Buyers now use AI to arrive with a full research dossier on your product, pricing, and competitors. This changes the GTM role from persuading customers with clever messaging to enabling their decision-making. The new focus is helping buyers quickly experience your product's value on their own terms.

AI enables a fundamental shift in business models away from selling access (per seat) or usage (per token) towards selling results. For example, customer support AI will be priced per resolved ticket. This outcome-based model will become the standard as AI's capabilities for completing specific, measurable tasks improve.

Companies feel immense pressure to integrate AI to stay competitive, leading to massive spending. However, this rush means they lack the infrastructure to measure ROI, creating a paradox of anxious investment without clear proof of value.

Sales leader John McMahon explains that while perpetual licenses offered years to fix issues, today's consumption-based models can see customers churn in a week if they don't see immediate value. This demands an intense focus on rapid value realization.

With hundreds of AI vendors pitching enterprises weekly, trust is low and differentiation is difficult. The most effective go-to-market strategy is to prove the technology works before asking for payment. Offering a free "solution sprint" for several weeks de-risks the decision for the customer and demonstrates confidence.

The market is rejecting 'lame co-pilots' that provide minor workflow improvements for an extra fee. Successful AI products create entirely new, powerful use cases and deliver substantial, tangible value on day one, justifying their place in the budget.

The dominant per-user-per-month SaaS business model is becoming obsolete for AI-native companies. The new standard is consumption or outcome-based pricing. Customers will pay for the specific task an AI completes or the value it generates, not for a seat license, fundamentally changing how software is sold.

AI allows founders to build products so revolutionary that customers' reaction is "What the...? That can't work." This immediate, visceral understanding of value removes friction and the need for traditional "explainer" roles like complex sales teams and lengthy value-selling processes.

In the current, rapidly evolving AI market, the long-term winners are not yet clear. CIOs should de-risk their budgets by experimenting with more vendors, using shorter-term contracts, and prioritizing products that can be tested and prove value quickly.