Roughly 90% of B2B buyers use generative AI or conversational search in the buying process, according to the Forrester report “The GTM Singularity Is Here.” What’s more, 68% already have a front-runner candidate when they begin their purchase process, and that process involves more decision-makers and influencers than ever before. Toss in marketplace turbulence and economic volatility, and the result is what Forrester calls a GTM singularity: a moment of pivotal change in B2B buying models.

Yet too many B2B vendors have yet to modify their sales models in response. For those sellers unsure of how to address GTM changes, Forester offers some suggestions:

• Prioritize and measure visibility and preference-building. GTM teams traditionally waited until target customers signaled they were in-market, at which point they relied largely on buyer engagement metrics to track the prospective buyers and move them along the purchase cycle. This might have sufficed when buyers came into market well before they’d settled on one or two preferred vendors based on information from humans and AI agents alike. Now, however, “you’ve got to drive preference upstream, because if you’re waiting till they’re in-market, it’s too late,” says Dave Frankland, VP and Research Director, Forrester.

Doing so requires making thought leadership, branding, reputational and product content easily accessible to potential buyers even before they signal an intention to purchase. Metrics such as LLM citation rate, SEO visibility score, share of voice and earned media coverage allow you to measure and improve brand awareness and favorability earlier rather than later.

• Design for both AI and human audiences. With the overwhelming majority of buyers using LLMs and other AI to answer questions about products and brands, content must be credible, clear and distinctive to achieve visibility. But it still needs to appeal to humans as well. So in addition to increasing their AI visibility, organizations should continue to maintain SEO best practices, incorporate high-quality video and imagery into content, and further sharpen their segmentation — for instance, by enabling websites to dynamically adapt to human vs. agentic visitors.

• Incorporate AI to augment the work of humans. “It’s not human vs. AI; it’s human plus AI,” Frankland says. “It’s not ‘AI does this and human does that’; sometimes it’s ‘AI does components of this.’” While many organizations have been paying lip service to this concept, even as they implement AI to automate vast swaths of work, the most effective way to optimize AI is to assess current work processes and goals, and then drill down to the detail level to ascertain which aspects the technology can improve.

Rather than using AI to write thought leadership pieces, for example, an organization can have an AI agent tailor multiple versions of the human-written content for niche audiences. And rather than focus exclusively on efficiencies when implementing AI, look at outcomes as well. The savings generated by AI automation can be significant in the short term, but if it fails to grow visibility, consideration and sales, the value declines over the long term.

• Fuse strategy and execution. This isn’t a new concept. Nor is the related concept of promoting transparency and collaboration among the sales, marketing, customer success, product and other teams. But “if this seems obvious, ask yourself how well are you doing it,” Frankland says. “This is where it’s breaking down.” Each team’s priorities and metrics need to ladder up to the same organization-wide strategies and goals.

Achieving this type of alignment requires sharing a unified view of prospects and customers, along with consistent communication. Forrester cites one company that maintains a weekly 90-minute call with the entire C-suite, including the CFO and the chief legal officer, to examine GTM initiatives and KPIs.

• Revisit GTM strategy and tactics frequently. Common practice has been to review GTM plans annually at best, with the emphasis more on tactics than strategy. Instead, pin down the strategy first, across regions, industries and other market segments. Then determine the optimal tactics, and assess outcomes throughout the year to see what improvements can be made. Not only does this help optimize efforts, but it also prevents individual teams from focusing on their own goals at the expense of the corporate objectives. Every tactic and plan should be in service to the overall strategy.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, a lot of practices within the organization that need to be unpacked,” Frankland admits. But the sooner a business goes the work, the sooner it can begin reaping the benefits.