Elizabeth Maxson Martinet is Chief Marketing Officer at headless content management platform Contentful - and someone with a wealth of thoughts on the B2B marketing space.
We spoke to her about the skills that B2B marketers will need to be effective in 2026, why it will be critical to personalise the entire end-to-end customer journey, and why she believes that the true danger is not AI misuse, but AI overuse.
Elizabeth Maxson Martinet: Right now, the industry is fixated on one unsettling question: Will AI replace marketers? And recurrent headlines about sweeping layoffs only fuel that anxiety. But the real story isn't about displacement, it's about transformation. We're entering a moment where AI isn't eliminating the marketer; it's expanding what marketing can do.
AI is creating the conditions for marketers to elevate their role, giving them the space to lead with strategy, creativity, and measurable business impact rather than getting stuck in execution.
In 2026, the most effective marketers will be "full-stack": professionals who blend creativity, technical fluency, and AI literacy to move ideas to concept faster. They'll know how to connect workflows, write smarter prompts, and iterate with AI to refine ideas until they truly resonate with their audiences.
Budgets are being stretched, but with greater intention. 2025 was the year of testing and experimentation: marketing teams poured time and money into AI to understand its potential … Now, 2026 is the year of proof, not promise.
Marketers will be expected to show tangible ROI-sharper personalisation, faster content creation, and measurable growth. Success will come to those who define what AI should solve [and] build strong data foundations … moving beyond experimentation into real impact.
[A]s this wave of "full-stack" marketers I alluded to rises, creative instincts alone won't be enough, and data without imagination will fall flat. Too often, performance data is reviewed only after a campaign ends; with AI, insights are available in real time, enabling marketers to use data to shape strategy and refine creative ideas throughout execution.
In 2026, the most sought-after skill will be evidence-based creativity-the fusion of AI-driven insights with human intuition. The best marketers will harness AI at the outset to guide strategy, inform creative direction, and identify opportunities before campaigns launch.
They'll also bring a set of uniquely human soft skills that AI can't replicate, like empathy, lived experience, sound judgment, and cultural understanding - qualities that allow them to interpret data in context, make nuanced decisions, and create work that genuinely resonates. Those who can seamlessly blend insight and imagination from day one to drive meaningful connection, engagement, and conversion will lead the pack.
Personalised content is a must. For years, marketers have talked about it, and email has been the one channel that consistently delivered on that promise-tailored offers, timely nudges, and a sense that "this brand actually knows me." But the rest of the customer journey hasn't kept pace. The 1:1 experience customers get in their inbox disappears the moment they land on a website, open an app, or engage with support.
That gap is now closing. 2026 will be the year marketers bring true personalisation to every touchpoint-site, app, chat, service-turning what used to be a lofty ambition into an everyday expectation.
…It doesn't require a website overhaul or a massive replatform. It requires a "think big, start small" approach. For example, on our own site, returning customers who come to log in shouldn't be greeted with "Learn about Contentful" content-they're already bought in. That moment is an opportunity to surface new features, helpful resources, or training tailored to where they are in their journey.
This is the work AI is engineered for: creating the right variants, scaling them intelligently, and freeing teams to focus less on production and more on the strategic thinking that moves the business forward.
In 2026, the biggest marketing crisis won't be AI misuse, it'll be AI overuse. … [T]he pursuit of high-volume output has proven that more content doesn't equal better content.
This "AI workslop"-generic, low-value messaging-dilutes brand identity and audience trust. Even personalised campaigns risk falling flat if AI is used without intent, treating people as data points rather than real customers. Marketing teams should be clear about what role AI plays in their workflows.
For some, AI will handle mundane tasks like translation. For others, AI will serve as a starting point for creative development. The key is understanding where the machines should stop and where the humans should take over. Brands that fail to be disciplined on roles and responsibilities will spend more time undoing AI workslop than creating business impact.
I'd love for the conversation to move beyond AI as a threat to human relationships. The real value of AI lies in strengthening human connection, not replacing it. Organisations that are leveraging AI should be keeping humans at the centre of every interaction-whether with customers or employees-and nurturing those relationships thoughtfully.
And creativity itself isn't going away. AI lacks lived experience, context, and intuition. Marketing is about meeting the moment with the right story, and I like to think of it not as B2C or B2B, but B2H-Business to Human.
The critical question for next year isn't what AI can do, but how we combine it with human intuition to create connections that feel authentic, personal, and consistent across every touchpoint.