Buyers are asking AI about your category before they visit your site. If your positioning lives in your CMO's head, that's a problem. The Gist AI magnifies weak strategy. Teams that skipped foundational marketing discipline are scaling inefficiency instead of pipeline performance. Readiness matters more than tools. Documented ICPs, attribution and differentiated messaging determine whether AI investments deliver measurable ROI. Most fixes are operational, not technical. Marketing leaders can improve AI effectiveness by tightening positioning, measurement and brand governance first. B2B marketers spent the last 18 months racing to embrace generative AI. Most of them skipped a step that matters more than any tool they purchased. The result is predictable. MIT research released in 2025 found that 95% of enterprise generative AI pilots returned no measurable financial impact. That figure is not a commentary on the technology, but on the conditions marketing leaders asked the technology to operate inside.…