With AI rapidly surfing the web and compiling a company name, job title, and email address in seconds, why even spend money on a professional B2B data list? It’s a reasonable question. AI is truly transforming the field of sales and marketing. There is a distinction, however, between information found through AI and having a compliant, accurate, sales-ready database to which that information can be applied. Let’s look at why that distinction is important, even beyond appearances.
At the “doing the research and creative” stage in prospecting, artificial intelligence tools come into their own. They are excellent for looking at future markets and industries to focus on, and for compiling a company’s history and activity overview.
When used in this way, AI is a real productivity tool. The problem happens when a company tries to use it as its source for prospect data rather than as an enhancement.
Some think that the data a contact has on the web should be free for marketing. It isn’t under UK data protection law. Regardless of whether an organisation collects personal information for sales or marketing, the UK GDPR and PECR impose the same obligations regarding the lawfulness of processing, legitimate interests, transparency, and reasonable expectation. An AI tool that produces an email address doesn’t solve those questions for you, and any use of the contact can leave a business vulnerable.
The right B2B database is checked and renewed continuously. AI has no match; it’s working from anything it can access. This means it will be easy for the output to include people who have since left the company. The list may include companies that no longer trade. Some companies have ceased trading.
Data rapidly becomes out of date, and if there isn’t a verification process behind it, a list created by AI can be out of date even before it is used.
However, AI models sometimes produce information that is very convincing but not accurate, sometimes referred to as a “hallucination”. In a B2B environment, this may present itself in the form of:
This is exactly why every AI-sourced contact needs independent verification before it goes anywhere near a live campaign.
Of course, it is also vital to keep in mind that many of the websites, directories, and platforms that AI scrapes from explicitly prohibit such actions, including commercial use of their material and scraping. It can be problematic to build a contact list without knowing the source of the information, compounding the data protection issue with contractual or intellectual property issues.
It appears that AI contact lists are free to use as you go. But someone will have to review each record, remove duplicates, verify titles, validate email addresses, verify company status, ensure compliance, etc. Calculate the hours, and “free” data can become one of the more costly methods of creating a viable prospect list.
This is not a case of saying AI is not the answer, but of using it in the right place. The companies seeing the greatest success are using B2B data that’s been professionally cleaned and enhanced as the foundation for AI capabilities. Companies seeing the best results are using comprehensive, professionally cleansed, and enhanced B2B data as the foundation for their AI capabilities. The foundation is verified data, and the intelligence layer is added by AI: prioritising prospects, personalising outreach, identifying buying signals, and optimising campaigns throughout. This gives you speed without sacrificing confidence, and vice versa.
The power of AI is only going to increase, and AI has a place in today’s sales and marketing. However, when it comes to prospect data, accuracy, compliance, and trust must always be the top priorities. It’s not just a list of names and emails; it’s an asset for your business that you can maintain to reach the right people, stay compliant, and get more value from each campaign.
That’s what we do at Marketing Data Lists: supply your team with verified, regularly updated UK B2B information you can use to develop your marketing, with AI doing its thing alongside, not in place of, your team.
FAQ
Not automatically. Under UK GDPR and PECR, publicly available information, even if it is displayed for everyone to see, must comply with certain regulations regarding lawful basis, legitimate interests, and transparency before it can be used for marketing. Simply because it’s on the internet doesn’t permit you to use it.
There’s no free lunch with unverified data. In most cases, AI-generated lists will require further human review, deduplication, and compliance checks before they can be used, and the time investment is often more expensive than the cost of a professionally maintained list.
It is a situation in which AI provides information (such as a name, email address, telephone number, or job title) that appears plausible but is incorrect or entirely fabricated. While this is not always the case, it is a recognised limitation of current AI tools.
Yes, typically. AI is not working from a database that is constantly updated by the business; it is generally working from publicly indexed information, which may already be outdated because people have left or businesses have closed or merged.
No. If AI-generated lists are built using content from websites that prohibit commercial use or automated scraping, they may also create contractual or intellectual property risks.
No. AI is extremely helpful for research, personalisation, and campaign analysis. The recommendation is to use a professionally maintained and compliant data source, rather than relying on AI as the data source.
Built with UK GDPR and PECR compliance in mind, our B2B data is sourced, verified, and continually refreshed, giving your team a solid foundation on which to build personalisation and targeting with AI.
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