Aligning Strategy with Innovation: Insights from G2's Executive Advisory Board

As a business powered by customer voice, we embrace any opportunity to capture feedback from our customers.

This includes meetings with our Executive Advisory Board (EAB) – a group of visionary go-to-market leaders from G2 customers that provides strategic input to help shape G2’s future. Recently, I joined other G2 leaders for an off-site strategy session with many of our EAB members.

When we met virtually as a group earlier this year, AI was a top theme of our discussion. This time was no different, though we’ve all had several more months to observe, test, and learn to further the conversation. Here are the top five themes that rose to the top, with AI’s integration into business strategy topping the list. 

1. Integration of AI in Business Strategy: It was a consensus among the group that AI can and should play a strategic role in enhancing marketing strategies, improving customer insights, and overall business growth. Two key use cases discussed include leveraging AI for predictive analytics and understanding buyer behavior. But as AI capabilities rapidly evolve – including the shift from chatbots to more advanced "agentic AI" that has stronger reasoning capabilities – companies need to keep up to ensure they’re being thoughtful about the most valuable areas to inject AI into their operations and are aligning AI tools with business objectives.
2. Enhancing Customer Understanding and Engagement: Leading businesses recognize the importance of customer feedback. We discussed the need to gain even deeper insights into customer needs and behaviors and make them more accessible and actionable. A couple of ways to do this include integrating G2 data and reviews more directly into customers' workflows and products and leveraging AI to summarize and surface key insights from customer reviews —including sentiment shifts over time and identifying potential issues or opportunities.
3. Alignment and Efficiency in Marketing and GTM Strategy: Aligning the executive team and cross-functional leaders on a unified ICP, segmentation strategy, and go-to-market plan is crucial, but it’s easier said than done. It was suggested to make the ICP a living document that is regularly revisited and updated, rather than a static annual exercise. Some may also consider using a grid to map out different market segments based on their attractiveness and the company's ability to execute, to help prioritize focus areas.
4. Adapting to Changing Buyer Behaviors: The meeting also underscored the need to adapt to shifting buyer behaviors, particularly in how they research and engage with brands in the AI-driven landscape. As buyers become more wary of AI-driven recommendations and displacements, brands will need to continuously build and maintain trust through authentic human connections. Our group also observed the growing preference for human interactions and events, as buyers seek real connections in an increasingly digital world. This highlights the value of events, podcasts, and other formats that foster human-to-human engagement.
5. Innovation in Content and Brand Strategy: As the AI landscape evolves, brands must ensure they remain visible. This means diversifying content distribution beyond just optimizing for Google and exploring partnerships and integrations with AI platforms, industry influencers, and other alternative channels.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to immerse myself with this group of leaders to discuss challenges, best practices, and brainstorm solutions.

Through all of this dialogue and collaboration, there was a strong emphasis on cross-functional alignment, data-driven decision-making, and a willingness to evolve traditional approaches. This will be critical for SaaS leaders as we soon close out 2024 and look ahead to a new year where we can expect the pace of change to continue.