The controversy over whether or not synthetic intelligence belongs within the company boardroom seems to be over — not less than for the individuals chargeable for producing income.
Seven in ten enterprise income leaders now belief AI to commonly inform their enterprise selections, based on a sweeping new examine launched 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 expertise relegated to pilot applications and particular person productiveness hacks.
The analysis, based mostly 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 the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany, paints an image of an business in fast transformation. Organizations which have embedded AI into their core go-to-market methods are 65 p.c extra prone to enhance their win charges than opponents nonetheless treating the expertise as non-compulsory.
"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 govt, 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 develop 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 examine reveals a sobering actuality: after rebounding in 2024, common annual income progress amongst surveyed corporations decelerated to 16 p.c in 2025, marking a three-percentage-point decline yr over yr. Gross sales rep quota attainment fell from 52 p.c to 46 p.c over the identical interval.
The perpetrator, based on 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 govt priorities. For the primary time within the examine's historical past, growing the productiveness of present groups ranked because the number-one progress technique for 2026, leaping from fourth place the earlier yr.
"The main focus is on growing gross sales productiveness," Bendov mentioned. "How a lot dollar-output per dollar-input."
The numbers again up the urgency. Groups the place sellers commonly use AI instruments generate 77 p.c extra income per consultant than people who don't — a spot Gong characterizes as a six-figure distinction per salesperson yearly.
Firms are shifting past fundamental 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 fundamental automation: transcribing calls, drafting emails, updating CRM information. 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 p.c yr over yr. These extra refined purposes — predicting deal outcomes, figuring out at-risk accounts, measuring which worth propositions resonate with totally different purchaser personas — correlate with dramatically higher outcomes.
Organizations within the ninety fifth percentile of business influence from AI have been two to 4 occasions extra prone to have deployed these strategic use instances, based on the examine.
Bendov provided a concrete instance of how this performs out in apply. "Firms have hundreds of offers that they roll up into their forecast," he mentioned. "It was based mostly solely on human sentiment—imagine it or not. That's why loads of corporations miss their numbers: as a result of individuals say, 'Oh, he informed me he'll purchase,' or 'I feel I can in all probability get this one.'"
AI adjustments that calculus by inspecting proof somewhat than optimism. "Firms now get a second opinion from AI on their forecasting, and that improves forecasting accuracy dramatically — 10 [or] 15 p.c higher accuracy simply because it's evidence-based, not simply based mostly on human sentiment," Bendov mentioned.
Income-specific AI instruments are dramatically outperforming general-purpose alternate options
One of many examine'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 somewhat than general-purpose platforms like ChatGPT — reported 13 p.c increased income progress and 85 p.c better industrial influence than these counting on generic instruments.
These specialised methods have been additionally twice as prone to be deployed for forecasting and predictive modeling, the report discovered.
The discovering carries apparent implications for Gong, which sells exactly this kind of domain-specific platform. However the knowledge suggests an actual distinction in outcomes. Basic-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 p.c of survey respondents mentioned their groups use private AI instruments like ChatGPT at work, the precise determine is probably going nearer to 90 p.c. This shadow AI utilization poses safety dangers and creates fragmented expertise stacks that undermine the potential for organization-wide intelligence.
Most gross sales leaders imagine AI will reshape their jobs somewhat than remove them
Maybe essentially the most carefully watched query in any AI examine issues employment. The Gong analysis presents a extra nuanced image than the apocalyptic predictions that always dominate headlines.
When requested about AI's three-year influence on income headcount, 43 p.c of respondents mentioned they anticipate it to remodel jobs with out lowering headcount — the commonest response. Solely 28 p.c anticipate job eliminations, whereas 21 p.c really foresee AI creating new roles. Simply 8 p.c predict minimal influence.
Bendov frames the chance when it comes to reclaiming misplaced time. He cited Forrester analysis indicating that 77 p.c 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 remove, ideally, all 77 p.c—all 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 increased 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 clients interacting with 5 – 6 totally different individuals throughout their shopping for journey.
"Which isn’t an incredible purchaser expertise, as a result of each time I meet a brand new particular person which may not have the complete context, and it's very inefficient for corporations," Bendov mentioned. "Now with AI, you may have one particular person do all this, or a lot of this."
At Gong itself, sellers now generate 80 p.c 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 examine reveals a notable divide in AI adoption between the USA and Europe. Whereas 87 p.c of U.S. corporations now use AI of their income operations, with one other 9 p.c planning adoption inside a yr, the UK trails by 12 to 18 months. Simply 70 p.c of UK corporations at the moment use AI, with 22 p.c planning near-term adoption — figures that mirror U.S. knowledge from 2024.
Bendov mentioned the sample displays a broader historic tendency for enterprise expertise traits to cross the Atlantic with a delay. "It's all the time 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 expertise 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 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 improvement creates a considerable barrier to entry. The corporate's structure contains three layers: a "income graph" that aggregates buyer knowledge from CRM methods, emails, calls, movies, and net indicators; an intelligence layer combining massive language fashions with roughly 40 proprietary small language fashions; and workflow purposes constructed on high.
"Anyone that will need to construct one thing like that—it's not a small characteristic, it's 10 years in improvement—would wish 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 current consumer convention to debate agent interoperability. The rise of MCP (Mannequin Context Protocol) help and consumption-based pricing fashions means clients can combine AI brokers from a number of distributors somewhat than committing to a single platform.
The actual 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 remodel income operations — lengthy thought-about a relationship-driven, human-centric perform — it raises questions on which different enterprise processes is perhaps subsequent.
Bendov sees the potential for growth somewhat than contraction. Drawing an analogy to digital pictures, he famous that whereas digital camera producers suffered, the overall variety of images 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 appears to be like like but—however why not?" Bendov mentioned. "Perhaps ten occasions extra jobs than we’ve now. It's costly and inefficient in the present day, but when it turns into as straightforward as taking a photograph, the business might really develop and create alternatives for individuals of various talents, from totally 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 seemed like science fiction. The corporate struggled to boost 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 cover 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 expertise that when needed to be disguised has develop into the one factor no one can afford to disregard.
