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43% of salespeople use AI in their jobs. Are you ready for 2025?
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This week’s edition includes:
GTM Research: Revolutionizing Sales with AI: Insights from Top GTM Leaders
Spotlight: Vidyard and Vivun
Revolutionizing Sales with AI: Insights from Top GTM Leaders
As we edge closer to 2025, the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in sales and go-to-market (GTM) strategies is becoming impossible to ignore.
In a Gartner poll earlier this year, 40% of respondents said GenAI has been deployed in more than three business units. Hubspot reports that usage of AI has nearly doubled among sales units, going from 24% last year to 43% in 2024.
Last Wednesday, we hosted a panel discussion featuring GTM leaders exploring how AI is reshaping the sales process and the buyer's experience.
With insights from industry giants, including Jacco van der Kooij of Winning by Design, Michael Litt of Vidyard, and Matt Darrow of Vivun, here’s what you need to know about the evolving landscape of AI in sales.
How AI Can Help Dig Us Out of Growth at All Costs
The era of "Growth at All Costs" created a frenzy of over-hiring and hyper-scaling human resources to drive revenue.
While this approach enabled some companies to hit ambitious targets, it left behind inefficiencies and inflated costs that are no longer tenable in today’s market.
Investors have shifted their expectations—they now demand tangible ROI, whether through increased revenue generation or reduced full-time equivalent (FTE) costs, particularly when AI is involved.
The belief that AI is here solely to "augment" jobs is no longer the whole story. The reality is that AI technologies are being built to replace certain roles and tasks, especially in sales and GTM processes.
This shift isn't new; it builds on decades of automation efforts, starting with chatbots and structured workflows. The possibilities for automation have expanded to include complex tasks like discovery, objections handling, and custom demos—all without human intervention.
AI is Redefining the Buyer Experience
Sales processes are no longer seller-centric.
Today’s buyers come equipped with knowledge that often surpasses that of sales reps.
This shift demands a reimagined approach to sales, focusing on enhancing the buyer’s journey through tools that instantly provide value.
“It’s a buying process, not a selling process.”
~ Jacco van der Kooij, Winning by Design
AI and the 6 GTM Motions
We talk about six key GTM motions: Inbound, Outbound, Product-Led Growth (PLG), Event-Led Growth, Partner-Led Growth, and Community-Led Growth.
AI can be useful in all of them.
AI in Inbound Motion:
Personalize video outreach for inbound leads, creating instant connections and building rapport even before a sales rep engages.
Autonomous agents can qualify leads and prepare tailored follow-ups, reducing friction and accelerating the buyer’s journey.
AI in Outbound Motion:
AI-powered tools streamline prospecting and engagement through hyper-personalized, scalable outreach.
By automating repetitive tasks like creating demos or responding to FAQs, AI allows outbound teams to focus on high-value interactions.
AI in Product-Led Growth (PLG):
AI assists in onboarding and guiding users through free or trial experiences. Personalized video demos and interactive walkthroughs can enhance adoption and conversion rates.
AI in Event-Led Growth:
AI-driven video follow-ups after events ensure timely and personalized engagement with attendees, addressing their unique interests or concerns.
Event-generated leads can seamlessly flow into automated workflows for efficient qualification and nurturing.
AI in Partner-Led Growth:
AI tools can help partners better understand your product by generating custom demos or training videos tailored to their needs, increasing their ability to sell effectively.
AI in Community-Led Growth:
AI avatars can support community interactions by providing helpful, on-demand responses to frequently asked questions or moderating discussions with tailored insights.
How to Use AI to Augment Sales
According to Hubspot, 24% of salespeople used AI in 2023 and 43% used it in 2024!
However, AI has not gained the adoption in sales that it has in marketing: in 2024, 74% of marketers used AI in their jobs, while 43% of salespeople used it.
The trick is knowing how to use AI to empower teams to do their best work. How do we know what to give to AI and what to give to humans?
Here’s an example of how we look at using AI in Outbound-Led Growth, but really these four quadrants apply to any use of AI: how repetitive is the task, and how risky is the task?
Tasks that are highly repetitive and low risk are the ideal application of AI (top left quadrant).
Tasks that are very unique and very high risk are tasks where AI should provide support, but the role of humans is much more important.
Generative AI can significantly enhance outbound-led growth by addressing tasks in all four quadrants, balancing efficiency, support, and strategic depth.
Read more about the use of AI in outbound-led growth.
Closing Thoughts
As AI continues to redefine GTM strategies, companies that hesitate risk falling behind.
From autonomous sales agents to personalized video outreach, these tools offer unmatched opportunities to enhance efficiency, build trust, and transform the buyer’s journey.
The question isn’t if AI will impact your sales process—it’s whether you’ll be ready to leverage it.
Spotlight: Vidyard and Vivun
Vidyard and Vivun were both invited to show their tools at the analyst hour because of their pivotal role leveraging AI to assist sales.
Vidyard: Personalization at Scale
Vidyard’s AI avatars are transforming sales outreach by enabling hyper-personalized video messaging at scale.
Instead of relying on sales reps to manually create videos, Vidyard leverages AI to generate tailored, professional-looking content that mirrors a real person’s likeness and tone.
Whether following up after an event or responding to an inbound inquiry, sales teams can use Vidyard’s tools to produce dozens—or even hundreds—of customized videos in minutes.
This seamless blend of efficiency and authenticity ensures buyers feel valued and understood, bridging the gap between automation and the human touch.
As personalized video increasingly proves its effectiveness in boosting engagement and shortening sales cycles, Vidyard could be an essential tool for teams looking to scale without sacrificing connection.
Vivun: Empowering Sales Teams with AI Teammates
Vivun has introduced Ava, an AI Sales Engineer designed to revolutionize how sales teams handle complex technical workflows.
Unlike traditional AI tools, Ava functions as a true teammate, onboarding like a new hire and learning from the organization’s processes and products.
Ava assists with tasks like building tailored demos and answering technical questions, anticipates objections, and identifies potential gaps in product fit. Ava enables account executives to operate with greater speed and confidence by automating these traditionally manual and time-intensive activities.
Vivun’s AI Sales Engineer goes beyond simplifying tasks to actively reshape the sales process, making it more responsive, accurate, and aligned with buyer needs. For organizations aiming to scale efficiently, Vivun’s approach offers a glimpse into the future of technical selling.
Do you need help with your GTM strategy and execution?
GTM Partners works with B2B companies who need help with GTM, whether you just need a few tweaks or a full reboot of your strategy.
We’re booking now for 2025 planning work, including:
GTM Assessment: Over 1000 companies have taken our GTM Assessment to build their GTM Strategy. Your team can take it here.
Advisory: We work one-on-one or with your entire GTM team to execute your plan using our proprietary GTM Operating System and the frameworks we’ve built to accelerate your growth. We work on a project basis for 4-6 weeks to fix your Total Relevant Market (otherwise known as ICP), POV, Market Investment Map, GTM Scorecards and more. If you need more than a one-off project, we can also help you through a total GTM transformation.
GTM Certification: We offer Go-to-Market certification for individuals, teams, and agencies using our proprietary GTM Operating System.
We’d love to chat more about your needs and how we can help.
Thanks to all who could attend and watch the analyst hour on AI-powered sales. We are always grateful for how many of you show up for our events, and we love hosting them!
Love,
the GTM Partners Team
