B2C vs. B2B marketing with AI: The industry trends every marketer should know

B2C vs. B2B marketing with AI: The industry trends every marketer should know

Updated: 09/16/25

The beauty of freelancing for most of my decade-long career is that I've worked on both sides of the B2B and B2C marketing coin. One week, I'm helping a B2B SaaS brand rewrite a whitepaper. The next, I'm deep in campaign planning for a B2C real estate brand. It's a front-row seat to how marketing works across different verticals.

Now, with AI, everything has changed. I've heard it in interviews with marketing leads, seen it in the tools people reach for, and felt it in the way teams are organizing their workflows.

In this article, I'll share what I've observed, backed by insights from our State of AI in Marketing 2025 report, to compare how B2C and B2B marketers are each leveraging AI and where they're headed next.

Table of Contents

• How B2C vs B2B Brands Use AI for Content Creation
• Top AI Tools Leveraged by B2C vs B2B Brands
• How B2C vs. B2B Leaders Feel About AI
• Is B2C or B2B embracing AI more quickly?

How B2C vs B2B Brands Use AI for Content Creation

Although the use cases of AI are as varied as they come, one thing is clear: AI has become nearly synonymous with content creation. But the way it shows up in B2C versus B2B contexts reveals both strong similarities and subtle differences. And the data from our report makes this very clear.

1. Content Quality Assurance

One of the most widely adopted use cases across both sales models is quality assurance. According to our survey, 53.87% of marketers use AI for things like spellchecks, tone adjustments, accessibility reviews, and writing recommendations. Every marketer knows this is the kind of work that quietly eats up hours in the content cycle.

Personally, I often spend just as much time reviewing as I do writing, checking that every 'i' is dotted and every 't' crossed. Now, it is such a relief to be able to handle that part of the process with AI.

2. Copywriting

This was the second most popular use case in our survey, with over half of all marketers saying they use AI to write content. While their content goals may differ, both B2B and B2C marketers rely heavily on written communication.

B2C teams often turn to AI for high-volume writing needs, especially when there's pressure to churn out lots of content across different channels.

On the B2B side, where content is often required to be in-depth and technical, AI is frequently used more for structure than speed. Here, AI is more relevant for generating outlines, organizing ideas, and sometimes producing a solid first draft.

3. Creating Images With AI Art Tools

Visual content is another growing area for AI support, with nearly half of marketers across both B2C and B2B saying they use AI to create marketing images.

In this case, B2C slightly leads the way. And that's not surprising, as they often rely heavily on attention-grabbing visuals for social media, digital ads, and branded storytelling, way more than their B2B counterparts.

4. Summarizing Text Into Key Points

I once worked in social media for a B2C brand, and I remember how important it was to take complex or detailed service information and turn it into fun, digestible content for our social media pages. That's one of many instances where I believe AI could have supported me.

Around 40% of marketers are now maximizing this, using the technology to break down dense content into key points.

For B2C, it's a shortcut to creating engaging captions, stories, or newsletter blurbs. For B2B, it helps transform long-form assets like reports or webinar transcripts into summaries, executive notes, or even LinkedIn carousel content.

5. Repurposing Content by Format and Audience

Let's say you've shot a customer testimonial video. That same piece of content might need to become a blog post, then a LinkedIn thought leadership article, and maybe even a script for a short video ad. This kind of repurposing, taking one idea and reshaping it across multiple formats, is another space where AI shines for marketers working with B2B and B2C brands.

But it's not just about changing the format. Many marketers (nearly 40%) also use AI to adapt content for different audiences. For example, turning a blog on male fashion trends into one tailored to women's styling needs. It's the same core message, but with language, tone, and focus adjusted to resonate with a new reader.

6. Translating Content Across Languages

Global campaigns demand localized content, and 35% of the marketers we surveyed are using AI to scale their content across languages faster than traditional workflows allowed. B2C brands, especially in ecommerce, use this to localize product pages, ads, and help docs.

B2B teams are also adopting it, particularly for international landing pages, case studies, or product education content. Human oversight still matters, but there's nothing quite like the head start AI provides.

Top AI Tools Leveraged by B2C vs B2B Brands

When we asked marketers and marketing leaders what AI-related resources their organizations provide to support AI adoption, the most common response - by a clear margin - was subscriptions to AI tools and platforms.

The interesting part?

This trend was evenly distributed between B2B and B2C organizations. That tells us something important: Regardless of audience, industry, or sales model, brands are actively investing in access.

But what tools are marketers actually using in their day-to-day roles? Here's what stood out over the past 12 months.

1. Image or Design Generators

This was the most used category overall, used by over 40% of marketers. B2C teams are slightly ahead here, which makes sense given their heavier reliance on visual storytelling.

Tools like DALL-E, Canva AI, and Midjourney allow marketers to create entirely new images from text prompts, mock up campaign visuals, or even iterate for ad creatives.

2. General Purpose Chatbots

Chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are arguably the most versatile tools on this list and they come as the second most popular tool. As the descriptor goes, these chatbots can be used for everything ranging from brainstorming, outlining, writing, and summarizing to answering research questions.

3. Smart AI Video and Audio Editing Tools

Video content continues to dominate digital marketing, and the demand for high-quality video assets has never been higher. What's changed is how easily marketers can create and edit that content using AI.

Now, 36% of marketers, with B2C marketers leading B2B, use tools like Descript, Runway, Pictory, and Wisecut to automatically remove filler words, add subtitles, clean up audio, fix lighting, and even repurpose long videos into shorter clips.

4. Voice and Narration Generators

And then we have voice or narration generators which allow marketers to generate human-sounding voiceovers in different languages, tones, and styles. These tools - like Murf, Speechify, Play.ht, and Soundraw - give marketers the creative range to generate voiceovers and soundtracks without needing a professional studio.

With these generated sounds, marketers can produce video ads, social explainers, or even audio content for apps, product tours, demos, training modules, product tutorials, and presentations. The possibilities are endless.

5. Smart Image Editing Tools

Imagine this: You take a product photo somewhere, but for a specific campaign, it makes more sense on a clean white or seasonal background. This is where AI-powered image editing tools come in.

Over 30% of marketers across both B2C and B2B use image editing tools like Photoshop, Fotor AI, Luminar, and others to enhance, retouch, resize, or remove backgrounds automatically. With these tools, photos are polished quickly and adapted for different uses in record time.

How B2C vs B2B Leaders Feel About AI

Marketers may be deep in the trenches of AI-powered tools, but leadership sentiment is what really signals how organizations are thinking about long-term adoption, and our data reveals a lot.

1. Leaders want more control, not just more tools.

When we asked leaders what's driving AI adoption, the answers were practical. Top of the list at 23% was better control over data privacy and security. Right behind that at 22% was the ability to customize AI to fit their business needs, and then cost savings at 20%.

These priorities came out nearly evenly between B2C and B2B brands, suggesting that regardless of industry, leaders are trying to bring AI closer to the core of their operations, not keep it as a shiny external add-on.

2. Many leaders see growth potential but they are not fully sold yet.

Roughly 35% of leaders somewhat agreed that AI will help their businesses scale in ways that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

That's a moderate vote of confidence, but what's even more telling is the second most common response: neutrality. Almost 29% neither agreed nor disagreed, which says a lot about where most leaders are right now - interested, but still watching closely.

Maybe they haven't seen the ROI yet, or maybe they're wary of betting too heavily on a technology that is still evolving. Whichever it is, we can agree that there is optimism, but it's cautious.

3. AI is great, but maybe not as great as the Industrial Revolution.

Yet. More than a third of marketing leaders somewhat agree that AI will rival the Industrial Revolution, especially when it comes to the impact it will have on human productivity. And yet, nearly 27% said they neither agree nor disagree - again pointing to this theme of cautious curiosity.

The hype is strong, but leaders may want to see sustained productivity gains across departments, not just faster content. Until then, the comparison to the Industrial Revolution will likely remain a metaphor.

4. Being overly reliant on AI is a red flag.

A clear majority - 65% - of leaders agree that AI should be used in people's roles, but without them becoming overly dependent on it. This is one of the most widely agreed-upon sentiments across both B2C and B2B, and it reflects something important: Respect for human creativity and critical thinking.

This makes plenty of sense. While there is value in automating the repetitive stuff, the core skills that make marketing work should never be outsourced.

5. The ROI of AI investment is somewhat positive.

The majority of leaders describe the ROI from their AI investments as "somewhat positive." That's solid, but not game-changing.

Around 43% are seeing results they feel good about, while only about a third are seeing "very positive" returns. In other words, AI is working - but not blowing minds just yet.

This tracks with how most companies are using AI: to enhance productivity, speed up content production, or unlock small efficiencies.

The takeaway? Leaders aren't walking away from AI, but they're not betting the entire farm either.

Is B2C or B2B embracing AI more quickly?

If you're hoping for a dramatic divide between B2C and B2B when it comes to AI adoption, you won't find it here. What the data (and conversations with marketers) show instead is that both sides are moving fast, and in surprisingly similar ways.

An astonishing 91% of marketing teams say they already use AI in some capacity, and the split between B2C and B2B is nearly even. The same goes for employee mindset - over half of respondents described their teams as eager to use AI, and again, B2C and B2B are neck and neck.

Even when we asked leaders about future investment in AI tools, the pattern held: Two-thirds of teams plan to increase their AI spend in 2025, with a near-identical number from both sides.

The bottom line? B2C and B2B may be using AI for slightly different tasks, but when it comes to pace of adoption, they're on the same track - and both are accelerating.

AI does not belong to one type of marketer.

If there's one thing I've learned while writing this piece - and working with both B2B and B2C brands - it's that AI doesn't belong to one "type" of marketer. Whether your job is writing enterprise whitepapers or producing viral product videos, the core goals are the same: Be more creative, work more efficiently, and stay relevant.

To do this, marketers are maximizing every tool at their fingertips, which is a very smart thing to do. The tactics may differ slightly, but the momentum is shared.

Topics:

Artificial Intelligence

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