“We all have an extra colleague now who doesn’t sleep and is always answering us. They’re always there to support, and occasionally hallucinate.”— Sippora Veen, vice president, global partner marketing, Sage
The line got lots of laughs, but also nods of recognition. AI has arrived in partner marketing—and it’s not leaving. That was clear at The Voice of Partner Marketing event hosted in London by Pipeline360’s Michael Latchford, where Veen was joined by partner marketing leaders from Commvault, Kyndryl, and Salesforce.
What stood out from the discussion wasn’t a single breakthrough or bold prediction about the future. It was a shared recognition that the work of partner marketing is changing.
For years, partner marketing has carried a quiet expectation to do more with the same (or fewer) resources. The panelists highlighted how AI is beginning to reduce the effort in the routine, repetitive parts of the job—not relationship-building or strategy, but the operational weight around both.
Top Partner Marketing AI Use Cases
The panelists shared examples of where AI is adding value today:
- Doing more with less. Kristin Heisner, head of global partner marketing at Commvault, shared how her team is using AI to shorten partner onboarding, condense research, and generate first-draft materials—freeing up time to focus on relationship building and strategy. “It is actually allowing us to do more with less,” she shared.
- Finding a common language. Partner marketing often requires coordination across multiple internal and external teams. At Kyndryl, teams are using AI to better align and reduce back-and-forth, particularly with more complex projects, said Angharad West, vice president, strategic alliances. “AI helps us get to shared understanding faster.”
- Building a culture of shared experimentation. At Sage, AI adoption is happening from the inside out, with marketers experimenting, sharing prompts and models, and shaping new workflows together, shared Sippora Veen, vice president, global partner marketing. “Our entire marketing organization has the mandate to build. We’re building guardrails in parallel, but in the meantime, we’re encouraging AI experimentation.”
- Improving communication. Salesforce uses AI to rapidly adapt campaigns to other regions and answer repetitive questions directly in Slack—such as those related to branding or the company’s flagship event, Dreamforce. “It frees up a lot of time and really helps partners self-enable,” said Julia Günther, senior manager, regional partner marketing.
Yet none of these use cases replace the core of the role. Partner marketing still depends on judgment, alignment, and trust: people who can communicate across teams and find common ground. AI is taking weight out of the surrounding work—not the work itself.
Keeping It Real
No one on the panel suggested AI is perfect, or anywhere close to finished. Teams are learning how to let AI take a useful first pass without expecting a final result, how to maintain tone and nuance, and how to build trust by staying on top of the quality of AI use cases.
That shift is less technological than cultural: Someone tries something small, shares it, and others build on it. The panel discussion revealed that AI isn’t being introduced top-down in partner marketing; it’s being adopted by people close enough to the work to see where it makes a difference.
Across the conversation, panelists described a direction rather than a destination. AI is beginning to remove friction in coordination, onboarding, and day-to-day enablement. The advantage will belong to the teams that normalize experimentation, reach shared understanding faster, and stay adaptable as the tools evolve.
Watch the whole conversation: Modernizing Partner Marketing Workflows and GTM with AI.
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