This week’s Box report is a rare window into how 1,300+ IT leaders are actually deploying AI—and where the real ROI lives.
Add in the ongoing shift in ABM strategy and a reminder from Medtronic that brand starts on the inside, and you’ve got a clear signal: growth follows clarity. Internally and out.
—Jay & Adam
💼➡️💥
💥 MARKET MOVES:
Box report: Enterprise AI is moving fast—and leading companies are scaling autonomy
Box asked 1,300+ IT leaders about deploying AI—and what’s actually driving results including some surprising insights about agentic AI at work.
The Intelligent Content Management giant released a new report called State of AI in the Enterprise which offers one of the clearest views we’ve seen of how AI is being adopted, applied, and scaled inside large organizations.
Full disclosure: Box is a client of FamousFolks, the parent company of B2BOOM! Regardless, this is a report with rock solid methodology that offers crucial insights into AI and how it is already transforming business:
Leading-edge companies report 37% productivity improvement from AI
87% of companies are already using autonomous AI agents
70% believe AI is changing their competitive landscape
The most advanced organizations are using AI to streamline workflows, accelerate decisions, and reduce rework—without expanding their teams
Adoption is widespread and the leading organizations are building as they go—learning fast, refining systems, and scaling what works.
👉 Takeaway:
AI agents are already shaping how work gets done in leading enterprises.
Most companies have adopted them and nearly half of those are piloting fully autonomous operations. The organizations seeing the strongest gains are investing more and using multiple models with intention.
🌋 DEMAND & GROWTH:
Recognizing the shift: From persona-centric to signal-centric
For years, B2B marketers built pipeline by targeting predefined personas—titles, industries, job functions. It made sense when intent signals were hard to capture, and sales cycles followed a linear path.
But that model is breaking down.
SpongeBob S. Age: 36 Likes: webinars, jellyfishing
Today’s buyers behave more like a collective organism than a fixed profile. They research across teams, move asynchronously, and send signals that don’t show up in forms or firmographics.
Smart teams aren’t marketing to "CMOs at mid-market SaaS companies," they’re watching for account-wide buying behavior:
Pricing page visits from multiple users, sudden engagement with case studies, repeat traffic from the same domain across business units.
This shift changes how demand gen works at every stage:
Top of funnel: Ad targeting isn’t just about job title—it’s about investing in who’s warming up and showing real intent signals.
Middle of funnel: Lead scoring evolves into account scoring, surfacing active opportunities before an inbound form ever lands.
Bottom of funnel: Sales sequences get triggered by composite behavior (not by MQLs), buying signals across roles, regions, and channels.
👉 Takeaway:
Signal-centric is how ABM becomes real-time, reactive, and revenue-aligned as technology and data methods become more and more powerful.
🤝 You're probably not running ABM—you're running ads with a list
Most ABM programs fall flat because they treat targeting like strategy.
Real account-based growth starts when marketing aligns with how buying teams actually behave: multi-threaded, asynchronous, and full of hidden signals.
Need help building an ABM system that reflects how B2B deals actually get done?
✍️ THE MESSAGING LAB:
Medtronic: Brand is internal before it’s external
Medtronic is one of the world’s largest medical technology companies, known for innovations like pacemakers, insulin pumps, and deep brain stimulation devices. It operates globally with a mission to "inspire the extraordinary" through medical engineering.
According to CEO Geoff Martha, one of the B2B company's most powerful brand moments happens off-camera.
Each year, the company brings real patients whose lives have been changed by Medtronic devices into their headquarters to speak directly to employees.
These aren’t stage-managed testimonials. They’re raw, personal stories. And they’re not told for PR. They’re told for the people building, supporting, and selling the work.
It’s one of the most human rituals in one of the most complex B2B categories—and it’s a masterclass in internal storytelling that drives performance.
Culture isn’t separate from brand, it’s the first signal of whether the story is real.
Too many B2B companies chase awareness externally while ignoring belief internally. But Rituals like this reinforce shared purpose, spark emotional connection, and keep brand meaning alive long after the rebrand deck has been shelved.
All of this has downstream positive effects on performance and growth.
👉 Takeaway:
If your own team doesn’t believe the story, no campaign will ever fix that.
Don’t just write a brand message. Don't just spit out a mission with inspirational language. Build the behaviors that prove it inside your walls.
How do you discover the behaviors authentic to your brand? Ask what your people say when no one’s watching.
📊 DATA & INSIGHTS:
Depth over width: where ROI from AI actually lives
Circling back to the Box State of AI in the Enterprise report because it surfaces an important and telling split.
Most companies are still using AI for surface-level tasks—writing content, analyzing documents, answering basic questions.
But the organizations seeing real ROI are going way below the surface.
High AI ROI companies are deploying AI in operational layers:
Metadata extraction that turns unstructured content into searchable, strategic assets
Process automation that removes manual bottlenecks
Cybersecurity applications that adapt faster than rule-based systems
👉 Takeaway:
These are structural shifts. AI width (doing a little bit everywhere) doesn’t produce the same impact as AI depth (doing meaningful work where it matters most).
If your current AI use case sounds like “helping write blog posts,” you’re not wrong—but you’re early on the learning curve.
The real returns are coming from use cases most teams haven’t touched yet.
🤝 Branding is B2B’s biggest competitive advantage
If your category feels like a race to the bottom, it’s a sign that your brand could be your most powerful weapon.
When customers can’t tell the difference between you and your competitors, price becomes the only factor. The strongest B2B brands don’t play that game. They invest in their brand and win on trust, recognition, and a clear point of view.
Find out where your brand stands—and how to make it your biggest asset.
🔥 FAMOUS TAKE:
Most B2B companies are chasing efficiency. The best ones are chasing clarity
Clarity about who’s ready to buy—not just who fits the persona.
Clarity about where AI actually delivers ROI—not just where it demos well.
Clarity about what your team believes—not just what your deck says.
When you have that kind of clarity—about accounts, about operations, about story—velocity follows.
And so does growth.
—Jay
B2BOOM! is written and compiled by Jay Dingwall and Adam MacLean, principals at FamousFolks. We started this newsletter to share the ideas, insights, and strategies that actually move the needle for modern B2B leaders in a digestible format that respects your time.
Thanks for reading. You could be spending your time anywhere—we’re glad you’re here 💥
—Jay & Adam
Heads Up: In each issue of B2BOOM!, we highlight services from our crew at FamousFolks or friends we trust. When you see the 🤝, it means we’re sharing something we genuinely back. We only shout out things we believe are truly valuable for your business—no shady promos, just stuff we stand behind.