What We’re Reading: Week of Sept. 14, 2026

Welcome to What We're Reading, a weekly rundown of news stories, marketing columns, and B2B industry news that caught our eye.

B2B businesses are going back to brand

AI is continuing to disrupt the B2B landscape, and Marketing Week believes it’s putting brand back in focus. There are a few reasons for that, including a strong brand's ability to build trust, strengthen emotional connection, and even improve agility. “The stronger your brand is, the easier it will be to shift with the world,” says Shiri Hellmann, vice-president of Fiverr.

The feature also talks about a “human premium”, where the human element is becoming even more important when conversations keep talking about how technology is replacing things. That, for us, is where the sweet spot lands in branding. If you can create a foundation for your brand that leads with authenticity, emotion, and tells a really good story, you'll be on to a winner. 

Does engagement really prove value?

Marketers have long looked to engagement as a way to prove value, with metrics like website visits, downloads, and leads being the way marketers prove their presence. However, Forrester says AI search has changed that. So many buyers are now incorporating AI tools into their research, and less interactions are happening on vendor-owned properties as a result.

In our minds, rather than editing dashboards or altering success metrics, it’s time for businesses to take a step back (or even two) and look at their foundations. When’s the last time you revisited your business objectives and how they sit in the current climate? When did you last question the way you’re collecting data and unpack whether all your systems are doing it in a way that makes sense? There’s no doubt change is coming. As the feature says, this disruption is an opportunity to rewrite the rules.

What’s stopping your content from converting?

According to Content Marketing Institute, there are four blockers standing between you and content that truly converts. Those include sameness and saturation, looking at the wrong metrics, not continuing conversations at the moment the buying decision starts, and sales and marketing misalignment.

Another we would add is striking the right balance between what machines want and what humans actually read. We know there’s pressure to appeal to AI search. It's how buyers are doing their research so content should be tailored to that, but it’s also vital that the actual message and emotion tackles real challenges, and embraces the idea that we’re humans talking to humans.