What does it actually take to reach buyers in a world where AI has flooded every inbox, gated white papers have lost their pull, and generic personalization is table stakes? In this special compilation episode of Shift & Thrive, host Natalie Nathanson brings together five of the sharpest go-to-market minds from previous episodes to tackle one of the biggest disruptions in B2B today. 

Kerry Cunningham dismantles the "blank slate fallacy" and explains how LLMs are reshaping mid-funnel evaluation. Kristina McMillan shares how one portfolio company used deep research AI to deliver CEO-to-CEO custom market reports at scale. Jacki Leahy makes the case that the bar for outreach has been permanently raised and argues for visceral empathy over automation. Sajag Chikarsal walks through how to build custom GPTs that compress days of BDR research into minutes, and Yossi Carmon makes a bold prediction: the next go-to-market frontier is authenticity, and old-school, high-touch tactics are making a comeback.

Takeaways:

• Stop treating buyers as blank slates. In established categories, buyers already know you and your competitors. Ungating content and building genuine preference beats form fills and self-promotion.

• Use AI to deliver value before you ask for anything. Creating custom, account-specific research reports at scale is now achievable and far more effective than traditional cold outreach.

• Recognize that generic AI personalization has a short shelf life. The bar for what counts as a "personalized" outreach has risen sharply; go-to-market teams need to match it with real resourcefulness and empathy.

• Build AI efficiency behind the scenes for your sales teams. Automating meeting prep and account summaries can recover significant rep hours per week without requiring everyone to become a prompt engineer.

• Develop a focused custom GPT library for ABM at scale. Targeted prompt systems trained on earnings reports, personas, and competitive data can give BDRs actionable intelligence in minutes rather than days.

• Lean into authenticity as a strategic differentiator. As AI-generated content floods every channel, buyers are craving real, human, and experience-driven engagement. Word-of-mouth and high-touch tactics are regaining ground.

Quote of the Show:

• “The bar has been raised. Our creativity and resourcefulness also needs to be raised." — Jacki Leahy”

Links:

• Kerry Cunningham’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kerrycunningham
• Kristina McMillan’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kristinamcmillan 
• Jacki Leahy’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jackileahy
• Sajag Chikarsal’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sajagchikarsal
• Yossi Carmon’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yossicarmon

Ways to Tune In:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2D1YbT2QhKxIwbREpU7EMb 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shift-thrive-ceo-insights-on-driving-change/id1740828813 
• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fa60b654-1955-4055-93df-fdd40c2a5c8f/shift-thrive-ceo-insights-on-driving-change 
• iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-shift-thrive-ceo-insights-166792501 
• Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/podcast/shift-and-thrive-ceo-insights-on-driving-change/PC:1001086797  
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClf9QxGUxZw_Sv8_4bZP34Q 

This show is sponsored by Magnetude Consulting, bringing you the thinking-Power of a Growth Consultancy and the Getting-It-Done Power of a full-service B2B Marketing Agency. 

Learn more at: https://www.magnetudeconsulting.com