How AI and Authenticity Are Rewriting B2B Brand Playbooks
Let’s start with something that used to sound impossible: B2B brands getting funny on LinkedIn. Not quirky, not “relatable,” but actually funny. HubSpot’s social team has pulled it off, and the numbers back them up. They’ve grown their LinkedIn following by 84% year over year. And no, they didn’t do it by posting more whitepapers or repackaging blog posts with corporate-speak.
Their secret? Treating LinkedIn like a living, breathing audience instead of a bulletin board. Under the direction of Bryna Corcoran, HubSpot’s Global Director of Social Media, the team leans into memes, punchy captions, and a tone that feels more like TikTok than trade show. The content sounds like it was written by people who actually use the internet, which, shockingly, turns out to work.
The real trick isn’t just sounding casual; it’s timing. It’s testing. It’s trusting that your audience isn’t allergic to
personality. Corcoran’s team doesn’t just broadcast, they banter. They don’t just schedule, they scroll. That shift—from publishing to participating—has helped them build a brand that feels less like software and more like someone you’d actually want to follow.
But here’s the kicker. While HubSpot’s over here sounding more human than half the humans on LinkedIn, a new study from Ahrefs just dropped a stat that feels like science fiction. According to their analysis of nearly a million web pages from April 2025, 74% of all new content online was written by AI.
Let that sink in. Three out of four pages you’re reading online? Machine-written. Maybe even this one. (It’s not. I’m still typing, thanks.)
So what does that mean for marketers?
First, it means the content arms race is now a content cloning war. If everyone’s using the same tools to crank out the same kind of copy, the real differentiator isn’t speed; it’s voice. It’s nuance. It’s knowing when to sound like a person instead of a prompt.
To help teams get a grip on what’s real and what’s generated, Ahrefs launched a tool called “bot_or_not.” It scans web pages and flags AI-generated content, giving marketers a peek behind the curtain—both on their own sites and their competitors’. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. Even a rough sense of where the bots are buzzing can help brands figure out where they stand in the sea of sameness.
Human voice is your brand moat
Put these two stories side by side and you get a pretty clear picture of where we’re headed. Machines are writing more, faster, and cheaper than ever. But the brands that are breaking through? They still sound unmistakably human.
HubSpot’s success on LinkedIn isn’t just about being clever; it’s about cultural fluency—knowing how your audience talks, what they care about, and when to jump into the conversation. That’s not something ChatGPT can fake convincingly. Not yet, anyway.
Meanwhile, Ahrefs is waving a red flag. Authenticity isn’t just a tone-of-voice issue anymore; it’s a strategic edge. When AI-generated content becomes the default, sounding human becomes a competitive advantage.
And look, we’re not saying throw your AI tools out the window. That’d be silly. They’re useful. They’re efficient. They can help you scale. But if your content lacks personality, if it skips the lived experience, the humor, the risk, you’re just adding to the noise.
A few more things worth knowing
Google’s AI Overviews are now showing up in over half of all search results. That’s already changing how people click—or don’t. If your content isn’t showing up in those summaries, you might be
invisible.
HubSpot’s latest trend report is also worth a skim. It says short-form video and “value-led” content are leading the ROI pack. No surprise there. People want quick hits and clear takeaways. Don’t make them work for it.
And finally, AI tools are fueling a rise in solo entrepreneurs—especially Gen Z and women. The barrier to entry is lower than ever, and that’s changing who gets to build a brand, and how fast they can do it.
So yes, the machines are writing. But the humans? We still get to decide what’s worth reading.
That’s it for today, folks.
Catch you in the next post.
Until then, keep building.
– Perfect Sites Blog