the State of Business AI 2026 Report The survey included more than 2,100 professionals, 84% of whom work in B2B organizations and about a third of whom are marketers. This makes this one of the most relevant datasets for B2B professionals trying to understand where AI is taking their profession.
Here are five key points from the report that B2B marketers should pay attention and plan to address now.
1. Nearly 3 in 4 professionals expect that AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates in the next three years.
Seventy-one percent of survey respondents expect jobs to be cut off due to AI soon. This number jumped 18 percentage points (from 53%) in one year. Among marketers specifically, this number rose from 53% to 70%.
Development: Only 20% of professionals surveyed feel anxious about their jobs.
“71% expect AI to lead to job cuts across the economy, but 20% think it might actually happen to them,” says Taylor Rady, SmarterX research director.
“If you know you are the person who creates 5x and 10x value, you feel good about the future,” said Paul Reutzer, founder and CEO of SmarterX and the Marketing AI Institute.
What does it mean for you: The professional AI-forward is isolated. The person waiting to participate is not. The gap between these two is rapidly widening.
2. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (74%) say AI is very or extremely important to their organization’s success in the next 12 months.
Among CEOs and founders, this number reaches 89%. This shows that artificial intelligence is not a good thing. It is a business priority.
What does it mean for you: If you still internally position AI as “something to explore,” you need to start now.
3. More than half of professionals still do not have access to formal AI training.
The availability of training has improved – 46% of organizations now offer it, compared to 32% last year. But the majority of the workforce is still untrained. And training may not be aligned with the areas where professionals need help: people want to learn workflow integration (58%), AI agents (51%), and no-code tools (45%). Only 15% want quick tips.
What does it mean for you: If your organization is still running introductory level AI workshops, your training is outdated. It’s time to step up.
4. Only 13% of organizations have all four governance principles in place.
Roadmap for artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence Council. Generative AI policies. Artificial Intelligence Ethics Policy. Nearly one in eight organizations have all four, and 32% have none. However, among organizations implementing AI governance, 50% describe their AI momentum as accelerating.
What does it mean for you: Governance is not bureaucracy, it is the infrastructure that makes expansion possible. If your marketing team is building AI workflows without policy support, you’re not building on a clear, strong foundation.
5. There is strong interest in AI agents and agentive AI
Forty percent of professionals say they closely follow AI agents and agent AI. No other trend comes close. 51% of them say that agent training is one of their top requests. As Rady said, systems thinking has become a core competency.
“The idea of being able to be a systems thinker is very helpful, especially when you start thinking about rebuilding workflows and working with agents,” she said.
What does it mean for you: The next wave of AI that works autonomously on your behalf is here. B2B marketers who understand how to design, oversee, and manage agent-driven workflows will have a huge advantage.
Taylor Rady will present “What AI-Forward Marketers Are Learning About the Future of Work At the AI Summit for B2B Marketers. To learn more and register, visit https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/events/ai-for-b2b-marketers-summit
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