Gartner Says These 7 Technologies Will Disrupt Sales

Gartner just published a report that should be a wake-up call for anyone in sales.

What it is

Analyst firm Gartner says sales leaders need to “recognize, prioritize, and respond” to seven technologies that will disrupt and transform sales over the next five years.

All seven are powered by artificial intelligence:

1. Generative AI — AI that creates text, images, video, code, and any other digital output.
2. Digital twin of the customer — A virtual clone of a potential customer which mirrors the preferences of the customer in real life.
3. Augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) — Virtual environments that either lay over the existing world (AR) or immerse you in a completely virtual world through hardware (VR).
4. Machine customers — AI-powered machines that purchase on the behalf of humans.
5. Digital humans — AI-powered avatars that act like real humans, i.e. digital representatives who have conversations with customers.
6. Emotion AI — AI that understands and responds to different human emotions.
7. Multimodality — Sales teams will collect and use data across many different modes, and AI will be layered on top of this data.

As part of the research, Gartner also cites some jaw-dropping stats:

• The firm says CEOs and CIOs believe 20% of their total revenue could come from machine customers by 2030.
• The market for digital twin solutions will reach $150 billion by 2030, up from $9 billion in 2022.
• Half of B2B buyers will interact with a digital human in the buying cycle by 2026.
• Half of ads will be influenced by emotion AI by 2024.
• 70% of B2B interactions will be recorded in order to use the data with AI by 2025.
• 30% of messages from large companies will be generated by AI by 2025.

Why it matters

In Episode 21 of the Marketing AI Show, Marketing AI Institute founder/CEO Paul Roetzer and I talk about why everyone in the sales and marketing space should be paying attention to these technologies.

• Sales AI is a trend you should take seriously. Regardless of how Gartner’s numbers actually pan out, “what they’re saying is this is going to be a very significant part of your life in the next 2-3 years,” Roetzer told me. These technologies aren’t fiction; they’re being built and sold by companies today. “There are way too many marketers and brands not even paying attention yet.”
• If you’re a marketing or sales tech vendor, you better have AI on your roadmap. “If you’re a CRM platform and you’re not thinking about this in your product roadmap, there will be some problems ahead.” The most cutting-edge companies are already looking for ways to infuse AI into the core technology solutions we use for marketing and sales. The vendors that don’t leverage AI risk becoming obsolete.
• You likely aren’t approaching AI with enough urgency. The technology Gartner cites is already here. “I’ve talked to two vendors in the last seven days doing emotion AI,” says Roetzer. “There’s not enough urgency from marketers to figure this stuff out and there’s not enough urgency from many vendors to be working on this stuff.”

What to do about it

• Read more about Gartner’s take on these technologies in their article on them.
• Jumpstart your AI education by taking our Intro to AI for Marketers free online live class to learn about AI in just 30 minutes.
• Get the book. We talk more about the bigger picture opportunity for marketers, business, and AI in our book Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business.

PS — You can hear the whole conversation about this topic and more cutting-edge AI news in Episode 21 of the Marketing AI Show, out now.