“B2B is just such a unique animal… So it really merits having something that’s native to it—in brand tone and voice,” says Edisource co-founder and COO Dillon Roulet (pictured).
In my recent conversations with B2B media CEOs, utilizing AI to its fullest stands tall. Tim Andrews, president and CEO of Advertising Specialty Institute, told me how his company is using it both internally on marketing pieces and externally, embedding AI in some of its products, most notably presentations.
But there’s also the time and knowledge to consider. I’ve heard a lot about having editors “play with it some” and volunteer committees being formed to experiment with AI, see how and where it can help. In other words, yes we have to stay on top of this but also do our regular work at the same time.
Enter Edisource and co-founders Dillon Roulet, Derek Reisfield (also a co-founder of MarketWatch) and Scott Roulet (BPA Worldwide, BBN Networks, and Cygnus). They have spent the last couple years building what Dillon Roulet calls the first AI-powered content suite specifically for B2B publishers.
“Scott and Derek had been working with publishers on the M&A side for a good period of time, and saw the trajectory that resources are becoming constrained and limited,” Dillon told me on a Zoom call this morning also with Scott. “And that publishers have to be able to leverage and activate all of the content they’re producing, whether it’s at conferences or in webinars, and access that in a way where it’s platform agnostic.
“At the same time they’re facing these budgetary constraints that are basically going to only continue and inhibit the ability to onboard and expand their newsrooms.”
Roulet saw an opportunity to fill a need, which is that everybody understands what AI is capable of doing—and the potential of ChatGPT—but there are challenges that publishers simply can’t overcome without the proper tools, knowledge, and person power.
“We started coming up with some models and methodologies that worked,” Dillon Roulet said. “We were able to validate them with our pilot publishers and overcome some of the barriers. And we’re now getting to a point where it’s pretty exciting, the difference that we’re able to make for publishers… to have this AI ecosystem able to ultimately spit out generated content that is within the tone, voice, and subject matter expertise of their particular newsroom.
Roulet was referring to a six-month beta session his company recently underwent with Questex, ALM and BNP Media. “We definitely wanted to start with a core group of B2B publishers to really understand what they need and how we could adapt the product to that. I think we learned a lot.”
One need was rewriting press releases. “They just don’t have time,” Roulet said. “And some companies that are pitching them are advertisers or sponsors. So obviously, there is a relationship management element in there. At the same time, it’s still an editorial newsroom that needs to be focused on what the most important news of the day is.
“So if something is not as newsworthy, it’s obviously not going to take priority. They wanted to fill that void and use us to help manage and automate some of that low-hanging fruit.”
Given the potential of AI, that was just the beginning. “It’s drastically evolved since then,” Roulet said. “It’s very clear that there are many more use cases coming out of this. And actually working with ALM, Questex and BNP Media, getting into the flow of onboarding them over the past couple of months, we realized that there are opportunities also on the marketing services and events sides.”
Having Scott Roulet on hand as a board member gives Edisource another well-respected and experienced B2B mind.
“What I learned as the guy who counts the beans is that this is in demand, and publishers have very quickly embraced paying for it,” he said. “Which for any new venture, that’s the ultimate test. Will someone pay for it? And so it’s been a great validation… It’s our customers that have developed these use cases. We’ve just fortunately been able to stay ahead on the development to support those very quickly.”
Dillon Roulet agrees. “The dynamics and technology change on a weekly basis. And it’ll elevate your blood pressure, trying to keep up with everything,” he said. “Our big focus is really trying to stay ahead of the curve. We’re always experimenting. We’re always going back and looking at our content results and analyzing these to find out where we can improve things.”
The other advantage that Edisource has is its commitment to B2B media.
“Initially, we were asked to take a look at a company in B2C that had a similar theory and platform,” Dillon said. There were things about that business that we didn’t particularly like. But it did give us an idea of how to combine the technology innovation of AI with the human element and expertise specifically around B2B media… So we saw a very clear open lane to serve that that community—and its publishing umbrella.”
