As artificial intelligence transforms the content marketing landscape, a new LinkedIn report reveals that business decision-makers in India continue to place greater trust in authentic human voices over AI-generated material. The survey, which captured the views of B2B marketers across the country, highlights that 84 percent of marketing leaders believe human-led storytelling and thought leadership remain more influential in building credibility and driving engagement than AI-driven communication.

A growing volume of AI content

Generative AI has made it easier for marketers to scale content creation across formats, from blog posts and campaign copy to whitepapers and personalized sales pitches. However, this surge in AI-produced content has also led to concerns about authenticity, originality, and trust. Marketers increasingly acknowledge that while AI can accelerate production, it cannot fully replicate the depth of human experience and intuition that audiences seek.

According to the report, business audiences in India are becoming more discerning. With an overload of AI-written text, they are increasingly drawn to insights that reflect lived experience, sectoral expertise, and authentic points of view. This signals a need for brands to balance efficiency gains from AI with stronger human inputs in thought leadership and customer communication.

Human-led thought leadership retains edge

LinkedIn’s findings show that C-suite executives and senior decision-makers still rely on thought leadership content to shape vendor choices, evaluate partnerships, and stay informed about industry trends. Eighty-four percent of surveyed marketers said audiences are more likely to trust content authored or delivered by credible human voices—whether it is a CEO, senior marketer, or industry expert—over content that appears formulaic or generated by algorithms.

For B2B brands, this suggests that while AI tools can help with speed and scale, the differentiation continues to come from leaders who share personal perspectives, sector insights, or case studies drawn from direct business experience. In India’s competitive B2B landscape, establishing human credibility remains a crucial differentiator.

Balancing AI efficiency with authenticity

The report highlights that Indian B2B marketers are not rejecting AI outright. Instead, they see value in using AI as a supporting tool—helping generate drafts, analyze data, personalize campaigns, or create scalable assets—while ensuring that final outputs retain human oversight.

One senior marketer quoted in the report noted that AI “helps with efficiency, but authenticity comes only when human leaders add their voice to the narrative.” This reinforces the growing view that the future of marketing communication is not AI versus human but rather AI plus human.

Building trust in the AI era

Trust is emerging as the most critical factor for B2B engagement. With information sources multiplying and misinformation risks rising, buyers are increasingly seeking signals of credibility. Human-led thought leadership—delivered through webinars, authored articles, interviews, or keynote sessions—continues to rank higher on the trust scale than mass-produced AI content.

The report also found that senior executives are more likely to engage with content that showcases an organization’s values, long-term vision, and leadership perspective. These elements are difficult for AI to generate convincingly without human input.

Implications for marketers

For B2B marketers in India, the LinkedIn report offers three takeaways:

1. Prioritize authentic leadership voices: Encourage senior executives and domain experts to contribute insights directly, building credibility and trust with audiences.
2. Use AI to scale, not substitute: Leverage AI to automate production, personalization, and analytics, but keep human judgment central to final communication.
3. Focus on trust and credibility: In a crowded content environment, human-led thought leadership stands out as a key driver of long-term relationships and brand equity.

Looking ahead

As India’s B2B ecosystem continues to expand, marketers are under pressure to deliver more content at higher speed. AI will undoubtedly remain central to this effort, but the findings underscore that its role will be that of an enabler rather than a replacement.

Human voices—credible, contextual, and experience-driven—will continue to anchor trust in the marketing mix. Brands that balance the efficiency of AI with the authenticity of human leadership are likely to resonate most with decision-makers in 2025 and beyond.