Your buyers don’t need your reps to explain what your product does. They can get that from your website, from a competitor’s comparison page, or increasingly, from an AI search that summarizes all three in 10 seconds, before your rep is ever on the call.
That’s not a hypothetical shift. It’s already reshaping how B2B buying happens, and it raises an uncomfortable question for sales leaders heading into next year’s planning: if information is no longer scarce, what exactly are you training your team to deliver that a buyer can’t get somewhere else?
The buying committee just got bigger
Forrester’s research puts numbers behind what most sales leaders already hear anecdotally: buying groups are getting bigger and more complex. The typical B2B decision now runs through 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers, and that number climbs further on larger, more strategic purchases.¹
That’s not one champion your rep needs to convince. It’s a committee, most of whom your rep will never speak with directly. The champion has to carry the message forward without you in the room. While a feature list won’t survive that hand-off, a well-told story does, because it’s memorable enough to repeat accurately, and compelling enough that your champion wants to repeat it.
AI search gets buyers started. It doesn’t get them to yes.
Buyers are using GenAI tools earlier in the process than ever: researching, comparing, and narrowing options before a seller is in the room. But Forrester’s data also shows why this hasn’t eliminated the need for sellers and may have actually increased it: AI answer engines often deliver incomplete or unreliable information, and that unreliability creates mistrust. Buyers respond by seeking out validation from trusted human sources before they commit.
That’s the opening. Information becomes abundant, but meaning becomes scarce. Storytelling is how great salespeople create meaning and build the trust that a search result can’t.
Procurement is in the room earlier than you think
Forrester also found that procurement is now a decision-maker in 53% of B2B buying cycles, involved from the start rather than brought in at the end to negotiate terms. This means procurement stakeholders often interact with sales reps more frequently than other buyer personas do. And more than 60% of B2B buyers now use some form of trial before committing (78% for purchases over $10 million), treating the trial itself as a risk-reduction step.²
Put together, that’s a more skeptical, more analytical audience, earlier in the process, with a higher bar before they’ll even agree to a trial. A story that only works on an enthusiastic champion won’t hold up in that room. One built around a clear business problem, a credible path to resolving it, and a believable outcome will.
What this means for the seller’s job
If buyers can already get the facts, the seller’s job shifts from delivering information to interpreting it, connecting the dots between what a buyer has already found and what it actually means for their specific situation. That shows up in specific, coachable moments:
- Discovery calls that go beyond confirming what’s already in a buyer’s notes and instead surface the problem underneath the problem.
- Objection handling that reframes a concern instead of just rebutting it.
- Business case presentations to a committee of stakeholders, many of whom weren’t in the room for earlier conversations, where a clear story does more work than a dense slide of ROI math.
- Executive conversations, where senior buyers think in outcomes and risk, not features, and a well-told story lands faster than a spec sheet.
None of these moments require reps to have information competitors don’t have. They require reps who are more memorable, more trusted, and better at framing what the information means.
Why this belongs on the SKO agenda
This isn’t an argument for abandoning whatever sales methodology your team already runs whether it’s SPIN, Miller Heiman, a proprietary process, or something homegrown. It’s an argument for the thing that makes any of those methodologies land with a buying committee that’s larger, more skeptical, and more AI-informed than it’s ever been: the ability to make a process memorable and persuasive, not just correct.
Frameworks create consistency. Stories create belief. As AI continues to commoditize the information layer of selling, that belief, the trust a buyer places in the human they’re talking to, is becoming the actual differentiator.
Heading into SKO planning, that’s worth a specific question: is your agenda built to make your reps more informed, or more memorable? Buyers can find the information on their own. They can’t find your reps’ stories anywhere else.
Learn more about out SKO offerings or talk to someone on our team.
References
1Forrester. (2026, January). The state of business buying, 2026. Forrester Research. https://www.forrester.com/research/buyer-insights/
2Forrester. “Forrester’s 2026 Buyer Insights: GenAI Is Upending B2B Buying As Leaders Face Mounting Pressure To Justify Every Dollar Spent.” Business Wire, January 21, 2026.
