Chemical industry marketing trends: AI, budgets & buyer behaviour
Adam Smartschan, chief strategy officer at Altitude Marketing, looks at how AI and new methodologies are reshaping marketing in the chemicals industry
As we near the fouryear anniversary of ChatGPT’ s general release, the hype and chatter around artificial intelligence( AI) in the chemical industry has yet to abate.
Boston Consulting Group claims that“ chemical producers with an AIfirst mindset are already delivering significant value”, with enhanced molecule identification and operational improvements. 1 EY calls AI in the space“ a powerful enabler of change, offering the potential to accelerate product development, discover novel molecules, optimise formulations and improve cross-functional collaboration”. 2
Perhaps lost in the technical and quasi-technical conversation, though, is AI’ s multi-faceted impact on the industry’ s commercial functions. Altitude, a Pennsylvaniabased marketing and intelligence agency, recently conducted a quantitative benchmarking survey of 152 marketing leaders at US-based chemical companies. 3
The results told a clear story: AI and new methodologies are reshaping the way the industry goes to market, how commercialisation decisions are made, and where investments are( and are not) planned.
Survey methodology
Altitude’ s survey was conducted in August 2026. Fifty-five percent of the 152 respondents were directors of marketing at their companies, with marketing managers, product marketers, CMOs and marketing VPs dividing the balance roughly equally.
Two-thirds of respondents self-classified as being from‘ industrial’ companies, with further representation from the pharmaceutical, food and nutrition, agriculture, and energy sectors.( Respondents were allowed to choose more than one category.)
Just over half of respondents came from companies with annual revenues between $ 51 million and $ 250 million / year. Nearly all marketing departments represented contained six or more team members.
AI is the hot button
Both operationally and strategically, the surveyed chemical industry commercial leaders are focused on AI. AI search( being recommended or cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.) was cited as the No. 2 driver of qualified new business leads in 2026, trailing only accountbased marketing( ABM).
A survey-high 34 % of respondents, meanwhile, said that AI search optimisation( also known as AEO or GEO), in contrast to the traditional SEO) is their top marketing spending priority in 2027, with ABM at No. 2. Asked about their own AI usage, 60 % of respondents indicated that they use the tech daily, with only 7 % saying they use it monthly or‘ never’.
Most estimate that they are saving five to ten hours a week using AI, with the most value coming from automated data analysis, content generation and repurposing, and finding information. This represents an interesting paradigm. ABM, broadly, refers to creating‘ markets of one’, with individualised sales and marketing campaigns targeted at a single company or even a single individual or role within a company.
The concept is based around building relationships, establishing rapport and proving credibility. While the tactics – hyper-targeted advertising, personalised content, etc. – are modern, the overall effort closely resembles outside sales, a decades-old concept. Meanwhile, AI as we know it is only perhaps four years old – an entirely new and entirely fast-changing concept.
62 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981