Two-thirds of CMOs say they lack the skills, budget or resources to compete against faster-moving, AI-enabled challengers, according to new research from the agency 3Thinkrs.
That’s because the acceleration of AI-generated search and decision-making is rapidly eroding traditional marketing levers. With brand visibility collapsing across search, websites and social, the race is on to modernize strategies for the new era of AI-first discovery.
The findings come from “A CMO’s Marketing and Communications Playbook for 2026,” a survey of 400 B2B tech marketing leaders — and they paint a picture of a playbook that’s falling apart faster than many teams expected.
Traditional channels are slipping as AI grows
According to the report, B2B tech websites experienced a 34% decline in traffic between 2024 and 2025, despite AI-generated traffic accelerating toward an expected 20% share by the end of 2025. That is a significant erosion of the traditional content ladder that marketers have depended on for decades.
Dig deeper: 5 capabilities that separate AI-native teams from everyone else
Search is changing, too. The study projects that by 2027, traditional search will account for just 45% of all search queries, a 42% drop from earlier norms. Social media channels are also feeling the impact. On LinkedIn, the visibility of organic company content has slipped sharply — from 2.1% to 1.6% of users’ feeds between March and October 2025 — shrinking the reach of content that once drove awareness and engagement.
Source: A CMO’s Marketing and Communications Playbook for 2026
With generative engines replacing traditional search behavior, CMOs are being forced to pivot. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is now the must-have capability for teams trying to stay visible in zero-click environments.
Sixty-one percent of marketing leaders are already adapting their strategies to improve visibility in AI-generated summaries and answer engines. The shift is moving marketing from keyword placement to “confidence signaling” — ensuring that AI models recognize your brand as credible, current and authoritative.
That means:
- Reformatting content into AI-friendly structures — with listicles alone making up nearly a third of cited results.
- Keeping content fresh — AI tends to deprioritize material more than one to two months old.
- Investing in PR — especially for startups. Forty-five percent of VC-backed brands plan to increase PR budgets to improve presence in trusted sources like Bloomberg, Fortune and Forbes.
- Tracking new metrics — like AI visibility scores, citation share and “share of AI voice” (the most-used share-of-voice metric reported to CEOs, at 33%).
Message fragmentation is the hidden risk
As generative search tools synthesize responses from across the web, brands that lack a clear, unified narrative risk being misrepresented — or ignored altogether.
And that’s a real problem: 61% of CMOs say their company is only “mildly proficient” or worse at maintaining a shared brand story across PR, content and sales. Without a strong narrative, even great content may fail to earn visibility.
Dig deeper: How to speed up AI adoption and turn hype into results
Marketers are responding by leaning into structured storytelling: think contrast-based messaging (problem/solution), the rule of three, or clear hero/villain arcs. Repetition and rhythm — across every channel — are becoming key to driving recall and reinforcing trust.
CMOs are also doubling down on more engaging formats. With LinkedIn organic reach declining, 54% say they’re prioritizing short-form video and multimedia content as a way to reclaim relevance.
Deepfakes are rising and B2B brands aren’t prepared
While most of the focus has been on visibility, AI has also introduced a whole new category of reputational risk: synthetic media.
Generative AI makes it easy to produce realistic — but fake — video and audio content. Despite the threat, only 16% of B2B tech brands have a general crisis communications playbook, and just 14% have a specific response plan for AI-generated threats like deepfakes.
What’s worse, 26% of CMOs say they’d rely solely on their internal teams to handle such a crisis — even while acknowledging the lack of formal procedures. That leaves most brands dangerously exposed in a landscape where misinformation spreads fast and credibility is everything.
Fuel up with free marketing insights.
MarTech is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.