Most GTM teams have now put agents to work: prospecting, account research, follow-ups, CRM updates. The other side of the table has been busy too.
Salesforce surveyed 4,050 sales professionals: 54% of sellers have already used AI agents, and nearly 9 in 10 plan to by 2027.
Now look at the buyer. Forrester finds that 94% of business buyers use AI somewhere in their buying process, up from 89% a year earlier, and twice as many name generative AI or conversational search as their most meaningful source as name any other. G2's March 2026 survey of 1,076 decision-makers found that half of software buyers now start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google. And in G2's July report, 61% of buyers already use AI agents in buying, or plan to.
Gartner predicts that by 2028, 90% of B2B buying will be "AI agent intermediated." That's a forecast, not a fact yet. But the direction is already in the data.
We're building agents to sell. Our buyers are bringing AI, and more and more agents, to buy.
The four numbers
The first reader is now a machine.
Our first conversation with a buyer used to be a call, a demo, or a reply to an email. More and more, the first meeting happens between their AI and everything that exists about us: our site, our docs, our reviews, what others say about us.
That meeting decides more than we'd like. 6sense surveyed more than 4,000 buyers: 94% of buying groups had ranked their preferred vendors before first contact, and the early favourite still wins 80% of deals. In G2's survey, 69% of buyers say an AI chatbot led them to a different vendor than they had planned. And IDC finds that the share of buyers using vendor websites as an evaluation source has fallen from 66% to 37%.
The shortlist is being formed somewhere we can't see, by a reader that never takes a meeting. I call this the first reader. Before your people speak to a buyer, their AI has already read you.
Their AI meets you before your people do.
For builders, this is good news. The first reader isn't loyal to the biggest brand. In G2's research, 33% of buyers bought from a vendor they had never heard of before, and 85% think more highly of a vendor that an AI answer cites. The shortlist is open to any team the machine can find and trust.
But a human still makes the call.
The pitch decks get this part wrong: buyers aren't handing over the decision.
Only 9% would let an agent make a purchase, even within approved guardrails. The setup buyers want most is agents that research and recommend while humans keep all final decision authority (47%). Gartner surveyed 645 B2B buyers: 69% turn to a sales rep to validate AI-generated insights. They have good reason to. 64% of buyers run into AI inaccuracies often, and Forrester finds that 19% of buyers using these tools feel less confident in their purchase decisions.
How a buyer buys now
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01
Their AI
Researches the category
Will it find you, and say the right things?
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02
Their AI + team
Forms the shortlist
Are you on the list before first contact?
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03
A human
Validates and decides
Is your rep ready when they ask, "Is this true?"
Agent meets agent. Human decides. Our GTM agents have to be built for both halves of that sentence.
Four agents worth building.
Teams that build AI into how the work actually gets done are pulling ahead. Bain surveyed 1,125 sales and marketing leaders and found that AI winners achieve twice the AI-attributed revenue growth of laggards. Here are four agents for the new buying journey, each with a first move you can make this week.
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The visibility agent: will their AI find you?
Every week, it asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask. It records whether you appear, what they say, and which sources they cite.
First moveWrite down the 20 questions a buyer in your category would ask, and run them once by hand. That's your baseline.
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The proof agent: will their AI trust what it finds?
It keeps your facts consistent across your site, docs, review profiles and sales material, and flags anything that contradicts. McKinsey finds that inconsistent information across teams is now the number one reason buyers switch suppliers. Review sites now shape shortlists more than chatbots (38% vs 37%), and they're the citation buyers trust most inside AI answers (45%).
First moveTake the five claims you make most often. Check whether your site, your reviews and your sales deck say the same thing.
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The answer agent: are you ready when they arrive informed?
Buyers turn up with a shortlist and questions their AI couldn't settle. This agent answers fast, cites its sources, and hands over to a human at the right moment. Forrester's advice is to create content for humans, buyer agents and answer engines alike, and to treat buyer agents as part of the buying network.
First moveCollect the last 20 questions buyers asked before a demo. Make sure every one has a clear, public, ungated answer.
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The validator brief: is your human ready to be the trusted voice?
Before every call, this agent briefs the rep: what the buyer's AI probably said about you, where it's wrong or incomplete, and what the buyer will need confirmed. This is the moment 69% of buyers come to a human for, and it's where the deal is won.
First moveAdd one line to every meeting prep: "What does their AI think of us, and what does it get wrong?"
Change what you measure.
If the first reader is a machine, sends and opens tell you less than they used to. Builders are starting to track four things instead:
- AI presenceHow often you appear in AI answers to your buyers' questions.
- AI accuracyHow much of what those answers say about you is right.
- Arrived informedThe share of opportunities that come in already knowing you.
- Early-favourite win rateHow often you win when you're on the list before first contact.
None of these needs new software to start. A spreadsheet and an hour a week will do.
The agent that sends more is losing ground to the agent that gets you shortlisted. Build for the machine that reads you first, and the human who decides last.
Sources (13)
- Salesforce, State of Sales. 3 Feb 2026; 4,050 sales professionals, fielded Aug–Sep 2025.
- Forrester, "B2B Buyers Make Zero-Click Number One". Buyers' Journey Survey, 2025.
- G2, The Answer Economy: 2026 AI Search Insight Report. 1,076 B2B decision-makers, Mar 2026.
- G2, Buyer Behavior Report 2026. 22 Jul 2026; 1,000+ buyers.
- Gartner, Top Predictions for 2026 and Beyond. 21 Oct 2025.
- 6sense, 2025 Buyer Experience Report. 12 Nov 2025; 4,000+ buyers.
- IDC, "Your buyer has moved. Has your GTM?". 18 Sep 2026.
- Gartner, 69% of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights. 20 May 2026; 645 buyers, fielded Aug–Sep 2025.
- Forrester, 2026 B2B Marketing, Sales and Product Predictions. 28 Oct 2025.
- Robert Rose, Content Marketing Institute, "B2B agentic commerce hype outruns buyer readiness". 29 Sep 2026.
- Bain & Company, "AI Won't Transform Your Go-to-Market Until You Transform the Work". 30 Mar 2026; 1,125 leaders, Jan 2026.
- McKinsey, "The future of B2B sales". 16 Jul 2026; B2B Pulse Survey, ~4,000 buyers and sellers.
- Forrester, "The GTM Singularity Is Collapsing Traditional Go-To-Market Approaches". 27 Apr 2026.
Navneet Kumar
Building Neolism in the open.