AI: Connecting Buyers and Sellers in More Meaningful Ways

According to Forrester’s latest research, the AI hype is over. How can it be? And if it is, how can companies prosper on this new frontier and position themselves for growth in the months ahead? What else is keeping B2B and B2C revenue leaders up at night?

In our latest series, our sales acceleration experts weigh in on this and other pressing sales-shaping trends with deep, diverse insights.

Q: How will AI or automation change how businesses discover and evaluate vendors and services this year? 

AI is connecting buyers and sellers in more meaningful ways. It’s changing how buyers buy, but it’s also helping sellers meet them where they are. Buyers increasingly rely on generative AI for due diligence, so sellers should assume prospects have researched, read reviews, and are further along in understanding your products/services than ever before.

Before engaging buyers, instead of relying on a rigid sales process that can’t possibly apply to every journey, sellers should identify how far buyers have come on their own, then find ways to meet them there. This will require additional initial discovery. Use agentic AI to find out what they know about you, your company, your product or service, and what they have left to learn. AI agents sit alongside your sellers to help them understand the customer conversation, assess sentiment, recommend best follow-up steps, or engage in the initial conversation with the buyer—with a trigger point to hand off to the seller.

Q: What future role do you see agentic AI playing in B2B sales?

It’s going to significantly shorten sellers’ research time before they engage with a customer, while making their conversations more intuitive and responsive to the customer’s needs. This will both smooth out and accelerate the sales cycle. AI agents are already interacting with prospects via several channels, including voice conversations, email, text, and chat. During the conversation, an agent will either appear in the side panel of the seller’s computer screen—listening to the buyer, assessing their intentions, and suggesting follow-up questions and messages, including the date, method, and even writing the email. Or the agent will interact with the buyer directly, following workflows that determine when it’s time to hand the conversation off to a seller.

Q: What are the biggest sales headwinds facing tech companies?

Difficulty configuring agentic AI for co-selling, which has become standard. This is partly driven by fragmented data and incomplete CRMs, which deprive AI of ample learning material. We’re actively testing and adopting agentic AI in sales, focusing on proper integration and utilization. Buyer preferences are shifting: 61% want rep-free journeys but still require support for legal and risk concerns. Collaboration with clients is crucial to balancing buyer autonomy, especially since B2B deals now involve 6–10 decision makers, each preferring unique contact methods. Our omnichannel strategy helps buyers navigate these complex committees, adapting to buyer needs and engaging them proactively.

Q: Industrial and manufacturing companies?

They’re under strong pressure to deliver quick, accurate quotes and real-time purchasing capabilities. Slow responses mean lost sales. Workforce shortages and sales skill gaps also persist, with Deloitte and the National Association of Manufacturers finding 68% of manufacturing companies struggling to attract and retain talent. They also lack tech support, which limits sales enablement, and have difficulty understanding buyers. Outsourced sales addresses all of this. Our sales team operates across channels, enabling proactive client engagement—even before a customer requests a quote—surfacing opportunities early.

Q: Financial services companies?

Regulatory complexity and compliance requirements continue to grow more intricate, creating increased compliance burdens for financial services companies. Partnering with MarketSource ensures a compliance-centric approach, supported by comprehensive training, quality control, robust compliance tech, and integrated governance processes, which enables reliable customer engagement.

Financial services customers increasingly expect seamless, mobile-first experiences. By leveraging AI-driven insights and offering omnichannel communication within our contact centers, we help financial services companies meet these expectations.

Talent shortages and skill gaps persist, highlighting the need for continuous upskilling, particularly around AI and compliance. We address these needs by focusing on recruiting individuals who are both adaptable and trainable.

Compliance remains at the core of AI implementation. We utilize AI to coach agents, conduct compliance audits, and ensure thorough onboarding, so our customer care professionals are fully prepared before engaging with our clients’ customers. Additionally, we use AI in real time during calls to provide feedback, helping agents recognize customer needs and resolve issues compliantly.

Effectively identifying, deploying, and training AI—while having sufficient, secure data for it to learn from—remains a pressing challenge for financial services companies. Our role-based, secure CRM addresses this issue directly by facilitating rapid AI learning about our customers’ responses and gauging sentiment.

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