Human first. AI fast.

The new ABM model - led by people, powered by tech

The Future ABMer.

The future of ABM is Human-led, AI-enabled

AI helps us think faster, act smarter, and personalize deeper. But it’s not the strategist, the creator,
or the closer. That’s still you.

The ABMers who win will be those who know how
to pair scale with soul, automate with empathy,
and lead with meaning.

Human first.
AI fast.

The new ABM model - led by people, powered by tech.

It’s impossible to ignore the noise.

Generative AI is everywhere – dominating headlines, flooding feeds, and working its way into every corner of the marketing toolkit.

But, behind the buzzwords and bold claims lies a quieter, more meaningful truth for Account-based Marketers:

AI isn’t here to take your job. It’s here to make you better at it.

When applied thoughtfully, I believe that AI can help ABMers get to good faster – uncovering insights, removing friction, and freeing up time to focus on the things that matter most: building trust, creating meaningful experiences, and delivering real business outcomes.

But it’s not all plug-and-play. AI is a powerful enabler – not a silver bullet.

And in the world of ABM, where relationships reign supreme, it’s never been more important to strike the right balance between automation and empathy.

In this article, we’ll explore seven practical ways AI is reshaping ABM and B2B marketing – and how you can harness its power without losing the human magic that makes ABM work.

Getting to
good, faster.

Accelerating insight generation.

Key takeaway:

Let AI give you a head start – but make sure it’s your strategy, experience and understanding that shapes the story. Tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google’s Gemini and NotebookLM are great for working on research and analysis, but the final insights always need a human in the loop to make sure they’re accurate, relevant and representative of your strategy.

Once you’ve nailed your ABM objectives and identified the accounts that matter most, the next critical step is insights development – uncovering the information that brings your strategy to life, and gives you a deeper understanding of your target accounts.

At this stage, it's all about depth. Not just understanding industry trends or company news, but getting beneath the surface of an account’s challenges, motivations and buying dynamics.

Traditionally, that means hours of manual research; scanning earnings call recordings, tracking org chart changes, piecing together competitor activity. It’s essential, but it's also resource-intensive – and that's where AI can play a transformative role.

AI-powered tools are now helping ABMers streamline the insight phase, by analyzing and distilling huge volumes of unstructured data at speed.

Whether it’s scraping public signals from job boards, summarizing analyst commentary, or speedrunning a deep-dive of an organization’s annual report, AI can serve up a ready-made intelligence layer – so you can spend less time searching for sources and more time strategizing.

But here’s the thing: AI can only take you so far. It doesn’t know your audience like you do. It doesn’t understand the subtleties of your positioning, or the nuances of your value proposition.

AI cuts through the noise – but it’s the ABMer who gives it meaning. It’s up to you to articulate the ‘So what?’ and why it matters.

The end of one-size-fits-all.

Scaling personalization like
never before.

Key takeaway:

AI should help you scale meaningful personalization, not mimic it.

Tools such as Clay, Mutiny, Jasper, Copy.ai or Writer can help build scalable frameworks – but those frameworks must be grounded in human-developed value propositions and messaging. AI can support the execution, but the strategy and story must come from you.

At the Agency, we see AI as a collaborative partner, not a content machine. For us, scaling personalization starts with the fundamentals: building value propositions grounded in real human conversations and insight. From there, we develop content frameworks and wireframes of our developed assets – and only then do we bring in AI to collaborate and help map additional insights into personalized derivatives of our human-made hero content.

One of the most exciting – and also, let’s be honest, slightly worrying – things about AI is its ability to scale. It helps us do more, faster, and with less manual effort. But in ABM, scale without relevance is a fast-track to irrelevance.

Because here’s the truth: personalization is only powerful if it feels personal.

Yes, AI makes it easier to produce content variations, to localize messaging and tailor nurture flows. But, if we start treating personalization like a find-and-replace job – {First Name}, {Company Name}, job done – then we miss the point entirely.

ABM has never been about volume. And as inboxes flood with AI-generated “thought leadership” and faux-personalization, real connection becomes harder – to achieve – but becomes more valuable.

So, how do we stand out?

We lean in. We use AI to enhance personalization – not fake it.

That might mean applying it to help with clustering messaging around shared challenges, building more relevant landing page experiences, or speeding up persona-specific copywriting. But it also means knowing when not to automate.

Because, in a world of hyper-efficiency, the things that don’t scale – handwritten notes, unscripted video moments, face-to-face time – are the things that truly resonate.

Dynamic targeting.

Smarter account selection and prioritization.

Key takeaway:

AI supercharges account intelligence – but it’s still your job to define the strategy. Use the technology to prioritize, not pick. Dynamic targeting works best when layered on top of a well-thought-out ICP, a clear value proposition, and shared alignment with Sales.

In the early days of ABM, account selection was a static exercise. You defined your ICP, built your TAM, defined your target lists and decided which accounts merited One-to-many, One-to-few and One-to-one treatment. But those lists then might live largely untouched for the next 6-12 months…

Now, however, that’s changing fast.

AI is ushering in a new era of dynamic targeting – where account prioritization isn’t just a one-off task, but a living, breathing process.

By layering AI-powered intent data, firmographic signals and behavioral insights, ABMers can now spot which accounts are showing real-time buying behaviors – and shift their focus accordingly. They can increase or decrease levels of personalization, depending on which accounts are actively showing engagement.

That doesn’t mean we abandon our frameworks. Your ICP is still your North Star. But with AI, you can add nuance – identifying which ICP-fit accounts are ‘in market’ right now, and which may be slipping out of your window of opportunity.

And it’s not just about who’s engaged – it’s about who’s most ready to hear your message. AI helps uncover hidden patterns across signals which you may otherwise miss: content engagement trends, technology stack changes, leadership movements, and more.

Intelligent orchestration.

Automating without
losing the plot.

Key takeaway:

AI should help you scale coordination, not replace creativity. Build systems that free up your time – so you can invest it where it really counts: in the experiences that drive relationships and revenue.

ABM is often described as orchestration – and for good reason.

It’s about bringing together multiple moving parts, aligning teams, channels, content and timing to deliver a seamless, cohesive experience to the right people, in the right accounts, at exactly the right moment.

As we introduce AI into the mix, that orchestration becomes faster, more automated, and – potentially – more brittle.

Because here’s the truth: just because you can automate something, doesn’t mean you should.

AI tools can now streamline campaign execution, schedule outreach sequences, personalize website experiences, and even surface next-best actions based on account behavior. But if you’re not careful, you risk turning what should be a thoughtful, multi-touch program into a glorified marketing conveyor belt

The goal isn’t just to execute faster – it’s to orchestrate more intelligently.

That means using AI to reduce manual effort, but still leaving space for strategic interventions and creative decisions. It means setting rules and triggers – while also building in checkpoints, feedback loops, and the space to pivot based on what’s working (and what’s not).

From static
to adaptive.

Real-time content optimization.

Key takeaway:

Real-time optimization is one of the fastest ways to improve engagement – but only if you’re building on content that matters. Let AI guide the iteration, but make sure your strategy and story are authentic and real.

Content is still king – however, in the AI era, it’s no longer about producing more. It’s about producing smarter content: messaging and creative that adapts, evolves and improves, based on who you're speaking to and how they engage.

This is where AI really shines.

Today’s tools can analyze performance in real time – helping you understand not just what’s being clicked, but what’s truly resonating. They can help you test different approaches, fine-tune messaging in real-time, and personalize content journeys — all based on live engagement signals. From subject lines to CTAs, to entire content flows… AI can show you what’s working, and where to pivot.

But here’s the catch: adaptive content still needs strategic intent. You can’t optimize what was never thoughtful to begin with. AI should be used to refine content that’s grounded in a strong value proposition, built for a defined audience, and mapped to a real buying journey.

Otherwise, you're just polishing fluff.

The best ABM campaigns evolve – AI just helps them do it faster.

AI-powered collaboration.

Aligning Sales and Marketing with smarter tools.

Key takeaway:

AI can’t fix misalignment on its own. But it can reduce the friction – giving both Sales and Marketing access to the same insights, faster. The opportunity now isn’t to add more tools – it’s to build better habits around collaboration.

Now, however, that’s changing fast.

AI is ushering in a new era of dynamic targeting – where account prioritization isn’t just a one-off task, but a living, breathing process.

AI can also help eliminate the manual lift that slows teams down – freeing up time for strategy and collaboration, and more meaningful connection.

Rethinking what’s possible.

Liberating ABM creativity.

Key takeaway:

AI removes the friction – but it’s your imagination that moves the work forward. Don’t use AI to settle for the default. Use it to break the mold, challenge the brief, and turn the spark of a good idea into something truly meaningful.

Let’s be honest – creativity in ABM is all-too often constrained by resources.

How many times have you parked a bold idea because it felt ‘too hard or to expensive to build’? Or held back from personalizing a campaign because the lift was just too heavy?

This is where AI flips the game.

AI gives ABMers permission to think bigger – because now, some of those ambitious ideas are actually within reach. Whether it’s generating multiple content variants, developing early-stage concepts, or testing campaign themes quickly, AI can help you ‘get out of your own way’ and bring ideas to life.

“With AI, there are fewer excuses not to push the boundaries.”

But here’s the important distinction: AI shouldn’t lead your creative – it should enable it.

The spark still has to come from you and your teams. From your knowledge of the account. From your understanding of what makes your audience tick. From the value proposition you’ve so carefully crafted.

Conclusion.

Human-led, AI-enabled.

There’s no doubt AI is changing the game – not just in marketing, but across every industry.

But, in ABM – where the real magic lies in relationships, context, and human connection – the goal isn’t to replace ourselves with machines. It’s to enhance what we do best.

AI is the enabler. The wingman. The multipurpose tool that frees us up to think bigger, act faster, and personalize deeper – without losing the human element that makes ABM so effective in the first place.

So, as you explore how AI can support your ABM strategy, remember this:

Let AI accelerate your insights, but always interpret them through your lens.
Let AI scale your personalization, but make sure it’s rooted in real value.
Let AI automate your workflows, but protect your space for creative thinking.

Let AI highlight the signals, but remember it’s you who decides which direction to go next.

This isn’t about humans versus machines. It’s about humans with machines.

The future of ABM isn’t just more efficient – it’s more ambitious, more personal, and more impactful than ever.

So embrace the tools. But, lead with your mind. And never forget the power of the human touch.

How many of these seven shifts will you take into your next ABM campaign?