In today’s digital world, buyers discover, evaluate, and purchase solutions in new ways. To remain competitive, organizations must understand these evolving behaviors and act on them.
With trusted insights, marketing, sales, and executive leaders can make smarter, faster decisions and reshape their go-to-market strategies. Analyst relations (AR) professionals are uniquely positioned to bridge these insights with influence. In a recent IDC webinar, “Turning Insights into Influence: Leveraging Buyer Behavior Research,” Laurie Buczek, Group VP of Executive Insights and Thought Leadership Services at IDC, shared how AR leaders can guide their organizations through the next wave of change.
AI is reshaping the C-suite
Sixty-three percent of CEOs are already operationalizing AI initiatives.
AI is no longer experimental. It’s strategic, and the shift is starting at the top. IDC research shows AI is accelerating from ad hoc adoption to full-scale transformation:
- 51% of organizations are in the opportunistic phase of AI adoption.
- 47% of CEOs rank AI-driven business automation as a top investment priority.
- 54% see AI as a lever to reinvent business models.
This shift is bigger than technology. AI is influencing how decisions are made across the entire C-suite. That makes it critical for vendors and AR teams to influence beyond IT teams, reaching across business and technical leadership.
The buyer journey is now AI-first
Sixty-eight percent of the buyer journey is now digital.
As AI reshapes decision-making at the executive level, it’s also transforming how buyers themselves discover, evaluate, and engage with vendors. IDC research shows:
- Application-based searches, like YouTube and Reddit, now surpass traditional internet search for vendor discovery.
- 73% of decision makers expect to rely more on AI chatbots in the future.
- Among IT buyers, that number rises to 85%.
The trend is clear: buyers aren’t just digital first. They are becoming AI-first. That means your messaging, content, and influence strategy must be optimized not only for SEO, but for AI prompts, jobs-to-be-done, and discovery tools.
Marketing’s mandate has changed
These shifting buyer expectations demand new leadership. Marketing, once focused on campaigns and channels, is now being redefined as the orchestrator of the entire journey. IDC research shows CMOs are evolving into Chief Market Officers focused on integrating cross-functional engagement and driving growth.
This evolution is backed by changing skill demands:
- Marketing science and analytics are critical for decision-making.
- Creative storytelling remains vital to differentiate and connect.
- AI fluency, from prompt engineering to agentic workflows, is becoming a core requirement.
One CMO summarized the shift well, “Sales has integrated into marketing. The CMO is now the chief commercial officer. We view sales as a channel in the customer’s journey versus a standalone function.”
See the impact AI is having on today’s buyer journey. Head to our resource page to start turning AI insights into measurable results.
Where AR leaders come in
With CMOs stepping into broader commercial roles, AR professionals have a unique opportunity to ensure executives stay aligned with market realities and to turn insights into true influence.
AR professionals can turn insight into influence by:
- Explaining how AI is reshaping customer business models and updating messaging to reflect it.
- Mapping the expanded buying committee to avoid missed revenue opportunities.
- Rebuilding the content supply chain for a digital, omnichannel, AI-first world.
- Helping executives understand that an AI-ready marketing organization is no longer optional.
Bringing these threads together, the future of buyer engagement is clear: omnichannel, AI-led, and persona-rich. For AR professionals, the mandate is not just to capture insights, but to turn them into influence.
Watch the full webinar on-demand: Turning Insights into Influence: Leveraging Buyer Behavior Research.
