AI is being practically applied to radically transform GTM operations. Vercel has successfully deployed internal AI agents to automate lead qualification and analyze sales call transcripts, leading to massive cost savings and uncovering insights missed by human managers.
A new, highly technical role is emerging within GTM teams: the "go-to-market engineer." These individuals, often with backgrounds in both sales engineering and software development, build the internal tools and automations that give the sales team a competitive edge.
The most effective GTM strategies are developed and iterated upon like a software product. This involves mapping the customer journey, identifying "bugs" or friction points (e.g., poor objection handling), and running sprints to systematically fix them using data and AI-driven feedback loops.
In the nascent AI-for-GTM space, building custom tools can be more effective than buying. Off-the-shelf products may be too generic, while internal agents can be tailored to a company's unique context and workflows, and can be developed surprisingly quickly and cheaply.
Foundational sales principles are being re-examined, emphasizing that the core motivation for enterprise buyers remains pain avoidance and risk reduction, not aspirational upside. Furthermore, established models like pure product-led growth (PLG) are seen as having a ceiling, requiring a sales-assisted layer for large-scale success.
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