In January I started researching how B2B buyers are using generative AI to help their buying process. I reached out to a half dozen IT leaders that had helped me navigate the purchase of marketing automation, groupware, mobile apps, etc… and I came up empty. Zero for six. “It’s too early,” I heard. “We’re being really cautious about how we use generative AI,” I heard from another. It seemed like B2B buyer adoption of generative AI was a long way off.
GenAI Has Fast Become One Of Buyers’ Top Sources Of Information
Six months later, a little more than 18 months after ChatGPT launched, we polled B2B buyers for the first time about whether they are using generative AI. The genAI adoption numbers were shocking. The overwhelming majority, 89% of buyers in Forrester’s B2B Buyer’s Journey Survey, 2024, reported they were using genAI in at least one area of their purchase process. What was even more surprising was that buyers reported genAI as one of the most impactful sources of information across all phases of the buying process. They weren’t just using genAI to discover new vendors, but to evaluate the differences between them, and to justify their purchase commitment.
Providers Are Starting To See The Impact
In recent interviews, we have heard that genAI-enabled conversational search is beginning to make an impact on the revenue engine. Firms report that traffic growth from traditional search engines is slowing. Traffic sourced from conversational search engines, while still a small fraction of total traffic, is growing at double digits. Companies are seeing their first deals closing that are lead-sourced from conversational search engines. Like adoption, the impact has started slowly…
GenAI Helps Buyers Be More Efficient And Effective
Buyers are flocking to genAI because it enables them to do more research in less time. The overwhelming majority of buyers who used genAI in their purchase process, 87%, agreed that genAI helped them “create a better business outcome for their organization.” The impact is largest with buyers making purchases of over $1 million that require more due diligence. Forrester predicts that as a result, B2B buyers of complex offerings will consider more vendors and come to a decision faster.
Start Preparing For Smarter Buyers
The impact on B2B providers has started slowly… but will soon happen all at once. Since this survey, OpenAI has announced SearchGPT and Google has rolled out Search Generative Experience to a broader range of categories. The capabilities buyers have access to will continue to grow. Providers need to start thinking about how to respond to these changes in buying behaviors – from strategy, to content, to site experience, to sales experience. I talk about some of these in my discussion with Sri Sridharan on the What It Means podcast and in my report Buying In The Age Of Generative AI.
Forrester clients: Let’s chat more about the data via a Forrester guidance session.
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