B2B Reads: AI Overload, Sales Compensation, and Lead Gen Timing

Summary

Some of our favorite B2B sales and marketing posts from around the web this week.

Every Saturday morning we share some of our favorite B2B sales & marketing posts from around the web from the last week (so it’s fresh!). We’ll miss a ton of great stuff, so if you found something you think is worth sharing please let us know.

28 PR and B2B Marketing Statistics From Studies Published So Far in 2026 by Frank Strong, Sword and the Script
AI isn’t delivering the ROI marketers were promised, and Frank Strong has the receipts. He pulled 28 stats from a half year of surveys covering AI’s underwhelming returns, shrinking marketing budgets, and why it now takes 62-plus touches to close a deal.

You’re Using AI to Scale the Wrong Part of GTM by Steve Armenti, MarTech
Everyone’s using AI to send more emails, and buyers have learned to delete them on sight. Steve Armenti’s take: point AI at research and prep instead of the pitch itself, so your team has time to be human where it actually counts.

B2B Tech Lead Gen in 2026 Is a Timing Problem, Not a Volume Problem by MarketScale Newsroom, MarketScale
By the time a prospect requests a demo, the vendor is often already picked. This piece breaks down why timing, not list size, decides enterprise deals, and what a signal-driven outbound system actually looks like.

GTM: The Compensation Blueprint for a High-Performing Sales Team by Sophie Buonassisi, GTMnow
Notion’s Brian Le walks through how he builds a sales comp plan that scales, covering pay mix, quota structure, and the early warning signs that a plan is about to break as pricing shifts to usage-based.

The 4Ps Are Still the Route to Success in the Age of AI by Naureen Mohammed, Marketing Week
AI engines are narrowing the shelf to three brands per category. Naureen Mohammed audited six AI engines and found the way onto that shortlist isn’t a clever AEO trick, it’s still the fundamentals: product, price, place, and promotion.

Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for reading! If you have B2B news sources you rely on we’d love to hear about them. Please share them with us.