Two days. Packed rooms. Intelligent conversations. And a shared question running through the entire venue: How do B2B teams make all this work in practice?
B2B Marketing Live delivered what the industry needs right now. Less talk. More honesty. Real examples of what’s changing, what’s working, and what still needs figuring out.
For 6sense, it was an opportunity to unveil new research, host conversations in Club 6, and connect directly with the people transforming revenue teams across EMEA.
Here’s what stood out.
The 2025 Buyer Experience Report: How AI is compressing the buyer journey
Day One opened with YuLife CMO Lauren Berkemeyer joining 6sense EMEA Marketing Director Stefano Iacono on the main stage to reveal insights from 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report.
Built from 4,000+ buyer interviews across APAC, EMEA and North America, the report shows the real impact AI tools are having on the buying journey in B2B.
Takeaway: The 60/40 shift is real
Buyers now engage vendors at 60% of their journey, down from 70% last year. AI is accelerating research and pulling vendor interactions forward by six to seven weeks as buyers try to understand how AI shows up in the tools they’re evaluating.
But one thing hasn’t changed.
The initial shortlist still decides the outcome.
95% of winners come from that first list of four to five vendors buyers already know.
If you’re not known early, you’re rarely chosen.
Club 6: Where Community Took Centre Stage
The Club 6 theatre became one of the most energised spaces across the event, hosting high-impact conversations that went beyond surface-level tactics.
On Day 1 Lauren Berkemeyer and Nicola Anderson, co-founder of the CMO Circle, brought the focus back to something many teams overlook: community as a growth engine.
Takeaway: Stop over-producing
The strongest B2B communities aren’t built through volume of content or production value. They’re built through:
- Space for real connection
- Consistency over perfection
- Champions who care and carry the culture
Community isn’t a campaign. It’s the heartbeat of modern B2B.
Later in Club 6, Surj Gish from ROI·DNA delivered one of the clearest outlooks on AI-driven visibility.
Takeaway: Search is no longer about clicks
The “crocodile mouth” effect is already here:
- Impressions rising
- Clicks falling
- Zero-click search now over 75% on mobile
The battleground has shifted so that winning share of voice must include winning share of the model. Brands now have to show up where AI learns.
Revenue marketing: Convergence moves from theory to practice
Day Two opened with Chris Frampton (6sense) and Becki Howland addressing one of the biggest structural shifts in B2B.
Chris framed the modern buyer reality: more stakeholders, more noise, more fragmented journeys. Then he introduced Forrester’s definition of revenue marketing convergence — the fusion of marketing automation and ABM into a single, connected revenue engine.
Takeaway: Don’t rename the function. Rebuild it.
Becki showed what this looks like in practice from her time as the Global Revenue Marketing Leader at Spryker:
- OKRs and intent data replacing volume metrics
- Pipeline becoming the North Star
- Bonuses tied to closed revenue, not lead counts
- Transparency and learning valued over surface-level perfection
This is where ABM and demand generation finally meet — a place where 6sense is truly leading the way.
Putting AI in the Hands of Leaders
Charlie Cowan of Kowalah delivered one of the most practical AI sessions of the event.
This wasn’t about prompt libraries. It was about rethinking what the tools can do for you.
Takeaway: Package expertise, not just output
The shift was clear: Stop using AI to complete tasks. Start using AI to capture and scale thinking.
Examples included:
- Turning proven frameworks into persistent AI workspaces
- Loading books and playbooks into shared GPTs to provide instant ‘thought companions’
- Using AI to improve your own work and ultimately better serve your audiences
Takeaway: Voice creates better thinking
Charlie demonstrated using voice instead of typing to feed richer context. AI works better when the thinking is better.
AI was positioned not as a shortcut, but as a participant in real work.
The idea of the “jagged frontier” landed strongly: AI is excellent at some things and weak at others. That frontier moves constantly. Teams that test early stay ahead.
The real ABM unlock: stakeholder buy-In
Robert Norum, Propolis, closed the happenings at Club 6 with a reality that many teams experience but rarely address.
Takeaway: ABM fails because of people, not platforms
The most elegant strategies stall without:
- Leadership endorsement
- Sales alignment
- A shared definition of success
Robert’s Full Stack ABM Model positioned ABM as a go-to-market strategy, not a marketing experiment:
- Brand and inbound at the market level
- One-to-many ABM as modern demand generation
- One-to-few as strategic vertical motion
- One-to-one for the most critical accounts
Takeaway: Make it top-down, not opt-in
When ABM becomes a directive from leadership, adoption stops being optional. It becomes how the business operates.
The 6sense presence
Beyond the stages, the 6sense booth became a natural hub for spontaneous conversations, unplanned demos, and honest customer discussions.
The team worked hard to make it all happen, from orchestrating the Club 6 experience to managing the booth to ensuring every conversation felt meaningful.
And most importantly, the attendees who showed up did the real work: the questions, the challenges, the shared stories.
The B2B Community came out in full force for this one.
What we’re taking forward
Across two days, a clear thread emerged:
- Be known earlier. The shortlist forms before sales conversations begin.
- Be useful before buyers are in market. Research starts long before outreach.
- Treat AI as a distribution channel, not a threat.
- Build real alignment. No more siloed motions.
B2B Marketing Live reminded everyone that no team is solving this alone. Progress happens in rooms like these, through shared learning and honest experimentation.
Continue the conversation
Want to explore the data behind the shift? Download the full 2025 Buyer Experience Report and see what 4,000+ B2B buyers shared about AI, research, and modern buying behaviour.
2025 Buyer Experience Report
Expert analysis of over 4,000 B2B buyer surveys, revealing how they buy and what influences their decisions.
