“The Race To Trust and Value”
Forrester — 2026 Predictions: B2B Marketing, Sales & Product (see deck) © 2025 Forrester Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Here’s what stands out to me from this deck:
Buyers want proof.
They always have. But they’ve had to work hard to find it — even reputable companies that could have provided proof if they wanted to (it’s right there in their data) didn’t because they felt they didn’t have the bandwidth, systems, urgent need, or budget to track it down. Thanks to AI search and discovery, proof is the new black.
Forrester projects that proof of success will overtake brand reputation as the top nontechnical purchase driver, and cites analyst reports as among the most meaningful content types.
Buyers also want to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
According to Forrester, AI is fine for information gathering, but when it comes to making decisions, buyers most often cite interactions with human experts (not genAI) as personally meaningful. Experts validate fit and handle complex questions genAI can’t.
When your experts answer the questions that matter most to your buyers, you build buyer trust. Consistently interviewing a broad swath of subject matter experts at your company on the topics buyers are asking about right now — and collecting that knowledge and opinion in a searchable, updatable system — lets you respond quickly and confidently to differentiate your brand. On demand.