Budget Planning

Analyst relations is one of the larger fixed costs in an enterprise B2B marketing budget and one of the least examined. As buyers begin vendor research in AI assistants, and the analyst firms put generative interfaces over their own research, the path by which analyst opinion reaches a buying committee has changed. The briefing matters less than what ends up in writing. Here is how to evaluate the program honestly before the 2027 renewal, and where to move the effort.

Agency scopes for 2027 are being drafted over the next six weeks, and most of them still price deliverable counts and hours—the two things AI made cheap. Procurement has noticed and will ask for an efficiency discount. Taking that discount naively strips out the senior judgment you were actually paying for and leaves the production you could have automated yourself. Here is what is genuinely scarce in an agency relationship now, how to structure a scope around it, and the contract terms nobody has updated yet.

Renewal season opens in the next few weeks, and the quotes coming back look different: AI capabilities that arrived bundled and free are now metered, and the meter runs on units most marketing teams have never measured. This is the same transition infrastructure teams went through with cloud a decade ago, with one added complication—agents consume without anyone asking them to. Here is how to instrument, forecast, and negotiate consumption before you sign a contract you cannot budget.

Planning season for 2027 is opening, and marketing leaders are walking into it armed with the wrong argument. Three years of efficiency narratives around AI have handed finance a simple counter-question: if AI made your work cheaper, why does your budget need to grow? Here is how to build an investment case that survives that question—and what to stop promising.

As 2024 ends, marketing leaders are planning for 2025. Here’s guidance on priorities that will matter versus trends that will disappoint—based on what we’ve seen work this year.