Case Study
Quick summary
At The Growth Syndicate, we use AI as a powerful accelerator for research, automation, and content creation—but always with human expertise in the driver’s seat.

We’re intentional about deploying AI only where it adds real value, never for the sake of hype, and we never compromise on quality, creativity, or strategic thinking.

Crucially, security is non-negotiable: we rigorously protect client data, never input sensitive information into AI tools unless it’s absolutely secure and necessary, and always anonymize or redact where appropriate.

For us, AI is a tool to enhance our work, not replace the human insight, creativity, and judgment that set us apart.

The state of AI in marketing

When it comes to AI, the pace of innovation is staggering. It’s already triggered a huge change in most – if not all – industries. But this is especially true for B2B tech companies, where marketing and commercial roles are essentially evolving by the minute. 

And that pace might be frightening to some. Tasks that an AI couldn’t handle even a half a year ago – like creating videos, images, or nuanced content writing – can now be done with ease. 

I’ll put it bluntly: Any company denying the impact of AI is going to fall behind. 

Even more importantly, if you’re hiring a team, agency, or a partner who doesn’t know how to leverage artificial intelligence, you’re either missing out or paying too much for what you get. 

But – and this is a big “but” – AI is not the solution to everything. 

At The Growth Syndicate, we’re trying to be expressly intentional about how we deploy AI – going against the wave of companies choosing hype over the human touch

Let me tell you how we’re thinking about it…

For us, AI is a tool

Used well, AI increases productivity, deepens research, accelerates results, and improves our understanding of markets. 

But in cases where it doesn’t tangibly improve outcomes, we don’t deploy it.

We’ve also found that AI is reshaping the entire marketing workforce. Junior, high-touch, repetitive tasks are already being automated away. We’re seeing fewer internships and fewer graduate roles in marketing — and that trend will only accelerate. 

Meanwhile, AI is elevating the baseline quality of work. People who once produced mediocre designs or copy can now generate something passable — a five or six out of ten, maybe even a seven. But that’s often where AI hits a ceiling (at least for now).

From our side, here’s what AI is unable to provide: 

  • Taste 
  • Creativity 
  • Authenticity 
  • Empathy 
  • Strategic thinking

These remain profoundly human capabilities. 

In fact, they are fundamental marketing capabilities. Marketing still demands humans who can empathize, make creative leaps, and bring originality and strategic judgment to the table.

AI outputs are often too safe, too rigid, and designed to pull from consensus and the world’s collective knowledge. Put simply, AI has a very limited imagination

The result is an increased need for two kinds of marketers: 

  • Strategic experts, who shape the big picture and set the course
  • Tactical orchestrators, who deploy the right tools — like AI —to execute

Even though many tasks can be automated or streamlined using AI and agentic workflows, the fundamental parts of marketing will need to remain human-led

If we leverage AI to accelerate and improve our work, we can deliver more value to our clients in less time. But we’re not going to do it just to say that we’re doing it.

How we leverage AI-powered engines and workflows to accelerate, scale and deepen marketing work.

Putting AI in the passenger seat 

At The Growth Syndicate, we’re always in the driver’s seat.

We clearly see AI as a supporting function. A powerful tool that helps us go deeper, faster, and challenge our own thinking. Fundamentally, though, AI is a tool – so it’s never the leader. 

When we compare ourselves to other agencies or traditional service providers, the difference is simple: We embed ourselves into complex industries and dive deep into the nuances of:

  • Market dynamics 
  • Customer behavior 
  • Internal stakeholder environments

We bring strategic clarity, foster alignment, and help clients navigate real-world complexities. That level of depth and strategic judgment can’t be outsourced to an AI.

While we embrace AI, we know that it can’t replace the role of our experienced fractional CMOs and a specialized team. 

Instead, it plays a supporting role in helping us accelerate results and deliver more value to our clients. Most importantly, we stay firmly in control of everything. 

We can boil this down further into six core principles:

1. Leading through humanity 

Our team dictates the strategy, goals, priorities, and guardrails for every project. We bring creativity, strategic thinking, empathy, and authenticity — “taste,” as many might call it. 

2. Embracing superhuman scale 

Whether it’s complex research, synthesizing mountains of data, building projections, or running calculations, AI operates at a speed and scale no human can match. 

3. Automating the mundane

We can now build far more flexible and intelligent automations, freeing our team to focus on high-impact work. Workflows and systems let us scale our efforts without drowning in admin.

4. Serving as a sparring partner

AI can be great at channeling creativity.. It can generate variations and alternative takes on ideas we provide. For example, we’d never hand over headline writing to an AI from scratch. But if we write a headline ourselves, we’ll often ask an AI to produce 20 different riffs on it. It’s a way to spark inspiration, test angles, and challenge our initial thinking.

5. Doing the legwork

Especially in content work, AI tools are invaluable for creating first drafts. AI handles the heavy lifting of drafting or summarizing; and then a human steps back in to refine, deepen, and elevate the work to the high quality standards we expect. 

6. Making everything secure

Client confidentiality and data protection are non-negotiable for us. We take NDAs seriously. We never feed private or sensitive data into AI tools and always take extreme caution. Whenever necessary, we anonymize data and redact sensitive information. And crucially, we do not use AI where it’s not helpful or necessary.

Real examples of how we’re using AI

We have found that AI is at its best when it’s an accelerator woven into our daily work

From research and ideation, to content creation and data synthesis, it’s become an essential tool that helps us deliver results faster and smarter for our clients.

Every tool and workflow we adopt is rooted in our strategic understanding of each client’s context. We’re always in control — and we’re strict about choosing the right tools.

Broadly, we’ve seen the best results from embedding AI into six areas of our work: 

1. Data synthesis and analysis (Insight Synthesis Engine)

We use AI to process and distill large volumes of qualitative and quantitative data — including:

  • Summarizing large batches of customer interviews to identify recurring pains, language, and decision triggers
  • Extracting key themes from case studies, sales calls, win/loss analyses, and intake documents
  • Cleaning and merging fragmented data sets for sharper analysis
  • Generating quick synopses of market research or stakeholder feedback for internal alignment
  • Grouping insights into thematic clusters for messaging or content planning
2. Market and customer research (Market Intelligence Engine)

AI dramatically accelerates how we gather market and competitor intel:

  • Tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT (Deep Research mode) help us conduct fast desk research and competitive analysis.
  • We use AI to scan competitor messaging, campaign tactics, and thought leadership content across industries.
  • We build custom GPTs and agents loaded with anonymized client context and specific industry insights, letting us run targeted queries relevant to highly technical niches.
3. Strategic foundations (Strategic Blueprinting Agents)

We often feed our custom-built agents with sanitized internal data — product demos, positioning docs, and sales decks — to tailor outputs to each client’s context. AI acts as a second brain that helps us pressure-test and expand our strategic thinking with: 

  • Defining Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) with precision, backed by market signals and customer data
  • Drafting and testing positioning statements, value propositions, and messaging angles
  • Generating headline variations or alternative narrative angles for testing
  • Identifying potential whitespace opportunities in crowded markets
4. Content creation and editing (Creative Production Engine)

Great creative work still starts with human ideas but AI supercharges our ability to execute. This lets us move from idea to tangible assets at speed — without any sacrifices: 

  • Using ChatGPT, Claude Sonnet, and other models for first drafts of blogs, thought leadership, and marketing copy
  • Generating design variations and creative concepts via tools like Canva AI and other AI image generation and editing tools
  • Producing and editing video content using Descript, Veed, and Heygen, including subtitling and reformatting for different channels
5. Workflow automation and GTM engineering (Automated GTM Ops & Agentic Workflows)

AI lets us build sophisticated operational flows that once required heavy manual effort. We call this GTM Engineering — the art of wiring together data, tools, and logic to execute sophisticated growth motions with minimal human toil:

  • Clay and Clay AI Agents (Claygents): help map data relationships, enrich outbound campaigns, and orchestrate multi-step GTM processes
  • n8n, Make, and Zapier: connect disparate systems and create advanced automations that go well beyond simple “if-this-then-that” logic
6. Collateral creation (Smart Collateral & Lead Magnet Studio)

We also use AI to speed up the production of high-value marketing assets and lead magnets. This helps us create more substantial customer touchpoints for our clients:

  • Rapidly transforming multiple pieces of content into long-form assets like ebooks or whitepapers
  • Generating infographics and visual summaries from complex data
  • Developing interactive lead magnets using tools like Lovable—from quizzes and self-assessments to engaging mini-apps that gather valuable customer data
  • Building landing pages or microsites quickly for specific campaigns
Quick note: SEO & Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

We don’t believe SEO is dead. But it’s definitely evolving fast. 

We approach AI-driven SEO with caution, integrating Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tactics where appropriate:

  • Testing how to appear in AI-driven answers and summaries from tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity
  • Exploring how brand narratives might be surfaced by generative search experiences


Given the current volatility surrounding SEO, we rarely make it the cornerstone of a strategy. It’s a lever to pull where opportunity exists — not a reliable silver bullet.

The AI game is a long one

Throughout all these areas, our guiding principle remains the same: AI must improve outcomes, not just look impressive on a slide. That’s why:

  • We never input sensitive or non-public data into AI tools unless it’s secure and strictly necessary.
  • We anonymize or redact key details where possible.
  • We scrutinize every tool we use for security, data handling, and reliability.

AI helps us work faster, dig deeper, and scale smarter —but the strategy, creativity, and taste that make great marketing? Those stay firmly in our (human) hands.

Wrapping things up on AI

Marketing is smack dab in the middle of the AI transformation. The impact on B2B tech companies, marketing leaders, and commercial teams will be profound. 

That’s why we’re staying on top of the latest developments and flagging how these emerging technologies can genuinely drive better outcomes. 

Not more noise, but higher quality at superhuman speeds. 

For us, AI is neither a magic bullet nor something to fear. It’s a powerful tool and one that needs to be deployed carefully, strategically, and in service of creating genuine impact for our clients.

“I'm not the person who shouts loudly about AI from the rooftops, but it's impossible to deny that it is hugely disrupting commercial organizations and will continue to do so.

For us, the key is to not just use AI just for the sake of it or to trust it blindly, but rather employ it smartly as an accelerator and force multiplier for the things we as (human) marketing leaders do best: strategy, empathy, authenticity ann creativity."

Ferdinand Goetzen
Foundiung Partner at The Growth Syndicate