Ask AI to build you a go-to-market plan and you’ll get something impressively structured. Target audience segments? Check. Channel strategy? Check. Pricing considerations? All there. It’ll even throw in a timeline with phases and milestones that look straight out of a consulting deck.
Then you try to execute it in Mumbai, or São Paulo, or Jakarta, and realize the plan speaks fluent “Generic Business English” but doesn’t understand a word of the local language.
The Template Looks Perfect Until It Doesn’t
AI builds go-to-market plans the way architects design houses, clean lines, logical flow, everything in its proper place. And just like architectural blueprints, they work great until you realize the foundation assumes flat ground and you’re building on a hill.
The framework AI generates isn’t wrong. It’s just neutral. AI gives you the skeleton. But skeletons don’t walk around making sales calls.
What Gets Lost in Translation
What doesn’t show up in AI-generated GTM plans are the unwritten rules. The cultural shortcuts. The “everyone here just knows this” knowledge that determines whether your strategy flops or flies.
Your AI plan says to launch with digital-first acquisition because that’s what works globally. But your team knows the WhatsApp group admins in every neighborhood are the real gatekeepers. The plan recommends aggressive pricing to capture market share fast. Your local sales team knows that discounting too early kills brand perception permanently in this market because luxury positioning isn’t about price, it’s about patience.
Or take channel strategy. AI confidently tells you to prioritise e-commerce because penetration rates are growing. What it doesn’t tell you is that cash-on-delivery is still king, return policies are deal-breakers nobody talks about, and the real competition isn’t other brands, it’s the kiranas who’ve been serving this community for generations and aren’t going anywhere.
The Intel That Actually Matters
This is where your team stops being plan executors and becomes plan translators. You take that solid GTM framework and run it through reality:
- Which distribution partners deliver on time versus which ones just say they do?
- Which marketing messages resonate versus which ones feel imported and fake?
- What time of year do budgets freeze because of religious holidays the AI didn’t account for?
- Which government approval process takes three weeks versus three months?
You know the local sales cycle isn’t 30 days, it’s 90, because that’s how long it takes to build trust here. You know the demo that kills in Singapore falls flat in Manila because the use case doesn’t match daily life.
Building Plans That Breathe
The magic happens when you use AI’s structure but fill it with local oxygen. Keep the phased approach, but adjust the timing because market readiness isn’t what the data suggests. Keep the channel mix, but flip the priorities because ground realities trump best practices. Keep the messaging framework, but rewrite it in the language your audience actually speaks, not just linguistically, but culturally.
Maybe AI’s plan says launch in metro cities first. Your intel says tier-two cities are hungrier and less saturated. Maybe the plan recommends partnership with big retail chains. You know the real wins come from regional players who move faster and care more. Maybe it suggests content marketing as lead generation. You know events and face-time are non-negotiable in this market.
Why the Combo Works
A solid GTM framework without local intelligence is like a recipe from another country, technically correct but missing the ingredients you can find in your market. And local knowledge without structure is just hustle without direction.
At Panorbit, we let AI build the plan. Let it organize the thinking, suggest the components, create the timeline. Then bring in what our team and what they know from being on the ground, the relationships, the rhythms, the resistances that don’t show up in market research reports.
Because at the end of the day, go-to-market isn’t about having the smartest plan. It’s about having a plan that works where you’re trying to go to market. And that requires someone who knows the neighborhood, not just the blueprint.
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