- AI in sales is now table-stakes.
McKinsey’s 2025 survey shows 78% of companies use AI in at least one function, with marketing & sales among the top functions adopting gen-AI; 71% report regular gen-AI use somewhere in the business. Buyer move: assume your competitors already run AI in the funnel; your edge is execution quality and speed. McKinsey & Company - Sales & marketing capture a big share of AI value.
BCG finds ~20% of enterprise AI value accrues in sales & marketing (vs. 23% in operations, 13% in R&D). Buyer move: prioritize use cases that move revenue (pipeline quality, conversion, deal velocity) before back-office experiments. media-publications.bcg.com - Gen-AI’s revenue and productivity upside is material.
McKinsey estimates $0.8–$1.2T incremental productivity potential from gen-AI in sales & marketing alone. Buyer move: build a 12-month business case tied to a few high-leverage workflows (discovery, proposals, renewals) with clear KPIs. McKinsey & Company - Agentic (autonomous) AI enters go-to-market.
Deloitte’s 2024–25 research flags agentic AI as the gen-AI tech most likely to shape sales/marketing near-term (named by 52% of directors/C-suite respondents). Buyer move: pilot “digital colleagues” for SDR follow-ups, meeting prep, and post-call actions under human oversight. Deloitte United Kingdom - Enterprise apps are rapidly embedding LLMs.
Gartner notes major enterprise platforms (e.g., Salesforce, SAP) are building LLM capabilities into their suites, pushing AI closer to daily seller workflows. Buyer move: favor integrations that ride your existing CRM/ERP stack to compress time-to-value. gartner.com - Adoption is high, scaling is hard.
Accenture’s Tech Vision 2025: only 36% of execs say they’ve scaled gen-AI solutions; just 13% report significant enterprise-level impact. Buyer move: treat operating-model changes (process, skills, governance) as part of the purchase, not an afterthought. accenture.com - Value realization depends on process + people, not tools alone.
Accenture reports clients that adopt five “value enablers” (e.g., re-designed workflows, talent, governance) are 2.5× more likely to realize gen-AI value at scale. Buyer move: budget for enablement (playbooks, training, evals) at 20–30% of tool spend. accenture.com - Personalization at scale becomes the default.
McKinsey’s sales/marketing work shows gen-AI is unlocking hyper-personalization and content automation across B2B/B2C journeys. Buyer move: invest in clean data contracts and message-generation guardrails so personalization is precise, on-brand, and compliant. McKinsey & Company - Risk, trust, and safe scaling are now C-suite issues.
McKinsey highlights inaccuracy, IP, and cybersecurity as the most common negative consequences—hence the push for structured governance from day one. Buyer move: require vendors to prove red-teaming, evals, PII handling, and model-change controls in the MSA. McKinsey & Company - Leadership and operating rhythm matter more than enthusiasm.
McKinsey’s 2025 “superagency” study concludes employees are ready; leadership and operating model are the bottlenecks. Buyer move: name an accountable owner (RevOps/CAIO), run 8–12 week value sprints, and revisit the roadmap quarterly. McKinsey & Company - Europe: urgency to scale for competitiveness.
Accenture (June 2025) urges European firms to accelerate AI scaling to close the productivity gap. Buyer move: if you sell in the EU/UK, align AI roadmaps with data residency, EU AI Act obligations, and local buyer expectations on transparency. newsroom.accenture.com - 2025–26 prediction: fewer pilots, more measurable lifts.
Forrester’s 2025 outlook: the “AI reality check”—boards will demand bottom-line impact from marketing/sales; accountability rises for GTM leaders. Buyer move: lock a quarterly benefits ledger (pipeline contribution, sales cycle days, win-rate delta) per AI initiative. ForresterCIO
What this means for AI product buyers - quick checklist
- Anchor to revenue: Prioritize three workflows with clear P&L levers (e.g., lead scoring → demo set, call notes → next-best-action, renewal risk → save plan). McKinsey & Company
- Exploit your stack: Use embedded LLM features in core platforms first; avoid bespoke builds unless you need differentiated IP. gartner.com
- Design for agents: Start with bounded agentic use (post-meeting summaries, follow-ups, A/B outreach) and graduate to multi-step automations. Deloitte United Kingdom
- Fund enablement: Budget for data quality, evaluations, prompts/playbooks, and seller training—drivers of realized ROI. accenture.com
- Govern from day 0: Bake in risk controls (inaccuracy, IP, security), change management, and model lifecycle policies. McKinsey & Company