-2.png?width=1200&name=Copy%20of%20TechSignals%20Blog%20FI%20Template(s)-2.png "AI rebranding brand")
Brand is having a glow-up, and AI is the glam team behind it.
The age of AI is giving the concept of ‘brand’ its moment in the strategic spotlight. I’d say we’re experiencing a revolution. My previous analysis of SEO tools for AI search has already revealed how brand mentions, sentiment analysis, and branded search have emerged as pivotal factors for digital visibility.
The prevailing insight: Brand will be king.
The perception of ‘brand’ has flipped, from a nice-to-have to a must-have. Or as our CMO, Sydney Sloan, says, “A strong brand rolls out the red carpet for revenue teams.”
But while a brand’s status elevates in marketing, CMOs are under huge pressure to drive marketing return-on-investment (ROI) and use AI. 88% of marketing leaders are responsible for meeting a revenue goal, but only 25% report very high ROI visibility.
The challenge is clear: how can brand investment translate into tangible business impact in an AI-driven world?
Buckle up for an eye-opening analysis that captures POVs from leading CMOs, software buyers, and category-specific sellers on navigating the ‘rebrand’ of brand in the age of AI.
My bold takeaway from SaaStr 2025 was that CMOs are no longer just marketers in fancy suits; they’re at the vanguard of integrating AI into their brand strategies. They’re moving beyond efficiency gains to unlock deeper insights and create a stronger market presence.
Brand investment has evolved from a vague expense to a tangible driver of long-term value and competitive differentiation. There’s an appetite for tools, strategies, and systems that will help drive this transformation.
Budget = business focus, and CMOs are refocusing toward brand and are being powered by AI tools to:
We asked CMOs and marketing leaders from G2, VEED.io, LinkedIn, and Reddit if they are betting big on brand to drive business. And the proof is in their investment pudding.
Leading marketing executives are now openly acknowledging this pivot amidst a very noisy digital landscape.
"We’ve historically been very strong on demand capture — SEO, paid, and product-led growth have fuelled much of our ARR," notes Leila Woodington, Chief Marketing Officer at VEED.io.
However, she quickly adds, "But over the last year, we’ve made a conscious shift to invest more in brand. AI has accelerated this change: The market is noisier, the stakes are higher, and trust matters more than ever."
Sydney Sloan, G2's Chief Marketing Officer, confirms, "At G2, we are betting big on brand in an age of AI and increasing our year-over-year investment to not only reinforce our trusted brand but also to extend the value of G2 in this new era."
This isn't just about spending more, but about spending smarter.
So, how are these forward-thinking leaders actually putting AI to work? Let's look at the real-world plays.
Back in 2021, 81% of brands could disappear tomorrow and we wouldn’t care. How bad do you think this situation will get in 2025 and beyond?
Investing in brand is a no-brainer; how you wield AI is the actual brain scratcher. Everyone has AI at their disposal, and if not used strategically, your brand can shrink to a drop in the sea of sameness. Add reducing human attention spans, and voila, your brand is invisible!
According to the Director and Co-founder of LinkedIn’s think tank, The B2B Institute, Tyrona Heath, the real question for us isn't whether to bet on brand. That's a clear yes. It's how to leverage AI to make those brand investments work harder for you.
A memorable brand is the currency to winning mental availability in the attention economy. Where tactical execution is becoming more democratized, consistent brand building is what fuels long-term growth.
The unique value of a well-defined and trusted brand becomes the ultimate competitive advantage.
A critical shift is the enhanced measurability of brand impact. VEED.io’s CMO Leila Woodington points out, "AI is helping us make brand measurable in new ways, from content performance to creative testing." This drive for quantifiable results is corroborated by broader industry trends.
Market research indicates that AI features, particularly those focused on automation, real-time targeting, and predictive analytics, are "major contributors to the faster ROIs seen across these categories," such as social media analytics and brand intelligence.
CMOs are also actively building AI capabilities within their marketing organizations. G2 CMO Sydney Sloan established a Research Insights team last year, led by Tim Sanders, to leverage AI for market insights.
Sloan asserted that the team "is focused on conducting proprietary research to deliver market insights on what’s happening in trending software categories. One way they do this is by applying AI analysis to G2 data as well as external research."
This internal focus on AI literacy empowers marketing teams to harness the technology effectively. G2’s approach involves prioritizing the development of our marketing team’s AI skills, especially prompting and incorporating AI into our workflows with dedicated AI trainers and coaches.
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Beyond strategy, leading CMOs are deploying AI tools to elevate brand impact where it truly matters: in driving personalized experiences, fostering deep customer loyalty through product integration, and cultivating authentic connections within specialized communities.
For VEED.io, AI is deeply integrated into their operational fabric.
“AI is baked into how we operate, not just what we market.”
Leila Woodington
CMO of VEED.io
The VEED.io team uses AI to analyze customer behavior and surface content opportunities, fueling both SEO and social efforts. They also leverage AI to localize and personalize messaging at scale and to rapidly iterate creatives based on performance signals. This holistic integration underscores AI's role in delivering personalized customer experiences at scale.
In terms of strengthening brand presence, CMOs are adopting diverse strategies. VEED.io is leveraging video as its core medium, focusing on live events, product storytelling, and short-form thought leadership.
On the tech side, they are building attribution models that better connect brand touchpoints to revenue, using AI to link views and engagement to downstream conversion.
A unique strategic approach from VEED.io is treating their "product as a channel, not just a destination, so we can turn VEED users into VEED advocates," enhancing brand loyalty directly through the user experience. This strategy transforms existing users into powerful brand amplifiers, a critical move in times when trust and advocacy are paramount.
Beyond traditional channels, B2B brands are also finding success by building a strong presence in niche communities, recognizing that AI-driven search often leads buyers to authentic reviews and discussions.
According to our latest Buyer Behavior Report 2025, community-driven content peaks visibility in AI-driven search, with G2 and Reddit leading the pack.
Source: G2 Buyer Behavior Report 2025
G2's #1 position in AI search is driven by its unique blend of verified buyer intent, authentic reviews, and comprehensive traffic data, which AI models leverage to provide highly relevant and trusted software recommendations. This positions G2 as a critical "third-party performance" validator in the AI era.
According to Tim Sanders, VP of Research Insights at G2, "AI is eating SaaS go-to-market (GTM). The best practices in 2024 will likely be the worst practices in 2026."
This underscores the radical shift in buyer behavior, where G2's data-driven approach directly feeds into AI's ability to generate concise and actionable shortlists, bypassing traditional, lengthy research processes.
G2 CMO Sydney Sloan highlights that, "People are not going to Google first; they're going to LLMs."
For B2B buyers, especially in large enterprises, efficiency and productivity are paramount. They rely on G2's structured and verified data to quickly obtain trusted recommendations and evaluate software solutions, fundamentally changing the research, evaluation, and decision-making journey.
Kate Karmel, senior director of Mid-Market Sales at Reddit, states, "Reddit is where today’s B2B buyers go to educate themselves, not to be sold to. Winning brands understand this. They show up with authority, relevance, and a clear point of view."
Karmel emphasizes that effective brands on Reddit "participate in industry conversations, offer real expertise, and leverage tools like Reddit Pro to identify the high-intent signals that matter most."
She cites Auth0 as a prime example, whose tailored approach to Redditors resulted in significantly lower costs per sign-up and higher engagement. This underscores the importance of audience-specific value provision: "The brands that earn trust on Reddit don’t push; they provide value. And in doing so, they meet decision makers at the exact moment they’re forming opinions and evaluating solutions."
Brand is no longer a soft metric that is hard to measure and map from a business perspective. G2 ROI data across four adjacent marketing intelligence categories Social Media Analytics, Brand Intelligence, Audience Intelligence, and Media Monitoring — reveals a clear trend: AI is accelerating time to value.
Source: Exclusive G2 data
Our review data across 2023, 2024, and 2025 shows a clear ROI compression across all categories with two standouts: Brand Intelligence and Audience Intelligence.
AI is rebranding brand as a strategic asset, and brand intelligence platforms are enabling this phenomenon.
Review data from Brand Intelligence category shows a sharp shift: fast ROI, first-time adoption, and high satisfaction with niche tools prove that brand, when powered by AI, is measurable, actionable, and mission-critical.
Top 5 industries using brand intelligence software:
More than 55% of reviewers reported seeing clear value from their brand intelligence tool within 6 months, demonstrating a rapid time-to-value, especially for SMBs and mid-market players, and significantly faster payback periods even for larger enterprises.
Brand intelligence platforms offer fast, visual, and predictive insights that are making brand performance actionable.
Source: Exclusive G2 data
G2 reviews reveal that brand leaders expect more than mentions. They want accurate, explainable brand signals. If insights aren’t trusted, adoption stalls, and so does brand value.
Top 3 dislikes based on user reviews:
Specialized tools earn more user love than the giants in this space. The devil is truly in the details. Vendors like YouScan, Audiense, and Synthesio consistently have overall satisfaction between 4.7-4.9 star ratings and a 9.4+ likely-to-recommend scores.
Sharper, community-aware, insight-rich tools that specialize in areas like Reddit insights, influencer visuals, and sentiment nuance are winning in the market.
Top 3 capabilities of brand intelligence software that delight G2 users:
Brand intelligence isn’t replacing something — it’s being added as a new strategic layer. Only ~8% of reviewers reported switching from another platform. Most are first-time buyers, or previously relied on manual or general-purpose tools.
G2 reviews suggest some platforms still struggle with onboarding, integrations, or feature discoverability.
Autonomy is in, but software buyers want brand intelligence tools to meet them halfway with intuitive UX, solid onboarding, and smart integrations.
An AI LLM may gamble on your Google rankings and brand visibility, let’s not forget — people build brands. So why not get to know them?
While brand intelligence tells you how you’re perceived, audience intelligence shows you who you’re influencing (and how to reach more of them!)
Top 5 industries using audience intelligence software:
These platforms are becoming central to audience segmentation, campaign planning, and GTM strategy. G2 data shows satisfaction is tied to AI depth, not scale.
G2 users reward platforms that surface more than just audience size. AI tools that decode behaviors, affinities, and buyer intent win on trust and traction.
Platforms with AI-powered clustering, persona enrichment, and predictive behaviors consistently earn 4.6-4.9 star ratings. These include tools like SparkToro, Audiense, and Resonance AI.
Quite natural, right? You can’t discover an insight you don’t know exists in your database. If your tool doesn’t let you peacefully perform a search in your dataset, you’re eons away from building insights-backed strategies.
Reviews show that better discovery and smart filtering are key to turning data into strategy. “Search,” “filtering,” and “narrowing” are some of the most mentioned pain points. Users want cleaner workflows, especially when comparing segments or influencers.
Audience intelligence is a net-new layer in the MarTech stack, helping teams move from guesswork to evidence.
Similar to brand intelligence, most audience intelligence users are first-time buyers, not switchers. But their use cases vary from campaign planning to community building to influencer vetting. Here's how marketing leaders are listening to their target audiences.
To truly grasp the scale of this brand reawakening, we analyzed G2 data to uncover some signals.
Source: Exclusive G2 data
Brand is back as a strategic engine, and AI is the fuel making it measurable, memorable, and market-moving. So, the next time someone calls brand a vanity metric, show them the receipts.
Brands that listen better, see sharper, and act faster will win. Because today, the most iconic brands aren’t built by accident, they’re engineered with intelligence, both intellectual and emotional.
We get it, AI has its challenges, and we’re all learning as we go. If you’re struggling with AI hallucinations, AI search performance, or AI governance, each of these reads will help guide you.
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Edited by Supanna Das
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