As more B2B buyers adopt generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and conversational search tools to gather faster insights, marketing, sales, and product leaders are facing intense pressure to integrate AI tools into their go-to-market applications to keep up.
But 19% of buyers using these AI applications feel less confident in their purchasing decisions due to inaccurate or unreliable information provided by GenAI. The explosion of new and untested GenAI functionality, combined with lagging AI user skills, will result in incidents that lead to the loss of more than $10 billion in enterprise value from declining stock prices, legal settlements, and fines, according to Forrester’s B2B marketing, sales, and product predictions.
Forrester reports offer forward-looking insights into the trends and signals that empower leaders and their teams to think beyond the conventional and ignite bold ideas in the year ahead. Forrester’s predictions cover topics including: B2B marketing, sales, and product; business buyers; digital commerce; and payments.
Forrester’s Outlook
According to Sharyn Leaver, chief research officer at Forrester, B2B leaders must embrace a more disciplined and evidence-driven approach to how they engage with GenAI, prioritizing trust and tangible value for buyers as they head into next year.
“Success will hinge on investing in AI governance, balancing human expertise with AI tools, and empowering teams to deliver clear, validated outcomes,” said Leaver in a statement. “In a volatile market, accountability and clarity will be the cornerstones of competitive advantage for B2B leaders.”
The GenAI Balance
While B2B companies are trying to minimize risk by applying governance practices used for internally developed applications, these top-down approaches are inadequate to control the adoption of GenAI in the commercial applications that go-to-market teams use. To harness the power of GenAI responsibly, organizations must improve employees’ “AI intelligence quotient” and democratize their governance efforts.
To that end, Forrester’s expects human expertise will rival GenAI in appeal as buyers seek deeper validation. In 2025, 30% of all buyers viewed GenAI tools as a meaningful interaction type during the final commit stage of their purchase, compared to just 17% who said the same about interacting with product experts.
As GenAI provides buyers with more information, buyers will turn to experts to validate insights and answer complex questions. These interactions will continue to become prominent earlier in the buying process.
2026 Predictions
Other highlights from Forrester’s predictions include:
- Seventy-five percent of enterprise B2B companies will increase budgets for influencer relations. As buying networks expand and buying groups increasingly rely on external influencers— analysts, subject matter experts, and luminaries— for fact-based insights, marketing leaders will elevate influencer relations to a strategic growth lever. Analyst reports and social media are among the most commonly cited content assets and interactions that business buyers find meaningful.
- Twenty percent of B2B sellers will be forced to engage in agent-led quote negotiations. In 2025, 61% of purchase influencers say their organization has or will use a private GenAI engine to support purchasing. In 2026, at least one in five B2B sellers will be compelled to respond to AI-powered buyer agents with dynamically delivered counteroffers via seller-controlled agents.
“In a volatile market, accountability and clarity will be the cornerstones of competitive advantage for B2B leaders,” said Leaver
For more on Forrester’s 2026 Predictions guides for B2B marketing, sales, and product leaders, click here.
