G2’s 2025 Buyer Behavior Report shows a clear shift in where the software buying journey begins.

Nearly 80% of buyers now say they start research at least some of the time with AI search tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude and 29% say they do it more often than they start with Google.

In enterprise companies, AI search has already leapfrogged Google outright, becoming the most common starting point.

The “Google-first” era is ending for B2B software discovery. If you’re not optimizing for LLM results, you’re already invisible to a growing share of your market.

On a recent Campaign Chemistry podcast, IBM's SVP of marketing, Jonathan Adashek, dives into what he calls “story showing.” What he means is storytelling through “walking the walk,” a shift from saying who you are to proving it in every touchpoint.

It seems so obvious and yet…

When you look at how most B2B brands execute, they launch a positioning statement, a handful of campaign headlines, maybe a new brand video aaaaand… call it done. But the real test comes after the launch, when buyers start looking for proof.

Are your actions, products, and experiences validating the story you told? Does your sales process reflect the values in your brand deck? Is your customer service building the trust your ads promise?

Strong brands don’t treat messaging and identity as a fixed artifact.

They treat it as a work-in-progress, continuously confirmed by behavior. In a market where skepticism is the default, “walking the walk” is the only way to keep your story alive.

We help B2B teams turn positioning into behavior, so every interaction reinforces your story.

Microsoft’s latest AI impact study puts service sales reps in the same automation exposure tier as customer service and copywriting. In simpler terms, sales rep may not be the safest career path.

Gartner research from way back in 2020 shows this shift was already in motion long before AI came along: B2B buyers prefer seller-free, digital-first journeys for much of the deal cycle. Our new AI overlords are just twisting the knife, accelerating the transition to a deal cycle that plays out almost entirely online.

Every stage of your funnel will need to be redesigned for a future where AI handles the handshakes and humans show up only when they can change the outcome.

AI is already writing emails, drafting proposals, and answering product questions at scale. The question is whether your revenue engine is built for that reality.

Sales coverage will shrink, but the buyer journey won’t.

The teams that redesign their funnel now will own the advantage when the sales floor gets quieter.

Back in 2020, Gartner forecast that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions would happen in digital channels.

Fast forward to now and the numbers say we’re already there:

And according to McKinsey, as of 2024 E-commerce is now the top-performing channel, driving 34% of B2B revenue.

Turns out these forecasts put together by the data nerds are pretty good! (In this case.)

We all love to throw stats around to make a point, but do we ever revisit them to see how accurate they were? Sometimes they land exactly where predicted.

The 80% digital-by-2025 call wasn’t hype, it was the roadmap, and the market followed it.

AI search. Zero-click journeys. Algorithmic feeds.

Buyers aren’t finding you the way they used to and most funnels aren’t built for how discovery works now.

We help B2B teams adapt: mapping the audience, tightening the narrative, and building digital strategies that put you where your buyers are already looking.

The buyer’s journey has shifted from predictable, search-driven paths to fragmented, AI-influenced starting points: review sites, generative chatbots, private communities, and curated feeds.

Yet most strategies still assume a “Google-first” world. If your visibility plan doesn’t reflect where decisions actually start, you’re building momentum in the wrong direction.

—Jay