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Top performing ABM teams are 2.5x as likely to have a clearly defined AI roadmap.
After surveying 189 B2B marketing professionals and holding 30+ conversations with leaders and practitioners, two patterns are crystal clear.
Across organizations that are more mature when it comes to AI adoption and implementation:
They have established a dedicated internal “AI Practice”.
There is a named “AI Practice Leader” who owns the function.
My prediction is that in 24-36 months EVERY enterprise B2B organization will have a dedicated AI Practice.
So what does this have to do with an AI roadmap? This is the function (AI Practice) that should be owning it internally.
In this week’s ForgeX File, we’re going to break down why our benchmark data says you need an AI roadmap, and what should be included in it.
Propensity → is an AI-powered lifecycle marketing platform for personalized B2B orchestration.
Folloze → AI can draft your ABM campaign in an hour. Folloze deploys it live, per account.
Teams Without an AI Roadmap Are Behind
Across all 189 survey respondents in our 2026 AI in ABM Benchmark Report, 56% do not have an AI roadmap. More than half of ABM teams are running AI without a defined strategy.
When you break this down by High Performers vs. All Others it becomes blatantly obvious how important an AI Roadmap is.
High Performers are 2.5 times as likely to have a defined AI roadmap as an average or below-average respondent.
Merely building an AI Roadmap isn’t an automatic guarantee for AI success, nor does it equate to immediately becoming a mature organization.
What it does signal is that an actual AI strategy exists, which usually means there is a concentrated, funded, and coordinated effort rather than fragmented experimentation across teams.
How We Define Top Performers:
Respondents who agree or strongly agree that AI has significantly improved their ABM program performance (n=110, 58% of sample). All others are classified as below average (n=79, 42%).
Top performers report different behaviors, priorities, different, and outlooks than the rest of the sample across nearly every question asked.
The Six Dimensions of the ForgeX AI Roadmap for Marketing™
When it comes to effectively designing your AI Roadmap, there are 6 dimensions that we recommend including.
AI Roadmap Definition:
A structured operating blueprint that determines where, how, and in what sequence AI will be deployed to accelerate outcomes across an organization’s marketing teams.
This should be something that is ideally owned by your dedicated AI Practice, and led by the AI Practice Lead.
In order to effectively make the internal transition into an “AI-native” company, your c-suite should put up the budget to create this function. Again, if not now, in a number of months when you realize you’re lagging the competition, you will.
Here are a few traps we often see less mature orgs fall into:
The “VP of Product” or “Head of HR” takes on the role of an AI Practice Lead, although they lack the bandwidth to do the job effectively.
There are pockets of a few de facto “AI Experts” that are naturally taking AI requests or training teams without any formal strategy or governance.
As you continue to build out your first AI Roadmap, or augment your existing, here are the 6 core dimensions to consider.
We have segmented each dimension across two main categories:
AI Capabilities and Requirements:
What AI will do across the GTM lifecycle, how it is owned and sequenced, and the data and tools required to deliver it.
Dimensions Include:
1.) AI Capabilities: The enterprise-level approach for where and how AI will be applied across the marketing lifecycle to drive measurable impact, with clear ownership, sequencing, and success metrics.
2.) Data & Context: The data required to effectively deliver across all AI in marketing capabilities. Includes first, second and third party data and the context required for delivery, such as brand voice and tone guidance that is used by the AI capabilities.
3.) Tools & Integration: The AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Lovable, Claude, Propensity AI, Folloze) available or planned to deliver AI in marketing capabilities, including integrations across the organizations technology stack.
2.) Organizational Capabilities and Requirements:
The governance, enablement, and design required to direct, adopt, and sustain AI in practice.
4.) Governance: The guardrails, policies, and decision rights that ensure AI is used responsibly, compliantly, and transparently across marketing execution.
5.) Enablement & Adoption: The capability development, training, change management, and incentive structures required to drive sustained AI adoption.
6.) Organizational Design: Identification of the roles and responsibilities required to support the AI in marketing capabilities. This includes individuals within the marketing team, the AI Practice, and roles beyond that team that support governance, enablement, adoption, and measurement.
Wrapping Up
The benchmark data is unmistakably clear that top performing teams have an AI Roadmap at a 2.5x rate more than others.
Does that mean simply adopting the framework above and building an AI Roadmap will instantly close the gap? Of course not.
But it does highlight a critical reality that marketing leaders should take back to their teams.
Without a:
Defined AI Roadmap
Dedicated AI Practice
Named AI Practice Leader
…you run the risk of falling behind on the results that more mature, higher-performing teams are already gaining.
And we haven't even gone deep on the AI tech stack or procurement challenges yet.
Research Webinar: 2026 AI in ABM Benchmark Report
Join us as we reveal the key findings from the report and share what the highest-performing teams are doing differently to drive better results with AI.
In this session, you’ll learn:
What separates AI leaders from the rest of the market
Which AI use cases are delivering the greatest business impact
Where leading organizations are focusing their AI investments
Survey: How B2B marketers prioritize and target
We’re researching how GTM teams predict and prioritize where focus drives outcomes.
The findings will inform an upcoming ForgeX report on best practices, operational foundations, and where AI fits in.
Time: 5-7 minutes
Thank you: early access to the research report
Privacy: data is exclusive to ForgeX, never shared
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Have an awesome rest of the week all!
Davis
