Gartner: 69% of B2B Buyers Still Turn to Reps to Validate AI Insights

What happened

A Gartner survey of 645 B2B buyers, conducted from August through September 2025, found that 69 percent of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights during the purchasing process. The findings were presented on May 20, 2026 at the Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference in Las Vegas.

The data reveals a striking paradox in modern B2B buying behavior. While a separate Gartner survey published in March 2026 found that 67 percent of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience — and 70 percent prefer a completely digital, self-service buying environment — buyers are simultaneously relying on human sellers as a trust layer when AI enters the picture. Forty-five percent of surveyed buyers reported using GenAI during a recent purchase, primarily to gather information on vendors and products, and buyers reported consulting an average of seven information sources per purchase decision.

Trust is at the center of this tension. Fifty-one percent of buyers said they are more likely to encounter misleading information from GenAI, while 49 percent said they are more likely to encounter misleading information from a sales rep. The near-even split suggests that buyers view both AI and human sources as imperfect — but they use each to cross-check the other, creating a verification loop that keeps human sellers in the buying process even as digital channels expand.

Why it matters for practitioners

This research fundamentally reframes the role of the sales rep in an AI-augmented buying environment. The prevailing narrative over the past two years has been that GenAI would accelerate the trend toward rep-free buying by giving buyers self-serve access to product information, competitive comparisons, and solution configurations. Gartner's data suggests the opposite is happening: AI is actually reinforcing the need for human validation at critical decision points, creating a new mandate for competitive intelligence teams to equip sellers with the differentiated knowledge that AI cannot reliably provide.

1. Reps are becoming validation agents, not information agents. The shift is subtle but important. Buyers no longer need reps to deliver product information — AI and digital channels handle that. What buyers need from reps is contextual judgment: the ability to confirm that what AI told them is accurate, relevant to their specific situation, and trustworthy. This changes the sales enablement brief entirely. Instead of arming reps with feature sheets and pitch decks, enablement teams must equip sellers with the nuanced, context-specific intelligence that allows them to validate, correct, or expand on what buyers have already learned from AI.

2. Competitive intelligence becomes the critical validation layer. When a buyer asks a rep to validate what AI told them about a competitor's capabilities, pricing, or market position, the rep either has the answer or loses credibility. This is where CI for sales teams becomes non-negotiable. Battlecards, competitive briefs, and real-time competitive alerts are no longer nice-to-have enablement assets — they are the core toolkit that allows reps to fulfill their new role as validation agents. CI teams that can deliver accurate, current competitive intelligence at the point of sale are directly supporting the buying behavior Gartner has identified.

3. The trust gap creates a window for differentiation. The near-even split on misleading information — 51 percent distrusting AI, 49 percent distrusting reps — means that the bar for trust is low across both channels. Organizations that invest in deal intelligence capabilities, giving reps verified, sourced, and contextualized competitive information at the deal level, can differentiate on trust at a moment when buyers are skeptical of everything they hear. The organizations whose reps can say "here's what the AI told you, here's what's actually true in your specific context, and here's the source" will win disproportionately.

4. AI adoption in buying is accelerating, not plateauing. Forty-five percent of buyers already using GenAI in purchasing is a significant penetration number, and it will only grow. The question for CI and enablement leaders is not whether buyers will use AI — they already are — but whether their sellers are prepared to operate in a world where every buyer walks into a conversation pre-armed with AI-generated intelligence that may or may not be accurate.

Key details

Survey: 645 B2B buyers surveyed August–September 2025
Presented at: Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference, May 19–20, 2026, Las Vegas
69% of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights
67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience (separate March 2026 survey)
70% prefer a completely digital, self-service buying environment
45% of buyers used GenAI during a recent purchase
7 average information sources consulted per purchase decision
51% say they are more likely to encounter misleading information from GenAI
49% say they are more likely to encounter misleading information from a sales rep
Related Gartner research: Sales organizations providing AI-enabled next best actions are 2.6x more likely to achieve commercial growth

Market implications

Gartner's findings have immediate implications for how competitive intelligence and sales enablement vendors position their products. The 69 percent validation statistic is a powerful proof point for any vendor arguing that human-curated intelligence retains high value in an AI-saturated buying environment. Expect CI platforms like Klue, Crayon, and others to incorporate this data into their sales narratives throughout H2 2026, using it to justify investment in human-generated competitive content alongside AI-driven automation.

For sales enablement platforms specifically, the research validates a shift toward what might be called "validation enablement" — equipping sellers not to present information, but to confirm, contextualize, and correct information buyers have already gathered. This is a fundamentally different content strategy than traditional enablement, and the platforms that adapt fastest will capture share.

The broader competitive intelligence market should also take note of the trust dynamics. If buyers trust AI and reps roughly equally — which is to say, not very much — then the organizations that can demonstrably source and verify their competitive claims have a structural advantage. This creates a premium on intelligence provenance: where did this insight come from, when was it last verified, and how does it apply to this specific deal? CI programs that build provenance into their workflows will be better positioned to support the validation role that buyers are now assigning to sellers.

The paradox Gartner has identified — buyers wanting self-service but needing human validation — is not a temporary phase. It is the new equilibrium. As AI-generated content becomes more pervasive and more sophisticated, the cognitive burden on buyers to distinguish reliable information from noise will only increase. Sellers who can reduce that burden, armed with verified deal intelligence and competitive context, will be the ones who earn trust and close deals.

Related resources

Competitive Intelligence — why human-curated CI retains strategic value as AI reshapes B2B buying behavior
Sales Enablement — how the sales enablement function must adapt to a validation-first buyer journey
CI for Sales Teams — a practical guide for delivering competitive intelligence directly to the reps buyers rely on for validation
Deal Intelligence — how deal-level intelligence equips sellers to fulfill their emerging role as buyer trust agents