because they work or because they're easier to produce? Look at which channels are creating high-quality engagements rather than simply more activity.

The majority of marketers said they expected their budget to increase in 2026. Even if you have more budget, that's not going to fix a weak channel strategy. You still need to understand how your investments work together and where familiar workflows might be keeping money away from stronger-performing formats.

That same pressure to connect spending with results has become impossible to ignore with AI. Alexis, your article is “The AI Marketing Reckoning.” Why did you call it that?

Alexis Gajewski: We were using AI with reckless abandon even five or six months ago, like this joyride will never end. We were excited to have this free tool at our disposal giving us useful information.

Now we're starting to see the financial implications of what we want to do. There are still wonderful free tools out there, and I do not want to suggest that people stop using AI. But if you want to get into the world of agents, it is going to cost you.

From a marketing standpoint, you need to think about what a project actually entails, what the costs are and how you have to bill accordingly. We have to think about how much bandwidth we have with our current AI strategy and, if we're building agents that are perpetually working for us, what the costs are.

Abby White: Using AI tools or buying subscriptions was almost treated as evidence that you had an AI strategy: We're using this new thing; we're on the cutting edge. But usage increased faster than governance or measurement.

I think we've moved past the conversation of whether or not to use AI. Every company is finding ways to integrate it, but the question is whether that use creates enough value to justify the cost and risk, and how to manage that.

Alexis Gajewski: Across everything I write, it's much more about being strategic than anything else. A lot of that “use AI for the sake of using AI” is going to go away.

Now we actually have to figure out how this makes our work better and frees us up so we can do better things with our time and talents. If constraints mean you can't use AI willy-nilly, it will force you to think about better prompts, better strategies and better interactions. Use this as your turning point and make better decisions from it.

Abby White: If you're leading a marketing team, you need visibility into which AI use cases produce measurable value. AI fluency and workforce education also remain major barriers. People on your team may have different levels of comfort using AI tools, so think about your strategy for the upcoming year and how you will ensure everyone knows how to use them correctly.

Marketing leaders cannot create an enterprise-wide AI policy on their own, but they can inform it. You need to know what the tools cost, what content is being used, who's responsible for the output and how you're measuring impact.

The goal is not to maximize or minimize AI use. It's to better understand where AI creates value and manage it with the same seriousness as any other major marketing investment.

Even when cost is controlled and legal questions are addressed, marketers still have to confront a basic issue: Does anyone want to read what the tool produced?

That takes us into our last piece, a Search and Sustain podcast from Erin Hallstrom and Seth Hastings called “The Secret Sauce Missing From Your AI Strategy.”

Erin and Seth talk about what disappears when marketers use AI without protecting their brand voice, experience and the point of view that makes content credible. AI cannot independently provide lived experience or decide what a brand genuinely believes. That takes a human.

Alexis Gajewski: I loved how they set this up. They ran an AI prompt on their LinkedIn pages and got origami animals. I did it too, and I am a multicolored octopus.

While it's a fun exercise, it also talks about perception and how you or your brand are being perceived by others. You can talk about what your brand is doing well and how it's positioned, and that may not be how others see it.

Using AI to see your brand — how search engines see your brand, how AI sees your brand, how it compares to competitors — can be a wealth of information. A lot of people aren't doing that. They're going with their gut or what has always worked in the past.

Abby White: Another thing I loved is that audiences are becoming more skilled at recognizing generic AI language. It's not just about certain phrasing that might be an AI tell. It's more about whether the writing has a personality, tells you that person's perspective and is unique.

Alexis Gajewski: It's bringing your own opinions, insights and expertise to the table that differentiates you from AI output. More importantly, it's what people like. People like to hear a story, see a real person and learn from experience.

I like to think about AI-generated versus AI-enabled. When you're using AI to help with research, build structure around something or give constructive criticism, those are things in the background. It's saving you time, but it's never touching the important things.

It can also show you your blind spots. I do a lot of writing, and I ask AI to be really honest with me. I'll feed it my piece and ask: Have I gone too far? Have I not put enough of myself into it? Where are things falling flat? How could this be better?

Abby White: AI can help with a lot of things, but it cannot replace the experience, conviction and judgment that give marketers a reason to be there and represent their brands.

When you put all of this together, it's about making deliberate decisions with all these resources and how they fit together. If you're going into 2027 budget planning, the budget should follow evidence rather than established workflows. AI adoption needs measurable value and clear accountability. Content needs that human perspective to remain credible, distinctive and authentic.

Alexis Gajewski: It's the idea of being purposeful with these tools and making sure you're putting yourself and your ideas first. AI is here to help, but not to take the wheel.

Abby White: Thank you, Alexis. Always a pleasure talking with you.

Alexis Gajewski: Always happy to be on. I love this.

*Transcript lightly edited for clarity and brevity