The controversy over whether or not synthetic intelligence belongs within the company boardroom seems to be over — a minimum of for the individuals answerable for producing income.

Seven in ten enterprise income leaders now belief AI to usually inform their enterprise selections, in keeping with a sweeping new study released Thursday by Gong, the income intelligence firm. The discovering marks a dramatic shift from simply two years in the past, when most organizations handled AI as an experimental know-how relegated to pilot packages and particular person productiveness hacks.

The analysis, primarily based on an evaluation of seven.1 million gross sales alternatives throughout greater than 3,600 corporations and a survey of over 3,000 international income leaders spanning america, United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany, paints an image of an business in speedy transformation. Organizations which have embedded AI into their core go-to-market methods are 65 % extra more likely to improve their win charges than rivals nonetheless treating the know-how as non-obligatory.

"I don't assume individuals delegate selections to AI, however they do depend on AI within the course of of creating selections," Amit Bendov, Gong's co-founder and chief government, mentioned in an unique interview with VentureBeat. "People are making the choice, however they're largely assisted."

The excellence issues. Relatively than changing human judgment, AI has turn out to be what Bendov describes as a "second opinion" — a data-driven examine on the instinct and guesswork that has historically ruled gross sales forecasting and technique.

Slowing progress is forcing gross sales groups to squeeze extra from each rep

The timing of AI's ascendance in income organizations is not any coincidence. The research reveals a sobering actuality: after rebounding in 2024, common annual income progress amongst surveyed corporations decelerated to 16 % in 2025, marking a three-percentage-point decline 12 months over 12 months. Gross sales rep quota attainment fell from 52 % to 46 % over the identical interval.

The offender, in keeping with Gong's evaluation, isn't that salespeople are performing worse on particular person offers. Win charges and deal length remained constant. The issue is that representatives are working fewer alternatives—a discovering that implies operational inefficiencies are consuming into promoting time.

This helps clarify why productiveness has rocketed to the highest of government priorities. For the primary time within the research's historical past, rising the productiveness of present groups ranked because the number-one progress technique for 2026, leaping from fourth place the earlier 12 months.

"The main focus is on rising gross sales productiveness," Bendov mentioned. "How a lot dollar-output per dollar-input."

The numbers again up the urgency. Groups the place sellers usually use AI instruments generate 77 % extra income per consultant than those who don't — a niche Gong characterizes as a six-figure distinction per salesperson yearly.

Firms are shifting past primary AI automation towards strategic decision-making

The character of AI adoption in gross sales has developed significantly over the previous 12 months. In 2024, most income groups used AI for primary automation: transcribing calls, drafting emails, updating CRM data. These use instances proceed to develop, however 2025 marked what the report calls a shift "from automation to intelligence."

The variety of U.S. corporations utilizing AI for forecasting and measuring strategic initiatives jumped 50 % 12 months over 12 months. These extra subtle purposes — predicting deal outcomes, figuring out at-risk accounts, measuring which worth propositions resonate with completely different purchaser personas — correlate with dramatically higher outcomes.

Organizations within the ninety fifth percentile of business impression from AI had been two to 4 instances extra more likely to have deployed these strategic use instances, in keeping with the research.

Bendov provided a concrete instance of how this performs out in observe. "Firms have 1000’s of offers that they roll up into their forecast," he mentioned. "It was once primarily based solely on human sentiment—imagine it or not. That's why quite a lot of corporations miss their numbers: as a result of individuals say, 'Oh, he informed me he'll purchase,' or 'I feel I can most likely get this one.'"

AI modifications that calculus by analyzing proof relatively than optimism. "Firms now get a second opinion from AI on their forecasting, and that improves forecasting accuracy dramatically — 10 [or] 15 % higher accuracy simply because it's evidence-based, not simply primarily based on human sentiment," Bendov mentioned.

Income-specific AI instruments are dramatically outperforming general-purpose options

One of many research's extra provocative findings issues the kind of AI that delivers outcomes. Groups utilizing revenue-specific AI options — instruments constructed explicitly for gross sales workflows relatively than general-purpose platforms like ChatGPT — reported 13 % larger income progress and 85 % better industrial impression than these counting on generic instruments.

These specialised techniques had been additionally twice as more likely to be deployed for forecasting and predictive modeling, the report discovered.

The discovering carries apparent implications for Gong, which sells exactly one of these domain-specific platform. However the knowledge suggests an actual distinction in outcomes. Normal-purpose AI, whereas extra prevalent, usually creates what the report describes as a "blind spot" for organizations — notably when workers undertake client AI instruments with out firm oversight.

Research from MIT means that whereas solely 59 % of survey respondents mentioned their groups use private AI instruments like ChatGPT at work, the precise determine is probably going nearer to 90 %. This shadow AI utilization poses safety dangers and creates fragmented know-how stacks that undermine the potential for organization-wide intelligence.

Most gross sales leaders imagine AI will reshape their jobs relatively than get rid of them

Maybe probably the most intently watched query in any AI research issues employment. The Gong analysis affords a extra nuanced image than the apocalyptic predictions that usually dominate headlines.

When requested about AI's three-year impression on income headcount, 43 % of respondents mentioned they count on it to remodel jobs with out decreasing headcount — the most typical response. Solely 28 % anticipate job eliminations, whereas 21 % really foresee AI creating new roles. Simply 8 % predict minimal impression.

Bendov frames the chance when it comes to reclaiming misplaced time. He cited Forrester research indicating that 77 percent of a gross sales consultant's time is spent on actions that don't contain clients — administrative work, assembly preparation, researching accounts, updating forecasts, and inner briefings.

"AI can get rid of, ideally, all 77 %—all of the drudgery work that they're doing," Bendov mentioned. "I don't assume it essentially eliminates jobs. Individuals are half productive proper now. Let's make them absolutely productive, and no matter you're paying them will translate to a lot larger income."

The transformation is already seen in position consolidation. Over the previous decade, gross sales organizations splintered into hyper-specialized features: one individual qualifies leads, one other units appointments, a 3rd closes offers, a fourth handles onboarding. The outcome was clients interacting with 5 or 6 completely different individuals throughout their shopping for journey.

"Which isn’t a fantastic purchaser expertise, as a result of each time I meet a brand new individual which may not have the complete context, and it's very inefficient for corporations," Bendov mentioned. "Now with AI, you’ll be able to have one individual do all this, or a lot of this."

At Gong itself, sellers now generate 80 % of their very own appointments as a result of AI handles the prospecting legwork, Bendov mentioned.

American corporations are adopting AI 18 months sooner than their European counterparts

The research reveals a notable divide in AI adoption between america and Europe. Whereas 87 % of U.S. corporations now use AI of their income operations, with one other 9 % planning adoption inside a 12 months, the UK trails by 12 to 18 months. Simply 70 % of UK corporations at present use AI, with 22 % planning near-term adoption — figures that mirror U.S. knowledge from 2024.

Bendov mentioned the sample displays a broader historic tendency for enterprise know-how tendencies to cross the Atlantic with a delay. "It's at all times like that," he mentioned. "Even when the web was taking off within the US, Europe was a step behind."

The hole isn't everlasting, he famous, and Europe typically leads on know-how adoption — cellular funds and messaging apps like WhatsApp gained traction there earlier than the U.S. — however for AI particularly, the American market stays forward.

Gong says a decade of AI improvement provides it an edge over Salesforce and Microsoft

The findings arrive as Gong navigates an more and more crowded market. The corporate, which lately surpassed $300 million in annual recurring income, faces potential competitors from enterprise software program giants like Salesforce and Microsoft, each of that are embedding AI capabilities into their platforms.

Bendov argues that Gong's decade of AI improvement creates a considerable barrier to entry. The corporate's structure includes three layers: a "income graph" that aggregates buyer knowledge from CRM techniques, emails, calls, movies, and net alerts; an intelligence layer combining giant language fashions with roughly 40 proprietary small language fashions; and workflow purposes constructed on high.

"Anyone that might need to construct one thing like that—it's not a small function, it's 10 years in improvement—would want first to construct the income graph," Bendov mentioned.

Relatively than viewing Salesforce and Microsoft as threats, Bendov characterised them as companions, pointing to each corporations' participation in Gong's latest consumer convention to debate agent interoperability. The rise of MCP (Model Context Protocol) help and consumption-based pricing fashions means clients can combine AI brokers from a number of distributors relatively than committing to a single platform.

The true query is whether or not AI will develop the gross sales occupation or hole it out

The report's implications lengthen past gross sales departments. If AI can rework income operations — lengthy thought-about a relationship-driven, human-centric perform — it raises questions on which different enterprise processes is likely to be subsequent.

Bendov sees the potential for enlargement relatively than contraction. Drawing an analogy to digital pictures, he famous that whereas digicam producers suffered, the overall variety of photographs taken exploded as soon as smartphones made pictures easy.

"If AI makes promoting easy, I might see a world—I don't know precisely what it seems to be like but—however why not?" Bendov mentioned. "Possibly ten instances extra jobs than we have now now. It's costly and inefficient at present, but when it turns into as simple as taking a photograph, the business might really develop and create alternatives for individuals of various talents, from completely different areas."

For Bendov, who co-founded Gong in 2015 when AI was nonetheless a tough promote to non-technical enterprise customers, the present second represents one thing he waited a decade to see. Again then, mentioning AI to gross sales executives appeared like science fiction. The corporate struggled to lift cash as a result of the underlying know-how barely existed.

"After we began the corporate, we had been born as an AI firm, however we needed to nearly conceal AI," Bendov recalled. "It was intimidating."

Now, seven out of ten of those self same executives say they belief AI to assist run their enterprise. The know-how that when needed to be disguised has turn out to be the one factor no one can afford to disregard.

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