Guest: Lara Shackelford, SVP of Growth Marketing, MarTech & CRM at iCapital

AI is rapidly reshaping SaaS go-to-market strategies—but tools alone won’t drive growth. In this episode of SaaS Backwards, Lara Shackelford shares why most SaaS companies struggle to operationalize AI and how leaders can build scalable, AI-driven revenue systems instead.

The discussion covers AI readiness assessments, governance models, and why change management is often the missing link between experimentation and ROI. Lara also explains how agent sprawl is emerging as a real risk in modern SaaS stacks, why marketers must become fluent in data and automation, and how semantic layers enable sales, marketing, and RevOps teams to operate from a single source of truth.

This episode provides a systems-first framework for SaaS leaders who want to move beyond AI hype and build durable, revenue-driving infrastructure.

Prefer to watch the episode? Check out this episode's video here. 

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting