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New Research: You Cannot Outbuild a Broken GTM with AI
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This week’s research note includes:
GTM Research: You Cannot Outbuild a Broken GTM with AI
GTM OS Certified Partner Spotlight: Bobby del Rosario
Upcoming Events and Access
New Research: You Cannot Outbuild a Broken GTM with AI
We spent the week digging through the fresh-off-the-presses 2025 SaaS Benchmarks Report from High Alpha. It is one of the broadest datasets we get each year:
Eight hundred companies
Multiple ARR bands
Founder sentiment
Real operating metrics
A good mix of numbers and signals.
And the signal that stood out was not about AI.
It was about what has not changed at all.
Founders Still Say GTM Is Their Biggest Problem
When High Alpha asked founders what keeps them up at night, the top answer stayed the same as last year:
Go to market execution.
AI strategy jumped from 10% to 23% percent as a top concern.
That is a large shift.
Even so, it did not replace GTM (64%).
That tells us something important. No matter how fast AI moves, companies still struggle with the basics:
How to target
How to position
How to price
How to convert interest into revenue with consistency
It’s basically the 8 questions that the GTM Operating System answers:
Once you look at the rest of the data, the picture becomes even clearer.
AI accelerated almost everything except alignment.
AI Made Products Move Faster. It Did Not Make Them Clearer.
70% of companies shipped AI features. Only 41% percent are monetizing them.
That gap does not appear because the features are bad. It appears because the commercial foundation underneath them is not strong enough.
GTM teams are trying to explain value that was built quickly but not framed clearly. That slows down sales cycles and weakens messaging at the exact moment when clarity matters most.
Pricing Evolved. Most Storytelling Did Not.
Hybrid and outcome based pricing are now outperforming traditional subscription models on both growth and retention.
The market is rewarding models that track closer to actual value delivered. Yet most companies still sell the way they sold five years ago. The product is moving, but the pricing story has not caught up.
That is a GTM problem, not a product problem.
AI Impact Is Rising, but Measurement Is Not.
High Alpha found that fewer than 25% of companies use KPIs or dashboards to measure AI’s internal impact.
Most teams rely on informal feedback or anecdotal observations. Without hard numbers, you cannot improve CAC, NRR, or expansion.
You also cannot make a business case for AI that holds up under scrutiny.
This is where GTM execution and operational discipline intersect. If you cannot prove the impact, you cannot scale the impact.
Read last week’s post with more GTM metrics than you can shake a stick at.
Expansion Is the Growth Engine. Many Teams Still Miss It.
Once a company crosses twenty million ARR, about 60% of new ARR comes from existing customers.
Most teams still behave as if new logo acquisition is the center of the strategy. This creates a mismatch between where the growth actually comes from and where teams spend their energy.
That gap shows up in churn, flat NRR, and inefficient sales motions.
Check out Pillar 6: Customer Expansion to learn more.
The Real Story:
AI Raised the Ceiling.
GTM Still Determines the Outcome.
The High Alpha report makes one thing obvious. AI changed product velocity. It did not fix the structural issues that slow companies down. If you want 2026 to look different, you need to strengthen the GTM engine that converts product value into revenue.
Here is where to start.
1. Rebuild TRM With Real Data
Stop guessing.
Look at retention patterns, win rates, ACV efficiency, and customer health.
Narrow your ICP to the segments that actually expand and stick.
2. Modernize Pricing Before You Expand Your Motions
If hybrid and outcome based pricing drive better retention, test them now.
Match your commercial model to the value customers actually realize.
Avoid the temptation to sell new AI features with old pricing logic.
3. Treat Expansion as a Primary Motion
Build playbooks, comp plans, onboarding paths, and product workflows that support expansion.
Do not wait until you cross twenty million ARR.
Start earlier so the motion is already strong when you need it.
4. Measure AI Impact With Actual KPIs
Time saved. Errors reduced. Cost avoided. Revenue influenced.
If you cannot quantify AI, it stays trapped as a cost center.
GTM needs reliable data, not intuition.
5. Bring the Whole Company Into One Plan
Product, sales, marketing, customer success, and finance should be working from a single definition of value.
Not parallel plans.
One shared model for how revenue is created and sustained.
AI is giving every SaaS company more surface area. More power. More potential.
But GTM still decides how much of that potential becomes revenue.
The High Alpha report is a reminder.
If you want to win in 2026, do not just build smarter products.
Build a smarter GTM engine to match.
How We Can Help
You can take this report as a warning or you can take it as a roadmap.
If you are looking at your own 2026 plan and seeing some of the patterns High Alpha surfaced, this is the moment to tighten your operating system, your targeting, and your pricing. It is also the moment to stop treating GTM as a set of disconnected activities and start treating it like an integrated engine.
This is exactly the work we do at GTM Partners.
We help teams rebuild TRM with real data.
We help founders modernize pricing and packaging.
We align product, sales, marketing, and finance around one plan.
And we train leaders to run a GTM system that actually scales.
If you want support as you build your 2026 plan or you want help applying the insights from the High Alpha report to your own company, reach out. We can walk you through the GTM OS, run a scorecard review, or partner with you on your strategic planning session.
A strong GTM engine turns AI investment into actual growth.
If you want help strengthening yours, we are ready.
If you’re a CEO or GTM leader planning for 2026, don’t miss your chance to have Bryan and Sangram guide your executive GTM planning session.
👉 Only 2 spots left this year.
Certified Partner Spotlight: Bobby del Rosario, ArcWave Consulting
Strategic GTM Alignment for Sustainable Growth
Most GTM failures aren’t execution problems; they’re alignment problems. Bobby del Rosario, founder of ArcWave Consulting, helps B2B tech companies (especially those innovating in AEC and construction technology), align strategy across marketing, sales, product, and customer success to unlock sustainable growth.
With over 20 years of experience leading product, partnerships, and growth marketing across startups and mid-market enterprises, Bobby brings a strategic, systems-first mindset to every engagement. Through the GTM Operating System, ArcWave helps companies move from scattered efforts to coordinated execution.
ArcWave’s Work Centers on Three Pillars:
GTM Strategy: Assess where you are. Build a strategy that aligns GTM teams around a unified growth plan.
Strategic Market Focus: Define ICPs, prioritize offerings, and focus investments where they’ll drive the most impact.
Marketing Activation: Bridge strategy to execution of programs that deliver results.
If your GTM motion feels disjointed, ArcWave helps you realign, refocus, and accelerate with clarity.
Learn more: Bobby del Rosario Partner Page →
If you’d like to be a certified GTM Partner like Bobby and more than 50 others, we’d love to talk to you about how to make that happen.
Upcoming Events: Where Sangram, Bryan, or a GTM Certified Partner Will Be Speaking
(DM Sangram for a discount code to attend or to get slides after the talk)
The Agentic Marketing Summit (hosted by Qualified), Tuesday, November 18, Virtual
Fix Your Revenue Leaks - A GTM Workshop (hosted by GTM Certified Partner Sandy Yu) is running 7 city roadshow on 15 GTM problems in a city near you, and there’s only one left: Melbourne (Dec. 3)
The Work Pause: a One-Hour Workday Retreat for GTM Leaders (hosted by GTM OS Certified Partner Sarah Allen-Short), December 5 and 13 from 12-1 p.m. EST on Zoom.
Love,
Sangram and Bryan
p.s. Access GTM University | Hire GTM OS Certified Partners | Read Fractional Friday
