As AI reshapes what marketing teams can produce and automate, it is also changing what B2B businesses should expect from their agency and consultancy partners. JPC Managing Director Claire Ellis explores where partner value is shifting, the thinking behind JPC’s own move to a new two-practice model – and three practical principles B2B leaders can use to get more commercial value from their external partners.
AI is changing the economics of marketing fast. Content can be created more quickly. Research is easier to access. Personalisation can be scaled. Execution can be automated. That’s good news for B2B organisations. But it also changes the value they should expect from agencies and consultancies.
If production becomes faster and more accessible, the premium shifts elsewhere – towards strategy, judgement, creativity, human understanding and the ability to connect marketing activity directly to commercial outcomes.
It’s something we’ve been thinking hard about at JPC, and it has contributed to a change in how we structure our own business.
We’ve organised around two distinct but connected practices: a marketing agency, focused on building presence, engagement, influence and pipeline; and a growth consultancy, working directly with sales and account teams to shape and convert high-value opportunities, win critical deals, protect renewals and grow strategic accounts.
It makes clearer what has always been central to our approach – connecting marketing and sales, strategy and execution, and ultimately activity and revenue. Going through that process reinforced three things I think B2B leaders should increasingly expect from their external partners.
1. Don’t buy activity. Buy progress.
For years, agency relationships have often been organised around deliverables: campaigns, content, events, brand work, ABM programmes.
But clients don’t really need any of those things in isolation. They need stronger differentiation. More of the right buyers engaging. Better-quality pipeline. Greater influence over a critical account. A stronger chance of winning or retaining revenue. So the starting point should increasingly be the commercial problem, not the service being sold.
That thinking has shaped our marketing agency, bringing together brand and proposition strategy, campaigns and demand generation, content, events and experiential, digital engagement and sales enablement around the bigger objective of creating commercial momentum.
For clients, that changes the question from “What can this agency make for us?” to “What can this partner help us change?”
2. Expect your agency to move upstream
As AI makes more execution accessible, clients should expect more strategic value from the people around them. Can your partner challenge the brief rather than simply fulfil it? Can they understand the buyer, market and commercial context? Can they tell you where not to spend? Can they connect marketing decisions to sales reality? And can they recognise the moments where human judgement matters more than another automated interaction?
That last point feels increasingly important. Complex B2B decisions are shaped by risk, internal politics, competing priorities and confidence as much as information. Which is why I believe face-to-face experiences, executive engagement and human interaction become more, not less, valuable as AI proliferates.
The opportunity isn’t to choose between technology and people. It’s to use technology and insight to make those human moments more intentional, relevant and valuable.
For clients, that means expecting partners to bring judgement as well as capability – and the confidence to challenge rather than simply execute.
3. Look for partners that can cross the marketing–sales divide
One of the biggest sources of lost value in B2B is what happens between marketing and sales.
Brand develops the proposition. Campaigns create engagement. Events generate conversations. ABM focuses attention on priority accounts. Then, somewhere along the way, an account becomes a live sales opportunity.
Too often, that’s also where the marketing partner steps away.
But in complex B2B, some of the most important work is only just beginning. Who really influences the decision? What is happening inside the account? How do you shape the opportunity before an RFP appears? What will differentiate you when competitors are saying broadly the same things?
This has been a defining part of JPC’s work for many years. Through our growth consultancy, we work directly with sales leaders, account and deal teams on the opportunities, pursuits, renewals and strategic accounts where the commercial stakes are highest – from early account and buyer insight through to sitting alongside pursuit teams shaping the strategy for major deals.
It’s also an important reason we’ve created two connected practices. Our marketing agency builds market presence, differentiation, engagement and pipeline. Our growth consultancy gets much closer to the sales motion as priority accounts and opportunities emerge – from pre-RFP influence through critical pursuits to renewals and account growth.
For clients, that means intelligence generated through marketing doesn’t have to disappear at the point it becomes commercially most valuable. And perhaps that’s another useful test of an agency relationship now: how far into your revenue journey can your partner genuinely add value?
Key takeaway: the shift in value
I don’t think AI reduces the need for agencies and consultancies. I think it raises the bar for them. Execution still matters. But increasingly, execution is the entry ticket, not the differentiator.
For B2B leaders, the most valuable partners will be those that combine technology with the things it cannot easily replicate: commercial judgement, creativity, human insight, trusted relationships and the confidence to challenge.
And I’d add one more test: can they get close enough to your commercial reality to make a difference? Can they move beyond marketing activity into the accounts, buying groups and opportunities that ultimately determine growth?
That’s the thinking behind our own new structure. Because if technology can increasingly do the execution, perhaps the question isn’t simply what your partners can produce.
It’s how much closer they can help you get to the customer – and to the revenue.
