The Metric Shift for Measuring B2B Brand Growth in an AI World
It was a morning that reinforced something I’ve long believed: marketing isn’t about louder, it’s about more memorable. And in an age where attention is fragmented and AI is reshaping search, the brands that grow will be the ones that embed themselves in the conversations their customers are already having.
Let me explain.
The metrics used by marketers are changing
In 2026, metrics we marketers live and die by, like branded search, cost per lead and pipeline flow, are only going to tell half the story of whether your brand is actually growing or just looking busy.
We’re entering the age of AI search, which means influence, recall and memorability reign supreme. And the firms that embrace that now are the firms that will win. In wealth, it will be where leadership genuinely backs marketing to build long-term brand memory, not just to generate this quarter’s pipeline. But that requires CEOs and partners who understand that trust compounds over years, not quarters.
The cultural shift is the hard part, and it’s not happening quickly enough.
AI search is reshaping how we choose brands
McKinsey’s “New front door to the internet: Winning in the age of AI search” discusses how AI-powered search is reshaping how people discover and choose brands:
“Only a small proportion of brands systematically track how they perform in AI-powered search, despite AI becoming a primary source of insights and discovery, meaning traditional metrics alone won’t tell the full story of whether your brand is truly growing or just appearing busy.”
Old metrics are incomplete measures of brand growth
The article highlights that only about 16% of brands today systematically track how they perform in AI search results, and that AI search is already emerging as a primary channel for content discovery and decision-making. This means that old metrics like branded search clicks and pipeline flow are incomplete measures of brand growth in this new landscape.
We’re entering an era where memorability, influence and brand visibility inside AI discovery matter more than old KPIs, because AI doesn’t just deliver links, it decides what information gets surfaced and trusted.
New metrics to track
At a delicious breakfast at the Ivy Soho Brasserie, I witnessed a brilliant session that explored in-depth “How B2B brands grow in an AI-driven world”.
The session highlighted some of the emerging metrics we need to start tracking and measuring. Most importantly, it also addressed the cultural shifts required in leadership to do so.
Key themes:
1. Share of voice > vanity metrics
If your share of voice exceeds your market share by 5%, your brand will grow. Simple as that. Memory, mentions, and momentum are the leading indicators, not weekly lead counts. This feels revolutionary for anyone who’s spent years staring at dashboards that don’t actually predict growth.
In an AI search environment, share of voice is no longer just about how often you appear in media or how many impressions your campaign generates. It’s about how frequently your brand is referenced, cited, quoted and discussed across the digital ecosystem that AI models draw from.
AI doesn’t ‘discover’ brands the way humans do; it synthesises information from what already exists. That means the brands consistently publishing original thinking, appearing in credible industry media, being quoted by others and sparking conversation are far more likely to be surfaced in AI-generated answers.
In other words, your visibility is no longer confined to search rankings; it becomes embedded in the collective knowledge AI relies on. If your competitors dominate thought leadership, podcasts, panels, trade press and authoritative blogs, they are effectively feeding the algorithm more signals about relevance and authority.
This shifts the strategic question from “How many leads did this campaign generate?” to “Are we shaping the narrative in our category?”
Because in an AI world, the brand most referenced becomes the one most recommended and that’s a very different game from simply bidding harder on paid search.
2. B2B decisions are emotional, not rational
We like to think purchases in B2B are based on feature sets and ROI models, but they’re not. They’re based on trust, feeling, and who you know. Decisions are increasingly made in CMO WhatsApp groups and peer networks, not Google or AI searches. This sounded particularly familiar.
The rational case is usually built after the emotional decision has already been made. The spreadsheet justifies the gut's choice and the gut tends to choose the brand it recognises, the one it has seen speak on panels, the one quoted in trade press, the one a peer casually mentions with “we’ve had a good experience with them.”
That is why being memorable matters. When budgets tighten, or risk feels high, buyers do not default to the most technically superior option; they default to the safest perceived pair of hands because familiarity reduces perceived risk; visibility builds comfort, and repeated exposure creates authority.
So, while AI may surface options, it doesn’t replace that human need for reassurance that so much of wealth management relies upon. Influence still travels through people and the brands that invest in relationships, community presence and peer credibility are the ones that get shortlisted before the formal evaluation even begins.
3. Hire creators, don’t just rent them
The smartest brands (like tl;dv) aren’t doing one-off influencer posts. They’re hiring creators who already have credibility in their niche and making them the face of the business, because authenticity compounds faster than ad spend ever will.
For example, HubSpot didn’t grow purely on paid acquisition or product marketing. They built media: they invested in educators, operators, and subject-matter experts who already had credibility with marketers and sales leaders, and then gave them a platform. Think about how many practitioners became the face of inbound marketing through HubSpot’s blogs, academy, events and podcasts. Over time, the individuals built trust, and the brand absorbed it.
More recently, you can see this play out in B2B tech companies hiring LinkedIn native creators as in-house champions. They’re not running one sponsored post and walking away, they’re bringing credible operators inside the business, backing their voice and allowing them to consistently show up as a trusted authority.
The difference is ownership versus rental.
Renting creators gives you reach for a week while hiring creators or embedding them into your ecosystem gives you sustained authority. Their audience transfers trust over time because the relationship is ongoing, not transactional.
In an AI-driven discovery world, this compounds. The creator’s content, commentary and perspective become part of the digital footprint that AI models learn from. You are not just borrowing attention, you’re starting to build long term narrative equity.
4. Integrate influence into strategy, not campaigns
The Adobe Express example was brilliant: rather than having Stephen Bartlett simply say “use Adobe Express,” they built an entire campaign around his “manifesto method” and created templates to support it. The product became part of the story, not a forced ad drop.
There was recognition that B2B has been boring because we’ve treated it as functional and rational, when in reality, every purchase is emotionally driven. People buy from people. Trust is built through visibility, consistency, and authentic expertise, not polished corporate content.
For wealth management, our clients don’t choose firms based on fees or performance tables alone, as much as we’d like to think they do. They choose based on trust, reputation, and the voices they already listen to.
It was a morning that reinforced something I’ve long believed: marketing isn’t about louder, it’s about more memorable. And in an age where attention is fragmented and AI is reshaping search, the brands that win will be the ones that embed themselves in the conversations their customers are already having.
For CMOs and marketing leaders: Are you tracking share of voice? Do you know where your ICP actually spends their time? And are you building relationships with the voices they already trust?
