April 25, 2025 • 14 mins
In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Forrester B2B Summit 2025 marketplace floor, Matt spoke with Jessie Johnson, Principal Analyst, Forrester.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Heinz (00:15):
All right, we're back live on the marketplace floor here
at Forrester, B2B Summit 2025.
Been an amazing couple days, andjust thanks again to the Forrester
PR team for making this possible.
We are coming up on interviewnumber 20, I think across a
variety of different people here.
So excited to have with us right now.
Jessie Johnson she's principal analystat Forrester, has some amazing research.
(00:36):
So she's unveiling and talking abouthere around how AI agents are impacting
and benefiting B2B go to market teams.
Jessie, thanks for being here.
Jessie Johnson (00:44):
Thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt Heinz (00:45):
It's a packed couple days.
We're here sort of midwaythrough the afternoon on day two.
We're joking that you need a handler.
I think you're the, of all the analystswe've interviewed so far, just the,
they got you doing a lot of work here.
Yeah a lot of places.
Jessie Johnson (00:58):
Yep.
It's like very good busy for us.
Matt Heinz (01:00):
Yeah.
If you're gonna come all the waydown here, if we're gonna spend
this time together just once ayear, let's make the most of it.
And I was saying before,kudos to the team for really
leaning in on interactivity.
Yep.
On the agenda this year I think,you know, a lot of conferences you
go to, and it can be good insights,but it's smart people talking to you.
Not with you.
And so to have the birds of a feathersessions at the breaks to have analyst
(01:23):
led discussions, which are sessionsabout a topic that previously would've
been probably just a PowerPoint decktalking to you and, okay, thank you.
Bye.
These were more interactive and it's agreat way to get people in the audience.
To engage with their peers,to share everything from best
practices to cautionary tales.
And I assume that was veryintentional, in terms of the agenda
Jessie Johnson (01:42):
Absolutely.
To help the attendeesmake those connections.
To learn from each other.
Yeah.
Not just what works, but what doesn't.
Right.
And more importantly, how are theymeasuring success and what does that
actually mean for their business?
Mm-hmm.
And behind that, what comes nextafter we reach this milestone,
where are we headed beyond that?
Matt Heinz (02:01):
And I've noticed just in the last couple days talking to, you
know, market operational marketers thatare like, going back to the trenches,
so to speak, and having to do thehard work that is modern go to market.
They're willing to talk about.
What's not working.
They're willing to talk about thefact that like this is not a linear
process and is never a straightforwardor fully moving forward process.
(02:23):
And I think sometimes we learn morefrom the cautionary tales and the
failures than we do the successes.
'cause we learn what not to do.
And that's a building block.
For being more likely to be consistently,predictably successful going forward.
Mm-hmm.
And that certainly applies to AI aswe all start to think about not just
random acts of AI and experimentation,but really truly integrating AI,
(02:44):
as an ongoing perennial componentof our go to market motions.
Mm-hmm.
You're talking here about AI agents,not just AI and like building, you
know, writing copy, but like trueagents that are really impacting and
driving B2B marketing performance.
Mm-hmm.
Let's start from the beginning.
Like, let's not assume everyoneknows what an AI agent is, so
what's your definition of that?
To start
Jessie Johnson (03:04):
an AI agent is something that has advanced reasoning
and decision making capabilities.
Mm-hmm.
They can retain context from say, oneinteraction or one job to the next.
And really if we thinkabout, you know, what is.
The difference between that agentand say, you know, an an AI tool.
Yep.
It is that reasoning capability,but also the ability for the agent
(03:27):
to act on what it's decided, but.
To provide that transparencyback to the human Yeah.
As to how it came to that conclusion.
Yeah.
Why it took that action.
Matt Heinz (03:38):
Yeah.
Jessie Johnson (03:38):
A more succinct definition as we think about the
AI agent versus agentic ai.
Mm-hmm.
So we keep hearing those termsand oftentimes interchangeably.
Matt Heinz (03:48):
Yeah.
Jessie Johnson (03:49):
So an AI agent is a business application
of an agentic AI system.
Matt Heinz (03:54):
Got it.
Got it.
I've gotten to the point whereI think this is really exciting.
I think this is gonna be aleap in performance and just
an impact for a lot of us.
There are many people that are stillon the other side of that and terrified
when they hear that these robots arenot just creating like semi decent
pictures but are now thinking andreasoning and able to make decisions.
(04:14):
And it becomes a bit of anexistential threat to be honest.
Mm-hmm.
For a lot of people, when I'm sure youhear this quite a bit how do you coach.
B2B marketers, they think about that.
Jessie Johnson (04:25):
Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, one thing that wehear about agents is no human
intervention required, right?
Yeah.
We see that kind of messaging everywhere,and that is, it's just not true, at
least at this stage, right, of the game.
Right?
So we're going to need, our humansare really our subject matter experts
from within an organization to helptrain and onboard that agent so that
(04:50):
when it does act on our behalf, right?
It's doing so withcontext of the business.
Of the customer and eventhe best ways of working.
We want that, you know, our bestbusiness development rep to be providing
that feedback and that oversight tothat agent to try and emulate those
behaviors that are top performing.
Matt Heinz (05:12):
I find that when companies and marketing leaders actually
break down the jobs to be done.
From AI agents, it actually helpssort of land the plane in terms of
what role they're gonna play andpeople go from being cautious and
fearful to being very optimistic.
Yep.
Because AI agents are taking overthe jobs that none of us really
wanna spend time doing anyway.
Mm-hmm.
That you really don't want yourBDR spending time doing that
(05:33):
you don't want any of peoplein your marketing team doing.
You just need done.
And if we think about the past andthink about the things that we think
of that computing and the internetis just, we take it for granted.
This is a different leap.
It may be bigger, itmay be more substantial.
But it certainly includes thingsthat we took for granted before
that we had to do ourselves.
Jessie Johnson (05:51):
Yep.
Matt Heinz (05:52):
And now we're at that point again.
Jessie Johnson (05:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think one of the appealing.
Things here as we think about AIagents is that we're actually going to
learn a lot from those agents right.
As they work versus, you know, say otherdisruptive technology that's kind of
come into the picture along the way.
Yep.
So if we think about the agenticcapabilities, so an agentic AI
(06:16):
agent can actually provide us withhow it arrived at its decision.
Mm-hmm.
So kind of that full transparency.
I was thinking about doing itthis way, but then I, you know,
here's my output and here's why.
Yeah.
So that's a real opportunity as wethink about where's the human in the
future, helping the human and theAI actually get smarter together.
Matt Heinz (06:37):
I've seen some companies start to build what we traditionally
would've called an org chart, and they'recalling it a accountability chart.
Yep.
And so you think about itmore as the jobs to be done.
So you still say, okay, I've gottacreate demand, I've got a brand
function, I've gotta do some creative,I've got some ops work to do.
And you break down the jobs tobe done in those areas, right?
And the job needs to be doneby something or someone.
(06:59):
And so you end up with a chart thatif you're looking at it sort of
horizontally, you know, from left toright at the bottom of the chart are
things that we need machines to do for us.
Yeah.
Some of them machineshave done for a while.
Some of them are AI embedded inmany of the tools and vendors we see
on the marketplace in front of us.
But some of them aregonna be these AI agents.
Yeah.
That we're gonna be able to trainand are taking over that work and.
This is where the rubber meets theroad for companies that do this.
(07:21):
'cause I think they look at thatand say, not only I fully accept
them doing that work, I can't waitfor them to take over these other
things as the technology improves.
Jessie Johnson (07:30):
Yep.
To expand their scope of responsibility.
Matt Heinz (07:34):
Yeah.
Jessie Johnson (07:34):
And the processes that they can actually improve for us.
Matt Heinz (07:38):
Yep.
And
Jessie Johnson (07:38):
the goals.
That they can execute against.
I think the idea of using an agentfor demand generation is super
interesting because all of thedifferent components that go into that.
Yep.
It's insights, it's action.
It's creating these very compellingand contextually relevant
experiences for our prospects.
So there's a lot of differentlayers there, right.
(08:00):
That we need either, you know,some kind of a. Super agent
that can handle all of that.
Yeah.
Or we need a bit of ateam of agents, right.
That can accomplish that workby working together and passing
their outputs back and forth.
Whether that's more customerprospect insights or maybe content
that they've generated on the fly.
Matt Heinz (08:20):
Yep.
Jessie Johnson (08:20):
To fuel some of the digital experiences that
will ultimately fill Pipeline.
Matt Heinz (08:25):
We're talking live here on the marketplace floor at Forrester
B2B Summit 25 with Jessie Johnson,principal analyst at Forrester.
Trying to just make peoplefeel a little safer mm-hmm.
About AI agents coming along.
And it's similar to me, like towhen AI first came out and everyone
didn't know what it was or how tostart it, and the advice remember was
just like, get in there and do it.
Right.
Just get in there, like, think anythingyou need to do, see if the AI could
(08:45):
do it, and early on it's like itcan't do most of it, and then it's
gonna do things in a awkward way.
And increasingly it's doingmore and more things better.
And I think for those that have leanedinto it the most, they find it, it
supercharges their productivity.
Yes.
And it really allows them tofocus on the more uniquely
human elements of go to market.
I think, you know, AI Agent 1.0 waslike, we can get rid of the BDRs.
(09:09):
We don't need them.
We have AI agents that can do that.
We can get rid of our copywriters'cause AI's just gonna do it.
Mm-hmm.
Ai Agent 2.0 was realizing, okay,well that's a little too far.
We still need humans todo part of this work.
We are still, unless robots stillare robots, our lizard brains
still want to talk to each other.
Mm-hmm.
And more.
Faster, cheaper content is notimproving the experience for the buyer.
(09:31):
Right.
So if we can find that rightinsight, but then deliver that
in a uniquely human way mm-hmm.
It maximizes machineand human along the way.
Jessie Johnson (09:40):
Absolutely.
And if we think about even thecontent kind of creation, production
use case, we've succeeded in turning alot of content creators into editors.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Right.
That increase in volume has increasedthe need for that human oversight.
Right.
So while we're able to kind of focuson the things that are uniquely
human, right, creativity, empathy,communication, all of those things that
(10:04):
our customers, our human customers, yeah.
We'll talk about the agent ascustomer maybe in a later podcast.
Yeah.
But those are the elementsthat aren't gonna go away.
Matt Heinz (10:13):
Right.
Jessie Johnson (10:13):
But rather they'll be amplified by our.
Work with agents.
Yep.
So if we think about using the agentsto actually improve our ability to
solve problems, not just get that quickoutput, but the thinking that goes into
that problem solving and to innovate inareas of the business to explore maybe
use cases or applications of a productthat just haven't occurred to us before.
(10:36):
Not because we're mere mortals.
Mm-hmm.
But because you know, it just kind of.
Brings about the ability to think alittle bit further outside of the box
Matt Heinz (10:45):
in terms of thinking outside the box.
Like what are some places for people togo and get ideas, prompts, scenarios,
to really help see what an agent can do.
Because we could talk about theoretically,but what are some places, I mean, I know
clearly within Forrester, within yourcontent, but like how do people learn?
From others and where can they go to getsome real life examples of what's working.
Jessie Johnson (11:07):
Yep.
Fantastic question there, Iwould say actually start with
your professional networks.
Mm-hmm.
Start with the humans thatyou're already talking with.
Yep.
Collaborating with that aretrusted advisors either for
your own purchasing journey.
We talked about the buying network.
Yeah.
At the conference or, you know, it'ssomebody that you trust for career advice,
(11:29):
for advice on technology implementation.
So yeah, start with thosehuman conversations.
From there, just do a littlebit of experimentation.
You know, go to an agent platform andgive it a few instructions and see
what it can actually produce for you.
Yep.
And how you can leverage and learn from.
The agent's reasoning how it arrivedat its conclusion and its output.
(11:53):
It'll really help to think sidewaysand differently about the problems
or the opportunities that we have.
And I think there'll be a lot ofdiscovery in that regard along the
way so that agent's gonna come backwith a few things that maybe haven't
occurred to the mere mortals yet.
Matt Heinz (12:09):
Let's fast forward to a year from now.
We're sitting here atForrester B2B Summit 2026.
Yep.
And we're clearly gonna betalking about AI agents again.
What do you anticipate will be someof the jobs to be done that today's
AI cannot do, but tomorrow's AI ismore likely to be able to pick up?
Jessie Johnson (12:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, in a perfect world, we'dhave that AI agent may be delivering
some of our presentations so we canspend more face to face time yep.
With our attendees and our sponsors.
I think what we're gonna see too areally interesting application of AI
agents is this idea of an agent asmaybe a software or digital experience.
(12:47):
Yep.
End user.
So what do we need to do forthat agent end user persona
from a design perspective?
Yeah.
You know, when it comes to thewebsite or even when it comes to
a product, a software product.
So I think that's going tobe another really interesting
kind of area to explore.
Awesome.
I think we'll see also the amount ofinsights, rich insights, deep knowledge
(13:11):
and understanding of our buyer thatwe're just scratching the surface
of when we're using these AI agents.
I think a lot of companies, a lot ofmarketers, a lot of sellers are really
going to kind of latch onto thoseinsights and incorporate them more,
not just in the agent interactions,but in other areas of the business.
Yep.
Because of that agent, we learned this.
(13:34):
So we're going to use that to createuplift in this other effort or
initiative that we have going on
Matt Heinz (13:40):
Is Fargo starting to thaw out a little bit?
Jessie Johnson (13:43):
It is not, no, we are actually we're in a blizzard right now.
Oh man.
So I'm so happy to be here in Phoenix.
Matt Heinz (13:51):
Normally you come down here to Phoenix and it's like
surface of the sun hot, right?
Yeah.
And this week, like yesterday,it was like 70 today, like 65.
I'm really happy, like it's nice outside.
It's beautiful.
It's not too hot.
I don't know what it's doing in Seattle,but I'm guessing raining and crappy.
Yeah, whether it's raining,blizzard, whatever.
But Jessie, thank youvery much for being here.
I know you're super busy.
I know we talked about you now haveto go either upstairs or downstairs.
(14:11):
No one really knows.
Jessie Johnson (14:12):
Nobody knows.
I'm gonna hopefully figurethat out along the way.
I need my handler.
Maybe that's another rolefor the AI agent next year.
Matt Heinz (14:19):
Get some water, keep hydrating.
There's Advil at the 6senseBooth across from us.
Just get what you need.
Jessie, thanks so much for being here.
Jessie Johnson (14:25):
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me, Matt.
All right, we're back live on the marketplace floor here
at Forrester, B2B Summit 2025.
Been an amazing couple days, andjust thanks again to the Forrester
PR team for making this possible.
We are coming up on interviewnumber 20, I think across a
variety of different people here.
So excited to have with us right now.
Jessie Johnson she's principal analystat Forrester, has some amazing research.
(00:36):
So she's unveiling and talking abouthere around how AI agents are impacting
and benefiting B2B go to market teams.
Jessie, thanks for being here.
Jessie Johnson (00:44):
Thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt Heinz (00:45):
It's a packed couple days.
We're here sort of midwaythrough the afternoon on day two.
We're joking that you need a handler.
I think you're the, of all the analystswe've interviewed so far, just the,
they got you doing a lot of work here.
Yeah a lot of places.
Jessie Johnson (00:58):
Yep.
It's like very good busy for us.
Matt Heinz (01:00):
Yeah.
If you're gonna come all the waydown here, if we're gonna spend
this time together just once ayear, let's make the most of it.
And I was saying before,kudos to the team for really
leaning in on interactivity.
Yep.
On the agenda this year I think,you know, a lot of conferences you
go to, and it can be good insights,but it's smart people talking to you.
Not with you.
And so to have the birds of a feathersessions at the breaks to have analyst
(01:23):
led discussions, which are sessionsabout a topic that previously would've
been probably just a PowerPoint decktalking to you and, okay, thank you.
Bye.
These were more interactive and it's agreat way to get people in the audience.
To engage with their peers,to share everything from best
practices to cautionary tales.
And I assume that was veryintentional, in terms of the agenda
Jessie Johnson (01:42):
Absolutely.
To help the attendeesmake those connections.
To learn from each other.
Yeah.
Not just what works, but what doesn't.
Right.
And more importantly, how are theymeasuring success and what does that
actually mean for their business?
Mm-hmm.
And behind that, what comes nextafter we reach this milestone,
where are we headed beyond that?
Matt Heinz (02:01):
And I've noticed just in the last couple days talking to, you
know, market operational marketers thatare like, going back to the trenches,
so to speak, and having to do thehard work that is modern go to market.
They're willing to talk about.
What's not working.
They're willing to talk about thefact that like this is not a linear
process and is never a straightforwardor fully moving forward process.
(02:23):
And I think sometimes we learn morefrom the cautionary tales and the
failures than we do the successes.
'cause we learn what not to do.
And that's a building block.
For being more likely to be consistently,predictably successful going forward.
Mm-hmm.
And that certainly applies to AI aswe all start to think about not just
random acts of AI and experimentation,but really truly integrating AI,
(02:44):
as an ongoing perennial componentof our go to market motions.
Mm-hmm.
You're talking here about AI agents,not just AI and like building, you
know, writing copy, but like trueagents that are really impacting and
driving B2B marketing performance.
Mm-hmm.
Let's start from the beginning.
Like, let's not assume everyoneknows what an AI agent is, so
what's your definition of that?
To start
Jessie Johnson (03:04):
an AI agent is something that has advanced reasoning
and decision making capabilities.
Mm-hmm.
They can retain context from say, oneinteraction or one job to the next.
And really if we thinkabout, you know, what is.
The difference between that agentand say, you know, an an AI tool.
Yep.
It is that reasoning capability,but also the ability for the agent
(03:27):
to act on what it's decided, but.
To provide that transparencyback to the human Yeah.
As to how it came to that conclusion.
Yeah.
Why it took that action.
Matt Heinz (03:38):
Yeah.
Jessie Johnson (03:38):
A more succinct definition as we think about the
AI agent versus agentic ai.
Mm-hmm.
So we keep hearing those termsand oftentimes interchangeably.
Matt Heinz (03:48):
Yeah.
Jessie Johnson (03:49):
So an AI agent is a business application
of an agentic AI system.
Matt Heinz (03:54):
Got it.
Got it.
I've gotten to the point whereI think this is really exciting.
I think this is gonna be aleap in performance and just
an impact for a lot of us.
There are many people that are stillon the other side of that and terrified
when they hear that these robots arenot just creating like semi decent
pictures but are now thinking andreasoning and able to make decisions.
(04:14):
And it becomes a bit of anexistential threat to be honest.
Mm-hmm.
For a lot of people, when I'm sure youhear this quite a bit how do you coach.
B2B marketers, they think about that.
Jessie Johnson (04:25):
Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, one thing that wehear about agents is no human
intervention required, right?
Yeah.
We see that kind of messaging everywhere,and that is, it's just not true, at
least at this stage, right, of the game.
Right?
So we're going to need, our humansare really our subject matter experts
from within an organization to helptrain and onboard that agent so that
(04:50):
when it does act on our behalf, right?
It's doing so withcontext of the business.
Of the customer and eventhe best ways of working.
We want that, you know, our bestbusiness development rep to be providing
that feedback and that oversight tothat agent to try and emulate those
behaviors that are top performing.
Matt Heinz (05:12):
I find that when companies and marketing leaders actually
break down the jobs to be done.
From AI agents, it actually helpssort of land the plane in terms of
what role they're gonna play andpeople go from being cautious and
fearful to being very optimistic.
Yep.
Because AI agents are taking overthe jobs that none of us really
wanna spend time doing anyway.
Mm-hmm.
That you really don't want yourBDR spending time doing that
(05:33):
you don't want any of peoplein your marketing team doing.
You just need done.
And if we think about the past andthink about the things that we think
of that computing and the internetis just, we take it for granted.
This is a different leap.
It may be bigger, itmay be more substantial.
But it certainly includes thingsthat we took for granted before
that we had to do ourselves.
Jessie Johnson (05:51):
Yep.
Matt Heinz (05:52):
And now we're at that point again.
Jessie Johnson (05:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think one of the appealing.
Things here as we think about AIagents is that we're actually going to
learn a lot from those agents right.
As they work versus, you know, say otherdisruptive technology that's kind of
come into the picture along the way.
Yep.
So if we think about the agenticcapabilities, so an agentic AI
(06:16):
agent can actually provide us withhow it arrived at its decision.
Mm-hmm.
So kind of that full transparency.
I was thinking about doing itthis way, but then I, you know,
here's my output and here's why.
Yeah.
So that's a real opportunity as wethink about where's the human in the
future, helping the human and theAI actually get smarter together.
Matt Heinz (06:37):
I've seen some companies start to build what we traditionally
would've called an org chart, and they'recalling it a accountability chart.
Yep.
And so you think about itmore as the jobs to be done.
So you still say, okay, I've gottacreate demand, I've got a brand
function, I've gotta do some creative,I've got some ops work to do.
And you break down the jobs tobe done in those areas, right?
And the job needs to be doneby something or someone.
(06:59):
And so you end up with a chart thatif you're looking at it sort of
horizontally, you know, from left toright at the bottom of the chart are
things that we need machines to do for us.
Yeah.
Some of them machineshave done for a while.
Some of them are AI embedded inmany of the tools and vendors we see
on the marketplace in front of us.
But some of them aregonna be these AI agents.
Yeah.
That we're gonna be able to trainand are taking over that work and.
This is where the rubber meets theroad for companies that do this.
(07:21):
'cause I think they look at thatand say, not only I fully accept
them doing that work, I can't waitfor them to take over these other
things as the technology improves.
Jessie Johnson (07:30):
Yep.
To expand their scope of responsibility.
Matt Heinz (07:34):
Yeah.
Jessie Johnson (07:34):
And the processes that they can actually improve for us.
Matt Heinz (07:38):
Yep.
And
Jessie Johnson (07:38):
the goals.
That they can execute against.
I think the idea of using an agentfor demand generation is super
interesting because all of thedifferent components that go into that.
Yep.
It's insights, it's action.
It's creating these very compellingand contextually relevant
experiences for our prospects.
So there's a lot of differentlayers there, right.
(08:00):
That we need either, you know,some kind of a. Super agent
that can handle all of that.
Yeah.
Or we need a bit of ateam of agents, right.
That can accomplish that workby working together and passing
their outputs back and forth.
Whether that's more customerprospect insights or maybe content
that they've generated on the fly.
Matt Heinz (08:20):
Yep.
Jessie Johnson (08:20):
To fuel some of the digital experiences that
will ultimately fill Pipeline.
Matt Heinz (08:25):
We're talking live here on the marketplace floor at Forrester
B2B Summit 25 with Jessie Johnson,principal analyst at Forrester.
Trying to just make peoplefeel a little safer mm-hmm.
About AI agents coming along.
And it's similar to me, like towhen AI first came out and everyone
didn't know what it was or how tostart it, and the advice remember was
just like, get in there and do it.
Right.
Just get in there, like, think anythingyou need to do, see if the AI could
(08:45):
do it, and early on it's like itcan't do most of it, and then it's
gonna do things in a awkward way.
And increasingly it's doingmore and more things better.
And I think for those that have leanedinto it the most, they find it, it
supercharges their productivity.
Yes.
And it really allows them tofocus on the more uniquely
human elements of go to market.
I think, you know, AI Agent 1.0 waslike, we can get rid of the BDRs.
(09:09):
We don't need them.
We have AI agents that can do that.
We can get rid of our copywriters'cause AI's just gonna do it.
Mm-hmm.
Ai Agent 2.0 was realizing, okay,well that's a little too far.
We still need humans todo part of this work.
We are still, unless robots stillare robots, our lizard brains
still want to talk to each other.
Mm-hmm.
And more.
Faster, cheaper content is notimproving the experience for the buyer.
(09:31):
Right.
So if we can find that rightinsight, but then deliver that
in a uniquely human way mm-hmm.
It maximizes machineand human along the way.
Jessie Johnson (09:40):
Absolutely.
And if we think about even thecontent kind of creation, production
use case, we've succeeded in turning alot of content creators into editors.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Right.
That increase in volume has increasedthe need for that human oversight.
Right.
So while we're able to kind of focuson the things that are uniquely
human, right, creativity, empathy,communication, all of those things that
(10:04):
our customers, our human customers, yeah.
We'll talk about the agent ascustomer maybe in a later podcast.
Yeah.
But those are the elementsthat aren't gonna go away.
Matt Heinz (10:13):
Right.
Jessie Johnson (10:13):
But rather they'll be amplified by our.
Work with agents.
Yep.
So if we think about using the agentsto actually improve our ability to
solve problems, not just get that quickoutput, but the thinking that goes into
that problem solving and to innovate inareas of the business to explore maybe
use cases or applications of a productthat just haven't occurred to us before.
(10:36):
Not because we're mere mortals.
Mm-hmm.
But because you know, it just kind of.
Brings about the ability to think alittle bit further outside of the box
Matt Heinz (10:45):
in terms of thinking outside the box.
Like what are some places for people togo and get ideas, prompts, scenarios,
to really help see what an agent can do.
Because we could talk about theoretically,but what are some places, I mean, I know
clearly within Forrester, within yourcontent, but like how do people learn?
From others and where can they go to getsome real life examples of what's working.
Jessie Johnson (11:07):
Yep.
Fantastic question there, Iwould say actually start with
your professional networks.
Mm-hmm.
Start with the humans thatyou're already talking with.
Yep.
Collaborating with that aretrusted advisors either for
your own purchasing journey.
We talked about the buying network.
Yeah.
At the conference or, you know, it'ssomebody that you trust for career advice,
(11:29):
for advice on technology implementation.
So yeah, start with thosehuman conversations.
From there, just do a littlebit of experimentation.
You know, go to an agent platform andgive it a few instructions and see
what it can actually produce for you.
Yep.
And how you can leverage and learn from.
The agent's reasoning how it arrivedat its conclusion and its output.
(11:53):
It'll really help to think sidewaysand differently about the problems
or the opportunities that we have.
And I think there'll be a lot ofdiscovery in that regard along the
way so that agent's gonna come backwith a few things that maybe haven't
occurred to the mere mortals yet.
Matt Heinz (12:09):
Let's fast forward to a year from now.
We're sitting here atForrester B2B Summit 2026.
Yep.
And we're clearly gonna betalking about AI agents again.
What do you anticipate will be someof the jobs to be done that today's
AI cannot do, but tomorrow's AI ismore likely to be able to pick up?
Jessie Johnson (12:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, in a perfect world, we'dhave that AI agent may be delivering
some of our presentations so we canspend more face to face time yep.
With our attendees and our sponsors.
I think what we're gonna see too areally interesting application of AI
agents is this idea of an agent asmaybe a software or digital experience.
(12:47):
Yep.
End user.
So what do we need to do forthat agent end user persona
from a design perspective?
Yeah.
You know, when it comes to thewebsite or even when it comes to
a product, a software product.
So I think that's going tobe another really interesting
kind of area to explore.
Awesome.
I think we'll see also the amount ofinsights, rich insights, deep knowledge
(13:11):
and understanding of our buyer thatwe're just scratching the surface
of when we're using these AI agents.
I think a lot of companies, a lot ofmarketers, a lot of sellers are really
going to kind of latch onto thoseinsights and incorporate them more,
not just in the agent interactions,but in other areas of the business.
Yep.
Because of that agent, we learned this.
(13:34):
So we're going to use that to createuplift in this other effort or
initiative that we have going on
Matt Heinz (13:40):
Is Fargo starting to thaw out a little bit?
Jessie Johnson (13:43):
It is not, no, we are actually we're in a blizzard right now.
Oh man.
So I'm so happy to be here in Phoenix.
Matt Heinz (13:51):
Normally you come down here to Phoenix and it's like
surface of the sun hot, right?
Yeah.
And this week, like yesterday,it was like 70 today, like 65.
I'm really happy, like it's nice outside.
It's beautiful.
It's not too hot.
I don't know what it's doing in Seattle,but I'm guessing raining and crappy.
Yeah, whether it's raining,blizzard, whatever.
But Jessie, thank youvery much for being here.
I know you're super busy.
I know we talked about you now haveto go either upstairs or downstairs.
(14:11):
No one really knows.
Jessie Johnson (14:12):
Nobody knows.
I'm gonna hopefully figurethat out along the way.
I need my handler.
Maybe that's another rolefor the AI agent next year.
Matt Heinz (14:19):
Get some water, keep hydrating.
There's Advil at the 6senseBooth across from us.
Just get what you need.
Jessie, thanks so much for being here.
Jessie Johnson (14:25):
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me, Matt.
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