The CMO Guide to Forrester’s B2B Summit North America 2026

According to Forrester’s State of Business Buying, 2026, the average B2B purchase now involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers, with generative AI becoming the most frequently cited tool buyers use to research purchases. And yet 19% of buyers using AI tools feel less confident because of unreliable AI-generated information. They compensate by expanding their buying networks and leaning on analyst reports, subject matter experts, and peer communities to validate what they find with AI search.

The result is a buying environment where visibility is necessary but it’s not enough. At TopRank Marketing, we call this the age of Best Answer Brands: companies that earn their position as the most credible, relevant answer where buyers are looking – in search, AI summaries, communities, through influencers, and through analyst reports.

Forrester calls the force behind these changes and more in the B2B marketing space, the GTM Singularity: AI-driven buyer autonomy is collapsing traditional go-to-market models across marketing, sales, product, and customer success. It’s the theme of B2B Summit North America, which is taking place April 26-29 in Phoenix, and the organizing theme for four days of research-backed sessions built around the decisions CMOs are facing right now:

• Brand and demand convergence
• Measurement accountability
• AI governance
• Organization design for a hybrid human-AI workforce

I will be heading to Phoenix to attend B2B Summit for the first time. To prepare myself and to share with our community of B2B marketing execs, I asked four senior Forrester analysts that are presenting at the event, Kelvin Gee, Karen Tran, Lisa Gately, and Laura Ramos, what CMO-level marketers need to know to get the most from this event. Here is what they shared along with information on their presentations.

Note: I’ll be sitting down with Dave Frankland, VP Research Director at Forrester and GTM Singularity keynote speaker, on the next episode of the Beyond B2B Marketing podcast so be sure to watch for that interview.

B2B Summit recommendations for CMOs from Forrester Analysts

Kelvin Gee: Make Brand + Demand Your Preference Multiplier
Kelvin Gee, Principal Analyst for Demand and ABM at Forrester, is co-presenting one of the event’s keynotes: Make Brand + Demand Your Preference Multiplier, with Forrester VP, Principal Analyst, Ian Bruce. The core argument: brand and demand have operated in silos, but self-guided buyers form preferences before engaging with sellers, so every interaction must build trust and activate demand simultaneously. The brands that connect these disciplines create what Kelvin calls a “preference multiplier”, a compounding pipeline advantage that siloed programs can’t replicate.

According to Kelvin, CMOs attending this keynote will take away three ideas:

1. Why connecting brand and demand drives greater pipeline performance;
2. How to measure preference and its downstream revenue impact; and
3. How to map segments to a “starting grid” and assign the right plays to each

Overall, a practical planning tool grounded in buyer behavior data.

Karen Tran: Authentic Content Builds Buyer And Customer Trust
Karen Tran, Principal Analyst in Forrester’s Marketing Executive Strategies, Brand and Communications practice, is co-presenting on a panel with Forrester VP, Principal Analyst, Phyllis Davidson, Authentic Content Builds Buyer And Customer Trust.

The practical ideas their session include: building credibility through original data and distinct perspectives; co-creating content with internal experts and external influencers; and placing content strategically across owned, earned, and paid channels. Forrester’s 2026 B2B predictions found that 75% of enterprise B2B companies will increase budgets for influencer relations this year as buying networks rely more heavily on external voices to validate decisions – context that makes this session directly applicable to CMO budget planning.

Karen’s advice for CMOs: Summit is a rare opportunity for human connection. “Get business cards, ask questions, and share connections via social media.”

Lisa Gately: Leading When AI Democratizes Work
Lisa Gately, Principal Analyst at Forrester, will be addressing a leadership challenge that tends to get less attention than AI’s technical dimensions: when AI makes it possible for everyone on your team to create, publish, and adapt content at scale, what does leadership actually look like? Her answer is that the job shifts from approving output to designing the system – determining how work gets done, who owns judgment, and how trust is maintained.

Three actionable ideas CMOs will take from Lisa’s session:

• how to map high-volume work by risk and complexity before scaling AI;
• how to redesign ownership based on stakes and outcomes rather than historical handoffs;
• how to build enough personal AI fluency to coach, challenge, and design better workflows.

Lisa’s shorthand for the leadership shift, from approving work to improving workflows, is a useful test for any CMO that is evaluating their own readiness.

Laura Ramos: Using AI To Reshape Sales, Product, And Postsale Experiences To Boost Customer Value
and Humans vs. Robots Showdown: The Impact Of AI Agents On Human Roles
Laura Ramos, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, is presenting on two panels covering what AI means for human roles across GTM teams. Her framing on AI’s workforce impact cuts through the fear-based narrative. Forrester research suggests four times as many jobs will be positively transformed by AI than eliminated for example, but only if leaders invest upfront in what Ramos calls the “AI tax.”

Laura also offers a useful framework for navigating the conference: organize everything you take in around three buckets. First, a big vision item that shifts your mindset on a persistent challenge. Second, a tangible best practice you can apply immediately when you return. Third, a technology discovery from the exhibit hall or vendor sessions that could improve efficiency, scale, or effectiveness.

On the event’s core theme, Laura says, “Today’s buyers come fully armed to figure out what they need and that puts a lot more pressure on sales, marketing, the product organization, and post-sale to really deliver on their expectations – and to understand and analyze those expectations way earlier before you’re even talking to them.”

The CMO playbook for getting the most out of B2B Summit North America

Arrive with specific decisions in mind
Every analyst gave a version of the same advice: come to Phoenix with two or three urgent decisions you need to make: brand and demand alignment, AI governance, measurement accountability, org redesign. B2B Summit is built to pressure-test assumptions against independent research and connect you with peers that are wrestling with the same problems. The TLDR: specificity of intent produces specificity of outcome.

Apply for the Executive Leadership Exchange
Three of four analysts mentioned the ELE. The program is exclusively for C-level executives and includes private sessions, priority access to analyst one-on-ones, and structured peer networking. Ramos says it includes a dedicated focus on recognizing and overcoming the internal organizational boundaries that impede GTM effectiveness. Apply if you qualify.

Use analyst one-on-ones strategically
Bring a specific question or live decision: the measurement conversation you need to have with your CFO, the AI governance policy you’re trying to write, the brand and demand integration problem you haven’t solved.

Make the human connections intentionally
“Summit is a great opportunity for CMOs and marketing leaders to make human connections. There is incredible value in both the small moments and the big moments – inspiration from award stories on stage, shared experiences in workshops, learnings over lunch.” – Karen Tran

I’ll be at B2B Summit for the first time. If you’re attending as well, I’d welcome the chance to connect while we’re in Phoenix. If this would also be your first time attending B2B Summit, you can get 50% off using the code: FIRST-B2B26. There are only 100 passes available at this rate so be sure to check it out soon.

The shortlist of B2B Summit recommended sessions for CMOs

There is a full agenda for this year’s B2B Summit featuring over 50 speakers delivering over 100 distinct presentations and active sessions over the four-day event including keynotes, breakouts, analyst-led roundtables, workshops, and practitioner case studies. Below is a short list based on recommendations made by the analysts I connected with.

Will I see you at B2B Summit in Phoenix April 26-29, 2026?

As I see it, B2B brands that are going to thrive through the GTM Singularity are the ones building the kind of credibility and trust that buyers and AI systems both recognize. This is what Best Answer Brands are built to do, and what Forrester B2B Summit is built to help CMOs pursue with research, experts and peers who are solving the same problems. If you’ll be in Phoenix for the event, I’d be happy to connect!

Coming soon on the Beyond B2B Marketing Podcast:
Be sure to watch our Podcasts page (or subscribe via YouTube, Apple or Spotify) so you won’t miss my in-depth conversation with Dave Frankland, VP Research Director at Forrester. He’s giving the opening keynote at the event as well as serving as the emcee. We’ll dig in to the GTM Singularity and what B2B marketing leaders need to know as AI transforms go-to-market for B2B brands.  

Disclosure: Forrester has provided me with an event pass to this year’s B2B Summit