Value Selling in a Post-AI World: Our Take on G2’s 2024 Buyer Behavior Report

G2’s annual buyer behavior report dropped recently. As one of the top-ranked value-selling tools on the website, we couldn’t help but take an interest. This year’s theme, unsurprisingly, is the “Age of AI”. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) made a big splash when ChatGPT opened to the public in late 2022. In the short-to-medium-term aftermath, it wasn’t obvious what the impact of AI would be on enterprise sales. 

Three years later, we have a somewhat clearer picture. That picture, unfortunately, is muddled by other trends in the sales space, namely a general economic squeeze on many companies and the side effects of that. 

So, what are our key takes from the report? And, more importantly, what can GTM teams do about it? 

A return to the blank check era? Not quite. 

As the report points out, software spending continues to increase. In fact, more than half of buyers said that their organization purchased software in the past three months. 52% expect software spending to increase in 2025. Taken at face value, it looks like we’re back in the 2010s “blank check” era of SaaS spending before the global pandemic nipped it in the bud. It’s not that simple, however. 

Although SaaS spending is on the rise again, the buying habits picked up during the economic downturn haven’t disappeared. In fact, they’ve become more entrenched. Deal velocity has slowed down massively as increased vetting processes draw out the length of deal cycles. Almost half of all buyers took four months or longer to purchase software costing more than $20,000 – a 41% increase from last year. 

Organizations don’t want to be left behind during a time when AI tools promise big returns on investment (ROI). However, even in an era characterized by increased spending, cost remains a big consideration. For example, “protection from potential product price increases” has increased as a reason for multi-year purchases from 7% to 20%. 

Deal velocity might be slowing down, but customer lifecycles are speeding up.

We’ve discussed AI-washing (also known as GPT-wrapping) before, but it’s essentially the practice of increasing the perceived value of a product by emphasizing the less-than-functional artificial intelligence parts of it. I.e., capitalizing on AI as a trend. 

Buyers are now aware of this – and there’s a backlash. Organizations expect tools with AI functionality to deliver an ROI much faster than tools that don’t. More generally, ROI expectations have increased, with more than half of buyers expecting to see an ROI within three months. 

Prove value as soon as possible.

According to the G2 report, shortlists are getting shorter. It makes sense since, with increased executive oversight on purchasing decisions, it’s simply not possible for buying teams to evaluate as many software options as they once could. 

As the report points out: 

“45% of buyers had 4 to 7 products on their shortlists in 2023, a figure which dropped to 31% in 2024.”

It’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there’s less competition once you get to the final stage. On the other, it’s harder actually to get to the final stage, so it’s key to prove value earlier on in the deal cycle. 

The need to build a holistic business case

There’s a great quote by Sarah Allen-Short which sums up the situation as we see it: 

“While we’ve long focused on the idea of a buyer champion and influencers, there’s been a larger push to attract executive fire. This is for good reason—they're now the real decision-makers. In an era of growth at all costs, getting C-suite sign-off was a formality, but in an era of capital-efficient growth, it's a requirement.” 

Buying committees are stronger than ever. More than 40% of buyers now say that the C-Suite is the decision maker behind any purchase. CFOs hold much of this power, too. 

Business cases must take into consideration the buyer's finances in a way that goes beyond budget qualification. Consider quantifying all the benefits of your software and linking that back to a monetary figure – value-selling tools like Minoa help with this. 

However, they must also be holistic. Different members of a buying committee will have different concerns. If your business case speaks to as many of them as possible in a compelling and relevant way, you’ll have a much better chance. 

Value-selling tools like Minoa help companies build compelling mutual business cases collaboratively with buyers. We designed it specifically for the present sales landscape to help organizations sell on value in every single deal. 

If you want to see it in action, hit us a note and we can help out and show you a demo of Minoa!