AI is reshaping the B2B SaaS buying process…and forcing us to re-engineer the customer experience, end to end.
AI is changing the buying process in B2B SaaS, and impacting how we must engineer the customer experience along the way
For marketers, it is a tremendous opportunity to redefine and take increasing ownership over the buying process. For sales, it means a shift in how you need to engage with buyers and reinforcement of skills sets around consultative guidance towards a decision.
If you move now to re-evaluate your approach, you have the opportunity to jump ahead of your competitors and find deals they are missing.
However most will wait, and risk being left behind.
So what has changed?
Prospect research now starts with AI search (29% of enterprise buyers start their research here). However, most GTM teams have only just started to experiment with how to leverage the LLMs to harvest demand. At best this means delayed engagement with potential buyers and at worst you are missing nearly 1/3rd of the demand out there!
Customers have never been smarter on the problem you solve and on your product. Customers come to conversations knowing even more and can see through the organizations who aren’t experts on the market and the problem you solve. Big implications for hiring profile, onboarding, and where you focus sales enablement!
More large deals are starting with or buying through self-serve (about 50%+ of $1M SaaS purchases now start here). GTM teams must think through how to align to this customer behavior, including how to build trust through access to your value. Reps must shift from maximizing the first transaction to being consultative coaches who add strategic context and unblock adoption across the lifecycle. Big implications to how we market, sell, and compensate!
Buying committees are becoming leaner (3–5 people, down from 7+). With more intelligence built into the buying decision groups via AI, decision committees can get more efficient and leave SMEs out of the buying process. Reps must understand these dynamics, target the right decision makers, and connect technical fit to business impact more quickly. Good news is that done well this can actually improve sales velocity though reduce cycle times!
Business acumen is no longer a differentiator among sales reps. AI prompts give all sellers the impact of an expert business analyst on their desktop or mobile. Having deep understanding of the company and buyer you are engaged with is now tablestakes and a massive miss if you are under prepared when you engage.
What revenue leaders must do now
Audit how your brand surfaces in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. This helps you a) understand how you present to prospects in this increasingly important channel and b) understand how your prospects will perceive you coming into discussions, allowing you to reinforce the right strengths and perceived weaknesses coming out of the models.
Build processes to capture demand flowing from the LLM models. Given 29% of buyers are starting here, organizations must ensure their systems capture this signal. There are implications for content build, channel strategy, and engagement data sources powering ABM that can be considered as you build systems to capture this demand.
Install “AI fluency” as a core competency for sales teams. Mandate that territory planning, outbound messaging, and pre-call research starts in your LLM of choice. This will make us more efficient and more effective. It also can democratize the skill of deep business acumen if done right. Also - balance the ease of doing the research with the temptation to outsource the last mile work which needs to be owned and executed by the sales team (at least for now!).
Evaluate and consider GTM implications of the self-serve trend. How are you enabling customers to engage and buy directly? How are you re-engineering compensation to pay for adoption, upsell, and renewal—not just won deals. How are you guiding the prospect through digital self-serve experiences? Lots to unpack here but certainly a trend that will continue!
AI has changed the buying journey - where it begins, its complexity, and has even served to compress the process as well. The teams who are able to align to these changes will differentiate the experience and beat competitors.
What trends have you seen in how AI has impacted the buying process? Would love to discuss!
