AI broke the old marketing playbook. Here’s the new one

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Two weeks ago I defined a new generalist role in marketing, Gen Marketers, and you all responded loudly (thank you). The takeaway: We need to shift from siloed specialists to generalists who are well-versed in generative AI and ready to handle a generational shift. And it’s not just the team makeup that has to change—we also need a new high-level playbook for Gen Marketers to run.

Since then, summer’s ended and annual planning season is upon us. HubSpot—the inventors of “Inbound,” on stage at their own Inbound conference—declared a new playbook: Loop Marketing. Clay hosted its first Sculpt conference and UserEvidence put on a microconference in Jackson, WY; proving how creative differentiation, big bets, and strong ecosystems drives growth. And Stripe announced a partnership with OpenAI just yesterday to make buying directly from your ChatGPT a reality. Meanwhile, more marketers lost their jobs as leaders bet (wrongly) that AI can do their entire jobs.

All of this points to the same reality: The ground in marketing is shifting fast. The old playbooks aren’t enough anymore, and neither are teams made up of narrow specialists. As AI ripples through B2B marketing, companies need not just a new kind of marketer, Gen Marketers, but a new playbook. Get those right, and marketing becomes your company’s moat in the AI era.

This newsletter explains that new playbook.

But first, a soothing image, and consider this your fair warning because I’m about to say “ripple” 26 times in this newsletter.

In this newsletter…

This newsletter is part short-term history lesson on what AI has done to B2B startup marketing and part strategic advice to handle all these changes in 2026 and beyond.

• Direct & ripple effects of AI: From declining search traffic to derivative content overload, inboxes flooded with “personalized” outbound, and blurred GTM roles—AI’s impacts are reshaping marketing. A breakdown of how we got here (so you can be the most on top of it