From Stage to Strategy: Top 3 Sessions and Key Takeaways

Let’s talk sessions. Our team tuned in and took notes like our media plans depended on it. Because they kinda do. Here’s what stood out and how it will shape the future of how we build, budget, and break through.

1. “Embracing AI for Better Marketing Outcomes” with Asana’s CMO

This one hit hard in all the right places. From Asana’s 2024 State of Work Innovation report:

• Personalization drives up to 20x more revenue. Not 2x. Not 10x. Twenty. Let that sink in the next time you’re tempted to drop a one-size-fits-all nurture sequence.
• 38% of marketers are skeptical about using GenAI at work. (Cue existential dread and LinkedIn humblebrags.)
• 27% worry people will think they’re lazy for using AI. To which I say: if the prompt fits, wear it. AI is leveling the playing field for scrappy teams everywhere.

Here were the real gems from Asana’s approach:

• Start small. Use AI for intake, planning, execution, and reporting. Let AI eat your grunt work before it touches your brand voice.
• Inspire, don’t mandate. Not every marketer wants to be an AI prompt engineer—and that’s OK. But give them the tools, time, and trust to play.
• Find your super connectors. Empower the people who get AI, the business, and the audience. Let them lead the charge.

ROI·DNA Hot Take: Like Asana, we’ve been applying AI to the moments that actually move the needle: keyword discovery, persona-led search mapping, and full-funnel GTM execution via our AI Results Blueprint (more on that below).

2. “How AI is Reshaping Enterprise SaaS” with Box

“Why does your SOW take weeks when AI could draft it in six hours?”

That’s one spicy soundbite from Box’s session. And it hit hard. Because we’ve heard it before and because they’re right. We can’t be operating on 2018 timelines in a 2025 economy.

Box didn’t waste time on fluffy AI futurism. They got into the gritty stuff: how enterprise SaaS orgs are rethinking everything from procurement to proposals, using AI to compress workflows that used to take weeks into deliverables that now take hours.

The lesson?

It’s not about piling on more AI tools, it’s about making the ones you have disappear. HR bots. Procurement bots. Campaign deployment bots. Not as separate interfaces you have to manage, but as invisible muscles in a single streamlined system. Quietly doing the heavy lifting, so your teams can move faster, sell smarter, and skip the 47-tab hellscape. If your current tech stack looks like a digital Rube Goldberg machine built with duct tape and good intentions, it’s time to consolidate.
Because your buyers? They’ve been ChatGPT-ing contracts and Notioning SOWs in minutes. And they’re wondering why you need three weeks and four approvals to send a proposal.

ROI·DNA Hot Take: We put Qualified to work on our own site—meet ROIer, our AI-powered sales associate. She’s doing exactly what Box said AI should: working behind the scenes to move faster, smarter, and more efficiently. ROIer engages high-intent visitors in real time, qualifies leads on the spot, and books meetings before anyone thinks about bouncing.

That means our reps stay laser-focused on what they’re best at: closing, not chasing. Want to see it in action? Go say hi to ROIer—we dare you.

3. Wednesday Women: Power, Pastries, and Real Conversations

No keynote. No slides. This one was just a patio full of sharp, generous women, and a “Gives & Gets” framework that sparked some of the most real, most valuable conversations of the entire week.

Wednesday Women brought together executive leaders across tech for a guided session on what we each have to offer (“gives”) and what we need to grow (“gets”). Simple in structure, powerful in practice. We swapped intros and ideas over coffee and carbs—and yep, a few capabilities calls are already in motion.

Melissa Moody opened the space with startup advice and a network that could launch ten more ventures. Patricia DuChene shared wisdom from scaling companies and building international teams. Shira Abel offered marketing insights and a talk I’d love to hear: How to Alpha and Negotiate as a Woman.

My give? B2B marketing support—and, unexpectedly, tap dancing lessons. (Yes, really.) Before I stepped into boardrooms, I ran a dance studio. It taught me how to lead under pressure, improvise on the spot, and own a room. I’ve drawn on that more in business than you’d think. So when I shared that story—something I rarely talk about in business circles—it felt strangely grounding. A reminder that our work isn’t just about metrics or martech stacks. It’s about people.

And in the middle of a conference dominated by AI talk—tools, timelines, automation overload—this session was a vital reminder of what technology can’t replace: real, authentic, human-to-human connection.

ROI·DNA Hot Take: In a world chasing algorithms, don’t underestimate the value of showing up human. The “Gives & Gets” framework should be required reading for every B2B playbook. Because the most powerful tech in the room that morning wasn’t artificial—it was authentic.

The Three Questions Every SaaS Marketer Was Asking—And How ROI·DNA is Solving Them

Okay, so after soaking up the on-stage fire from the sessions, the team hit the floor, and the conversations didn’t disappoint. We logged about 239 convos (yeah, we actually counted) across startups, scale-ups, and enterprise giants, and the same three questions kept popping up like bad retargeting ads:

1. How do we get our brand seen inside AI tools, not just on search engines? (And how do we influence what those models say about us?)
2. Where can AI drive efficiency across media without losing control of spend or strategy?
3. What happens to demand gen when nobody’s clicking anymore?

And here’s what I love about those questions:
They’re rooted in curiosity and ambition—from smart marketers who see the shifts happening in discovery, decision-making, and the funnel itself, and aren’t content to just keep pace.

That’s exactly where our AI Results Blueprint and ROI·DNA Spark comes in.

Meet Our Answer: ROI·DNA Spark

ROI·DNA didn’t wait to see what AI would do to B2B. We saw the future coming and started building. Our team of innovators has been ahead of the curve, crafting proprietary tools to shape what’s next.

Meet ROI·DNA Spark—our AI-native, semantic search platform built to help SaaS brands stay visible, discoverable, and pipeline-ready in both traditional and AI-driven search.

ROI·DNA Spark helps you:

• See how your brand shows up (or doesn’t) in AI-generated answers
• Uncover the topics, keywords, and sources that LLMs prioritize
• Map how different buyer personas ask questions in AI tools and how to meet them there
• Maintain control of your narrative by showing up in the right sources
• Compare your AI presence to your competitors’ and to your SEO
• Build successful SEO strategies to optimize your brand visibility in AI answer engines

ROI·DNA Spark powers our AI Results Blueprint, a roadmap for brands navigating the biggest shift in search since Google launched. From optimizing your content for AI visibility to identifying how your paid and organic strategies should evolve, this is what B2B teams need to stay seen (and clicked). ROI·DNA Spark sees the shift. The AI Results Blueprint turns it into momentum.

We’re already using our framework with clients rethinking their GTM, reshaping funnels, and building visibility where it actually counts. The result isn’t just more traffic, but the right kind: qualified, high-intent, and engaged.

Final Thoughts: Funnels Break. Brands Evolve. Let’s Go.

We didn’t leave SaaStr with swag bags—we left with a thesis:

The best marketers aren’t waiting for rules. They’re writing new ones.

ROI·DNA Spark shows you what’s changing.

Our AI Results Blueprint shows you what to do about it.

Together, they’re your edge in an uncertain market.

So whether you’re:

• Ready to grow beyond traditional demand gen
• Wondering what AI’s doing to your pipeline
• Or just tired of your CPL creeping north

The landscape has shifted. The playbook’s changing. You know where to find us.

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