The talk over whether or not AI belongs within the company boardroom seems to be over — a minimum of for these answerable for producing income.
Seven in 10 enterprise income leaders now belief AI to usually inform their enterprise selections, in accordance with a sweeping new research launched by income intelligence firm Gong. The discovering marks a dramatic shift from simply two years in the past, when most organizations handled AI as an experimental expertise relegated to pilot applications 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 world income leaders spanning the U.S., UK, Australia and Germany, paints an image of an trade in fast transformation. Organizations which have embedded AI into their core go-to-market methods are 65% extra more likely to improve their win charges than opponents nonetheless treating the expertise as elective.
"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. Moderately than changing human judgment, AI has change into 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 isn’t 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 yr over yr. Gross sales rep quota attainment fell from 52% to 46% over the identical interval.
The offender, in accordance 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 means 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 yr.
"The main target is on rising gross sales productiveness," Bendov mentioned. "How a lot dollar-output per dollar-input?"
The numbers again up the urgency. Groups that usually use AI instruments generate 77% extra income per consultant than people who don't — a spot Gong characterizes as a six-figure distinction per salesperson yearly.
Firms are transferring past primary AI automation towards strategic decision-making
The character of AI adoption in gross sales has developed significantly over the previous yr. 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% yr over yr. These extra refined 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 have been 2 to 4X extra more likely to have deployed these strategic use instances, in accordance with the research.
Bendov supplied a concrete instance of how this performs out in apply. "Firms have 1000’s of offers that they roll up into their forecast," he mentioned. "It was primarily based solely on human sentiment, consider it or not. That's why a variety of corporations miss their numbers: As a result of individuals say, 'Oh, he advised me he'll purchase,' or 'I feel I can in all probability 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 considerations 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% greater income progress and 85% larger business impression than these counting on generic instruments.
These specialised techniques have 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 the sort of domain-specific platform. However the information suggests an actual distinction in outcomes. Normal-purpose AI, whereas extra prevalent, typically creates what the report describes as a "blind spot" for organizations — notably when staff undertake client AI instruments with out firm oversight.
Analysis from MIT means that whereas solely 59% of enterprise 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 expertise stacks that undermine the potential for organization-wide intelligence.
Most gross sales leaders consider AI will reshape their jobs relatively than eradicate them
Maybe probably the most closely-watched query in any AI research considerations employment. The Gong analysis gives 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 commonest response. Solely 28% anticipate job eliminations, whereas 21% really foresee AI creating new roles. Simply 8% predict minimal impression.
Bendov frames the chance as reclaiming misplaced time. He cited Forrester analysis indicating that 77% of a gross sales consultant's time is spent on actions that don't contain prospects — administrative work, assembly preparation, researching accounts, updating forecasts and inside briefings.
"AI can eradicate, ideally, 77% of the drudgery work that they're doing," Bendov mentioned. "I don't assume it essentially eliminates jobs. Persons are half productive proper now. Let's make them totally productive, and no matter you're paying them will translate to a lot greater income."
The transformation is already seen in position consolidation. Over the previous decade, gross sales organizations splintered into hyper-specialized capabilities: One particular person qualifies leads, one other units appointments, a 3rd closes offers, a fourth handles onboarding. The outcome was prospects interacting with 5 – 6 completely different individuals throughout their shopping for journey.
"Which isn’t an awesome purchaser expertise, as a result of each time I meet a brand new particular person that may not have the total context, and it's very inefficient for corporations," Bendov mentioned. "Now with AI, you possibly can have one particular person 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 the U.S. and Europe. Whereas 87% of U.S. corporations now use AI of their income operations, with one other 9% planning adoption inside a yr, the UK trails by 12 to 18 months. Simply 70% of UK corporations at the moment use AI, with 22% p.c planning near-term adoption — figures that mirror U.S. information from 2024.
Bendov mentioned the sample displays a broader historic tendency for enterprise expertise developments 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 U.S., Europe was a step behind."
The hole isn't everlasting, he famous, and Europe generally leads on expertise adoption — cell 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 growth offers 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 growth creates a considerable barrier to entry. The corporate's structure contains three layers: a "income graph" that aggregates buyer information from CRM techniques, emails, calls, movies and internet indicators; an intelligence layer combining giant language fashions (LLMs) with roughly 40 proprietary small language fashions; and workflow purposes constructed on prime.
"Anyone that might wish to construct one thing like that — it's not a small characteristic, it's 10 years in growth—would want first to construct the income graph," Bendov mentioned.
Moderately than viewing Salesforce and Microsoft as threats, Bendov characterised them as companions, pointing to each corporations' participation in Gong's latest person convention to debate agent interoperability. The rise of MCP (Mannequin Context Protocol) help and consumption-based pricing fashions means prospects 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 career or hole it out
The report's implications prolong past gross sales departments. If AI can rework income operations — lengthy thought of a relationship-driven, human-centric operate — it raises questions on which different enterprise processes is perhaps subsequent.
Bendov sees the potential for enlargement relatively than contraction. Drawing an analogy to digital images, he famous that whereas digicam producers suffered, the full variety of images taken exploded as soon as smartphones made images easy.
"If AI makes promoting easy, I might see a world [with] perhaps ten occasions extra jobs than we now have now," mentioned Bendov." It's costly and inefficient right now, but when it turns into as straightforward as taking a photograph, the trade might really develop and create alternatives for individuals of various skills, from completely different places."
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 expertise barely existed.
"After we began the corporate, we have been born as an AI firm, however we needed to virtually disguise AI," Bendov recalled. "It was intimidating."
Now, seven out of 10of those self same executives say they belief AI to assist run their enterprise. The expertise that when needed to be disguised has change into the one factor no one can afford to disregard.
