Another B2B reckoning
16th July 2026 | Candace Lun Plotkin and Jennifer Stanley
What defines a “supplier-switch” moment for customers has shifted for a third time in a decade.
Rising buyer expectations and the acceleration of AI capabilities are driving a wedge between B2B market growth leaders and laggards. This divide may prove to be deeper than both the consumerisation of business buying and the surge in e-commerce self-serve that emerged during the pandemic. Now, the high expectations of B2B customers’ buying experiences are causing the third B2B reckoning in a decade.
This reset is reshaping the rules of competition. Customers now expect as standard a seamless purchasing journey across ten or more interaction channels. When they are met with inconsistent information or a lack of immediately accessible and knowledgeable expert support, they are more willing to switch suppliers. This is true for decision-makers in both small and medium-sized companies and for large enterprise buyers.
This heightened “supplier-switching” appetite coincides with a movement by organisations to redesign their commercial systems to deliver hyper-personalised, AI-enabled experiences as part of more rigorous account-based marketing (ABM) engines. The difference in growth results is partially accounted for by the suppliers who can deliver exceptional omnichannel experiences, and those that can’t.
The trend was identified in McKinsey’s tenth global B2B Pulse Survey. It surfaces a tougher new threshold for survival in B2B sales: one where digital tools, omnichannel engagement, and e-commerce capabilities are now considered to be table stakes. And, the organisations seeking to grow market share must deliver a more connected and responsive customer experience: one that identifies buyer needs (including interaction channel choice) at every stage of the journey, uses AI and data to deeply personalise interactions at scale, and combines ABM with disciplined commercial execution to drive sustainable growth across the customer base.
The B2B suppliers thriving are placing big bets on AI at scale
The suppliers thriving right now – the 11% growing market share by 10% or more – are significantly more likely (than those merely surviving) to have increased AI investments by double digits year-over-year (71% versus 25%). They are more than twice as likely to have implemented generative AI (genAI) into their buying and selling processes (44% versus 22%).
The high expectations of B2B customers’ buying experiences are causing the third B2B reckoning in a decade.
This group is deploying one-to-one personalisation (20% versus 5%) and embedding this hyper-personalisation directly into the customer experience. The gap between those who are doing this, versus those who aren’t, is stark: 73% of thrivers are personalising their marketing to either be “very personalised” or “one-on-one”, compared to just 31% of the laggards. That’s everything from dynamic landing pages, persona-driven product sequencing, contextual nudges, abandoned-journey recovery, and tailored online promotional banners that adapt in real time to customer behaviour. Critically, they have rewired processes to treat every touchpoint as programmable, integrating analytics and AI to ensure that messaging content, cadence, urgency, and context are always personalised.
When it comes to ABM, top performers are significantly more likely to reach the highest revenue bands by establishing clear commercial ownership for its execution within key accounts (43% versus 31%). Moreover, they are creating accountability by ensuring a single leader is responsible for ABM in priority accounts and measuring performance at the account level. These organisations also embed AI-driven insights and personalisation into repeatable commercial processes, enabling more coordinated engagement and stronger revenue outcomes.
Not every B2B supplier is meeting the new survival threshold
Worryingly, a third of companies are still overlooking one of modern B2B sales’ most important and effective channels: e-commerce. While it used to be a differentiator a decade ago – allowing early adopters to grow five times faster than the market – it is now considered by B2B buyers as a must have, along with other self-service digital tools and omnichannel engagement.
The reason is simple: buyers have embraced digital engagement and purchasing at scale. Around one-third of B2B revenue now flows through digital channels, and transaction values are sizable. Nearly one in three buyers is willing to spend more than $500,000 through online transactions. The appetite to conduct large transactions online has been rapid. In 2022, 59% of respondents said they were comfortable placing online orders exceeding $50,000. Today, that figure has risen to 73%.
Buyer convenience and personalisation are also causing a performance divide
It’s not just enabling the transaction that counts. Buyers want the convenience of digital engagement, while also expecting higher levels of expertise, personalisation, and trust throughout the purchasing process.
The three moves to meet B2B buyer expectations
1. Move from baseline personalisation to hyperpersonalisation
Baseline personalisation has become standard practice: 90% of organisations are personalising content across email, websites, social media, e-commerce platforms and other touchpoints. Those shifting to hyper-personalisation are driving individual engagement with account context, buying history, behavioural signals, and “next best action insights”. When they move with this insight, they are making high-impact commercial moments – social media engagement, chatbot interactions, and events – where tailored messaging can materially influence consideration and conversion.
2. Create an AI flywheel effect that drives growth
Among growth winners, it is clear that use of AI is shifting from pilots to broader, domain and workflow-wide implementations. Some 22% of organisations have fully implemented gen AI capabilities, up from 19% last year, and an additional 31% are actively adopting the technology. The market leaders are those that have embedded AI directly into core workflows and cite gen AI’s primary benefits as efficiency (59%), customer experience (53%), and innovation (48%). This group has created an AI and agentic flywheel effect to drive growth. The initial enthusiasm for AI has been matched with greater usage and accelerated implementation across functions. In turn this has expanded capability and impact, to fuel growth.
3. Ensure that ABM has clear governance in the control layer
While ABM is now a staple across B2B organisations, how it is governed is what makes a difference when it comes to sales outcomes. Organisations that anchor ABM ownership in the sales process, with meaningful ownership for messaging among the sales force, are between five and ten percentage points more likely to report higher representation in the top revenue growth bands than those using shared or marketing-led models where sales is merely a recipient of or bystander to content.
Time for change
The widening performance gap underscores the urgency for organisations to change. While the most visible shortfalls are in revenue growth and sales effectiveness, the challenge runs deeper: it requires a fundamental redesign of the commercial operating model. The leaders pulling ahead are not deploying hyper-personalisation, AI, and account-based sales governance as isolated initiatives. They are integrating them into cohesive, reinforcing systems that learn, adapt, and compound advantage over time.