What Iron Man, AI, and Modern GTM Have in Common

Jun 15

3 min read

The future of GTM is a system plugging in and orchestrating GTM for you.

If AI is the Iron Man suit, then the question isn’t "What tool do I buy?" It’s "What mission am I flying into?"

That was one of many mic-drop moments in our latest Future Craft GTM episode with Jonathan Carver—better known as Coach K. As the head of growth at Momentum.io and founder of GTM AI Academy, Coach K has spent the last three years deep in the trenches helping sales and marketing teams make real progress with AI.

Here’s what stood out—and what every go-to-market leader should be thinking about now:

1. Most Teams Are Overconfident. Not Enabled.

Coach K cited a telling stat from his 2025 GTM AI report: 84% of GTM leaders say AI is a strategic priority, but only 24% use it daily.

Why the gap? Two reasons:

Leaders mandate AI adoption without giving teams the tools, training, or space to succeed.
Many teams confuse usage with fluency. Using ChatGPT doesn’t mean you’re leveraging AI. It means you opened the app.

Coach K’s advice: Start where you are. Focus on the single most impactful task you can improve with AI, and build from there.

2. Trust, Education, Intent: The GTM AI Triangle

Trust is foundational, but most teams treat it like a checkbox. Coach K broke it down:

Trust in your tools: Can you explain where your data goes? Do you have zero-retention agreements?
Trust in your team: Do they know how to prompt effectively? Or are they just copy/pasting into chaos?
Trust in outcomes: Are your outputs consistent enough to make decisions?

Education is the unlock. As he said: "You can spot a company ready to invest in AI by whether they’re already educating their team."

Intent is the differentiator. Don’t ask, "Which tool should I buy?" Ask, "What business outcome are we driving, and what’s blocking it?"

3. Don’t Add AI to Broken Processes. It Will Only Speed Up the Chaos.

This was a hard truth: Most "AI fails" aren’t tech issues. They’re strategy issues in disguise.

From AI SDRs to automation flows, Coach K warned that slapping AI on top of unclear sales processes or scattered data systems creates more problems than it solves.

The fix? Make sure your fundamentals are solid before layering in AI. Otherwise, you’ll just accelerate the dysfunction.

4. Enablement > Automation

Not everyone needs to be a prompt engineer—but everyone needs to be enabled.

Coach K recommends:

Giving every team access to a safe, customized GPT to practice.
Starting with one AI-enhanced workflow (like recap generation or persona research).
Investing in micro-education: not just what the tool does, but how it fits the job to be done.

Automation might reduce costs. But enablement increases value.

5. AI Won’t Replace Humans. It’ll Expose What Makes Us Valuable.

Coach K made a powerful case: AI can mimic your voice, your face, your writing. But it can’t replicate your originality.

In a world of AI agents, your value is your thinking. Your relationships. Your clarity. Your IP.

The teams who win aren’t the ones with the most AI. They’re the ones who use it most intentionally.

Final Takeaway: Don’t Build for AI. Build for the Human Powered by AI.

Think less about "integrating AI" and more about designing systems that enable humans to do more of what they do best. Story. Connection. Strategy.

The Iron Man suit only matters if you know what battle you’re in.

🎧 Catch the full episode of Future Craft GTM featuring Coach K wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you’re just starting your AI journey, start small. Start intentionally.

#FutureCraftGTM #AIEnablement #ModernGTM #B2BMarketing #TrustIsTheFunnel #CoachK