​5 Benefits of Using Generative AI for B2B Organisations
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming businesses across industries by automating tasks, generating insights from data, and creating content. For B2B companies, leveraging generative AI can lead to significant benefits that improve operations, boost sales, reduced costs and increase efficiency. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the top five ways that generative AI can benefit B2B organisations.
What is Generative AI and How Does It Work?
Generative AI refers to a category of AI that uses neural networks to generate new content and outputs. Unlike traditional AI which is limited to analysis and predictions based on existing data, generative AI can create completely original text, images, audio, video and more.
​
Some common examples of generative AI Large Language Models (LLMs) include:
-
GPT-4 by ChatGPT
-
Claude 2 by Anthropic
-
Bard by Google
-
Notion AI by Notion
-
DALL-E 3 for image generation
-
GitHub Copilot for code generation
-
Stable Audio for music generation
​​
These models are trained on massive datasets to understand patterns and relationships between content. When given a text prompt, generative AI can generate brand new text that continues the prompt intelligently.
The key advantage of generative AI is that it does not simply rearrange existing content - it can compose completely novel outputs based on its training. This makes it invaluable for tasks like content creation, personalization, and augmenting human creativity.
What are the Benefits of Using Generative AI for B2B Organisations?
Here are the top 5 ways that generative AI can benefit B2B companies across various functions:
1. Faster and More Efficient Content Creation
One of the biggest challenges in B2B marketing is producing high volumes of engaging content consistently. Generative AI makes it possible to instantly generate long-form content like blog posts, whitepapers, case studies and more.
​
Marketers can simply provide a headline, intro paragraph or bullet points to kickstart the content generation process. The AI will take care of drafting an entire piece of content that is coherent, articulate and on-brand.
This significantly cuts down the time taken for content ideation and creation. What once took days or weeks can now be done in minutes or hours. Marketers can repurpose the time saved into strategy, creativity and content amplification.
​
According to one survey by Fractl, generative AI can reduce the time taken to create a blog post by up to 50-70%. It streamlines collaboration between remote team members and provides more flexibility to rapidly test multiple content variations.
​
For example, Mintago, a SaaS company, created an AI writer called Minty that generates blog posts and other marketing content. This increased their content output by 5x.
​
2. Data-Driven Insights and Recommendations
Generative AI excels at analysing both structured and unstructured enterprise data to uncover insights. It can process millions of data points across customer interactions, sales patterns, market trends and more to detect correlations.
​
These insights can then be used by sales and marketing teams to identify the most promising segments and hyper-target campaigns. Product managers also benefit from seeing which features customers want based on feedback analysis. Executives can make faster data-driven decisions on new markets, hiring and budget allocation.
​
Moreover, generative AI can take this one step further by providing data-backed recommendations on the best next steps. For instance, it can suggest how to improve email click-through rates based on past campaign performance or which product feature to prioritize based on customer needs.
3. Personalised Experiences at Scale
Delivering personalised experiences has become table stakes for winning and retaining B2B customers today. Generative AI makes it possible to scale one-to-one personalization in a way that is not humanly feasible.
​
By analysing individual buyer preferences, interests, behaviour and firmographics - generative AI can create tailored content and recommendations for each prospect. This level of personalisation establishes trust, strengthens engagement and increases conversions.
​
For example, a sales proposal or email can be dynamically generated with different messaging, offers and designs based on the customer it is intended for. AI takes care of personalising every touchpoint while saving teams countless hours of manual work.
​
In financial services, client profile analysis for wealth management can be enhanced using generative AI to create highly customized investment plans. For retailers, AI can optimise dynamic product recommendations based on individual customer data and history.
4. Conversation Generation for Chatbots
Customer inquiries and conversations are a major cost area for B2B companies. An Allied Market Research report predicts the chatbot market will reach $102 billion globally by 2026.
​
Chatbots powered by generative AI can handle common customer queries, product questions and support tasks 24/7 without human intervention. They are able to respond contextually based on the inquiry, have back-and-forth conversations and resolve issues independently that previously required agent assistance.
This results in massive savings on customer support costs and enables faster response times. Chatbots also free up agents to handle more complex issues and sales conversations. Generative AI makes chatbots feel more natural, contextual and human.
​
5. New Experiment Ideas for Innovation
While AI cannot fully replace human creativity, it can rapidly provide diverse ideas as a starting point for innovation. Prompting the AI with keywords and parameters generates hundreds of creative suggestions based on connections humans would likely not make.
​
This “unconstrained ideation” helps teams overcome creative blocks and biases that restrict new thinking. The ideas can be further refined by human experts or directly tested with customers to determine viability.
​
Generative AI is ideal for use cases like ideating ad copy variations, product positioning ideas, pricing models, partnership concepts and more. Innovation teams can do rapid testing and lean experimentation powered by AI.
​
For example, in manufacturing, generative design AI can explore thousands of new product component configurations to find optimal shapes and costs. For healthcare companies, clinical trial optimization and patient recruitment can be enhanced using AI.
How Does Generative AI Help Enterprises Reduce Costs?
By automating tasks and improving efficiency, generative AI can help businesses reduce costs. For example, generative AI can be used to:
​
-
Reduce the cost of customer acquisition: Generative AI can help B2B organizations reduce the cost of customer acquisition by automating and streamlining the lead generation and qualification process. AI-powered algorithms can analyse large amounts of data to identify the most promising leads, allowing sales and marketing teams to focus their efforts on high-potential prospects. This targeted approach can significantly reduce the cost of acquiring new customers.
-
Improve the efficiency of sales and marketing teams: Generative AI can enhance the efficiency of sales and marketing teams in several ways. AI-powered chatbots can handle routine customer inquiries, freeing up sales representatives to focus on more complex tasks. AI algorithms can also analyse customer data and generate personalised recommendations, enabling sales teams to deliver targeted and relevant pitches. By automating repetitive tasks and providing data-driven insights, generative AI can optimise the productivity of sales and marketing teams.
-
Reduce the cost of product development: Generative AI can help B2B organisations reduce the cost of product development by speeding up the design and prototyping process. AI algorithms can generate multiple design options based on specified parameters, allowing product development teams to explore a wider range of possibilities in less time. This iterative and automated approach can accelerate innovation and reduce the need for costly physical prototyping.
-
Reduce the cost of customer support: Generative AI can reduce the cost of customer support by automating common support tasks and providing self-service options. AI-powered chatbots can handle routine customer inquiries and provide instant responses, reducing the need for live support agents. Additionally, AI models can analyse customer support data to identify patterns and trends, enabling organizations to proactively address common issues and provide more efficient support.
By leveraging generative AI, B2B organisations can achieve significant cost savings across various areas of their operations, ultimately improving their overall profitability and competitiveness.
Real-World Examples of Generative AI in B2B Companies
Here are some additional real-world examples of leading B2B brands leveraging generative AI:
​
-
Anheuser-Busch used generative design to create a new aluminium bottle prototype that was 15% lighter. This reduced production costs and environmental impact.
-
Autodesk developed a predictive sales model using AI that forecasts revenue opportunities with 96% accuracy. This allows sales teams to prioritize the most promising leads.
-
Unilever created a sensory AI that generates new flavours, formulations and packaging designs for their consumer products. This accelerated experimentation and innovation.
-
Nokia improved their antenna design process using generative design AI. The AI explored thousands of new configurations to find optimal antenna shapes tailored to each device.
Key Considerations for Implementation of Generative AI
While generative AI unlocks tremendous potential, B2B leaders should keep these considerations in mind for successful adoption:
​
-
Carefully assess where generative AI can augment human capabilities rather than replace creativity. Maintain human oversight for branding, strategy and ethics.
-
Audit training data and the AI's output to reduce biases that could generate offensive content or perpetuate stereotypes.
-
Start with limited pilots focused on tangible business outcomes before scaling across the organisation. Build internal buy-in.
-
Develop rigorous prompt engineering skills to provide the AI with precise instructions tuned to your business domain.
-
Set up roles and processes for reviewing AI-generated content before use and continuously refining the model.
The Future of B2B with the Power Generative AI
As generative AI capabilities continue to evolve, its applications will expand even further across the entire customer lifecycle. We are likely to see AI move up the value chain from content creation to strategic roles like ideating new business models, product innovations and growth strategies.
​
This will require B2B leaders to proactively plan for how humans, machines and data will need to collaborate in their organisations. With responsible adoption, generative AI can take productivity, personalization and innovation to unprecedented levels in the B2B space.
​
To learn more about leveraging Prompt Engineering for Generative AI in your enterprise, contact our experts today.