Innovation occurs in waves. Often, these waves drive extended periods of growth and transformation — supercycles that engulf businesses, governments, and societies. Minicomputers, PCs, the internet, social, mobile, and cloud were at the heart of prior technology waves. Now comes the Seventh Wave, driven by generative and agentic artificial intelligence. Indeed, a new supercycle has emerged. In our recent report, The Dawn Of A New B2B Sales Supercycle, we define the characteristics of this next decade of topline growth:
Intelligent. Smart, efficient AI agents will be organized in reporting hierarchies and will co-sell with sales reps. Similarly, buyers will use AI in every phase of the purchasing process. We’ve entered an era of white-collar automation.
Accelerated. Customers and competitors will move faster than ever, creating uncertainty for sales teams. Expect shorter planning and executing sprints that address operating realities — with fast, frequent improvements.
Adaptive. Buyers will have more control and expect personalization at scale. As a result, sales must make agile, customer-centric adjustments. Large companies will use M&A as an instrument to keep up with startups and SMBs.
Integrated. Interdependence among go-to-market teams continues to increase. Future roles, cadences, org designs, tech stacks, and processes will be more integrated than ever. With AI, teams must rethink and rebuild approaches.
Networked. Revenue is earned in networks, and sales teams rely on commercial webs and ecosystems to sell their product. In the future, artificial neural networks will mimic human cognition and solve complex sales problems.
Seller Roles Will Merge In This New Supercycle
As part of this research, we predict that the cost of sales will rise during this AI-driven supercycle. AI investments, combined with integrated and accelerated work to meet customer needs, will force senior leaders to merge some sales and go-to-market roles. Specifically, the research highlights that “ … the [account executive] or customer success manager role of tomorrow could be staffed by the sales engineer of today, who is paired with an AI agent to sell with deep domain and solution expertise.”
One early example of this merging of sales roles is happening at Microsoft. A few months after this report was published, Microsoft announced that it was cutting thousands of relationship-based sales jobs and refreshing some of them with solution engineers. An MSN article summarized it well: “Microsoft’s recent layoffs, which eliminated thousands of sales positions, reflect a larger shift away from traditional, soft-skill sales and toward more technical, AI-driven selling.” As sales teams invest in AI and connect customers to product experts, we expect this trend to continue.
Expect A Dramatic Change In The Sales Landscape
The pace of change is accelerating, and the buying and selling landscape is shifting. Self-service, AI influence, generational change, and buying complexity reshape the interactions between buying groups and revenue teams. In Forrester’s B2B Sales Survey, 2024, 37% of sales professionals say that being slow to recognize and adapt to changing buying behaviors is one of the top revenue growth challenges for their direct sales team. With disruption on the doorstep, sales teams with deep customer empathy and a willingness to self-disrupt will commercially outperform their rivals.
To understand how these trends affect B2B sales and go-to-market teams, explore more insights in the report The Dawn Of A New B2B Sales Supercycle (client access required) and schedule a guidance session. You can also connect with me in person and see my upcoming keynote on this topic live at B2B Summit EMEA in London, October 6–8, 2025.
