AI, High-Intent Buyers and the Humans in the Loop

In my first CyberMarketingCon 2025 recap, I touched on three big shifts: how teams are using AI, how cybersecurity buyers are behaving and where human judgment still drives results. This post goes deeper into how those pieces are actually showing up in day-to-day marketing.

Across panels and hallway conversations, a pattern emerged: AI is changing how work gets done, but differentiation still comes from your story, your product and your brand. Buyers are arriving sharper and more impatient. And the teams that are adapting fastest are the ones designing for that reality.

AI as an accelerator, not the differentiator
AI was everywhere at CyberMarketingCon, but the most useful discussions were very pragmatic. The common thread: AI is taking on the heavy lift so people can focus on higher-value work.

Teams talked about using AI to:

• Turn long research reports into exec-ready briefs
• Repurpose webinars into blogs, email copy and social content
• Draft outlines and first passes that humans then tighten and refine
• Prep for media by quickly analyzing a reporter’s past work and simulating tough Q&A
• Surface intent signals and account patterns to inform ABM and demand programs

In a session on scaling cybersecurity summits, one point landed clearly: AI will matter, but it won’t be the thing that sets your brand apart. That comes from:

• The specific problem you choose to solve
• The strength and consistency of your point of view
• The way you package and tell your story over time

The teams seeing real value are feeding AI with their own reality – brand guidelines, ICPs, messaging frameworks, strong examples of past work – and then using the time they get back to think more deeply, not just do more of the same.

The AI-native front door and the high-intent buyer
Another theme was how AI is changing the way buyers reach your website in the first place.

The pattern looks like this:

• AI tools and agents are handling more early-stage questions.
• Overall site traffic is down, but the people who do arrive are more serious.
• Visitor intent and value are higher, because casual browsing often happens elsewhere.

At the same time, many B2B sites still feel like artifacts of an older inbound model: pages organized around internal org charts and templates, copy that reads like a brochure, and content libraries that are hard to navigate.

The recommendation was to design for the shortest path to “yes”:

• Make it obvious what problem you solve and for whom
• Help visitors answer their top questions within a click or two
• Organize content around buyer tasks and outcomes instead of your internal structure

Today’s cybersecurity buyers show up with specific questions – how something integrates, what impact it has on time to triage, how it compares to existing tools. They have very little patience for vague claims, jargon or unnecessary friction.

Reddit and community: where value is the only currency
Community channels were a big part of the buyer conversation, especially Reddit.

The distinction came up more than once:

• LinkedIn is primarily about networking and visibility.
• Reddit is about problem-solving and real-world experience.

On Reddit, users show up to ask for recommendations, share what is and isn’t working and pressure-test vendor claims. The brands seeing traction there treat it as a place to help practitioners, not as another ad placement.

A few principles from that session:

• Be specific. Niche, real-world scenarios perform better than broad positioning.
• Blend in. Creative that feels native to the subreddit earns more trust than something that looks like a traditional ad.
• Use humor and memes thoughtfully. When they fit the culture, they signal you understand the audience; when they don’t, they do the opposite.
• Make the pain point and benefit explicit. People should know exactly what problem you can help them solve.
• Think through the full journey from post or ad to landing page to offer. Each step should feel coherent and respectful of the user’s time.

One piece of advice for teams getting started: map your funnel and offer before you dive in. Decide what “success” looks like – awareness, engagement, pipeline – and what a realistic next step is for cold traffic.

Thought leadership, PR and proof
Several sessions focused on thought leadership and PR as levers for credibility in this environment.

A few themes stood out:

• Trend language needs substance behind it. Simply adding “AI” to your messaging doesn’t make it compelling; it has to connect to a real capability or customer problem.
• Strong thought leadership starts with original insight. That often means committing to research – proprietary data, structured analysis or well-designed studies.
• Rapid response can work when it adds context. We heard more than once that reacting to news is useful when you can explain what it means for the market, not just for your product.
• Repetition matters. A phrase that came up: “show it again, show it again, show it again.” The brands building recognition are repeating the same core proof points and narratives across channels until they stick.

Visual clarity and internal alignment were also part of the conversation: making it easier to see how your product fits into a buyer’s environment, and bringing product and sales leaders into the story early so everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Webinars, briefly
On the more tactical side, a panel on webinars shared a simple formula that still works in cybersecurity:

• Build topics around questions customers and prospects are actually asking
• Use webinars as part of ABM and demand plays, not just broad awareness
• Favor Tuesday–Thursday unless the topic is extremely time-sensitive
• Treat incentives as a nudge, not the main reason to attend
• Measure pipeline and opportunity impact, not just registrations

Underneath that, the basics still matter: a strong title, the right speaker and real substance.

Where this leaves cyber marketing leaders
Taken together, these themes add up to a straightforward, if demanding, mandate:

• Use AI to lighten the load on repetitive work so your team can spend more time on strategy, story and relationships.
• Design your digital experience for an AI-native, high-intent buyer who arrives with specific questions and little patience for fluff.
• Show up in communities like Reddit as a practitioner and problem-solver, not just a vendor.
• Anchor your thought leadership and PR in real insight and proof, and repeat your core story until the market can say it back to you.

If you’re looking at your own programs and wondering where to focus first, I’m always happy to compare notes.

Our cybersecurity team at Highwire works with companies across the ecosystem – from fast-growing startups to global enterprises – to bring together AI, buyer insight and human creativity in ways that are practical and measurable. You can learn more about our cybersecurity practice and reach out if you’d like to talk about what this could look like for your brand.