B2B sales teams face mounting pressure to demonstrate genuine business understanding in 2026

A new Adience survey suggests that many B2B sales teams are still missing the point. In a study of 350 buyers for its report, “The B2B Buyer Backlash: How Vendors Can Break Through in 2026”, 35% said vendors misunderstood their priorities, while 30% said they misread industry-specific pain points and 28% said they failed to grasp technical requirements or constraints.

The message for commercial leaders is less about charm or polish than basic commercial alignment. A...

ccording to Adience, buyers are frustrated when vendors pitch around assumptions instead of the realities of the business in front of them. Chris Wells, managing director at Adience, framed the issue bluntly in the report, saying: “Buyers are telling vendors, ‘Don’t tell us what you sell, show us that you understand how our business works.'”

The survey, conducted in July 2025 and published later that year, points to a broader shift in what buyers expect from suppliers. The most valued capability over the next one to two years was staying current with market trends and innovation, cited by 34% of respondents. Close behind, at 33% each, were the ability to interpret data, use AI appropriately and demonstrate deep category knowledge.

That combination matters. Buyers are not asking for a single standout trait; they are looking for evidence of market awareness, analytical fluency and subject expertise at the same time. Vendors that over-index on one area, such as AI-led personalisation, without the substance to support it, risk appearing technically adept but commercially shallow.

The report also suggests that AI is becoming more of a screening factor than a selling point. Buyers who specifically asked vendors about AI gave greater weight to AI competence, at 40%, and data fluency, at 45%, than those who did not raise the subject. By contrast, respondents who never mentioned AI were more likely to prioritise deep category knowledge, at 36%.

Ant Newman, director of content at Spectro Cloud, told Adience that AI can help sales and marketing teams target outreach and digest information, but the conversations that matter still depend on trust, human connection and a useful point of view. That distinction is echoed in the survey’s frustration data: a quarter of buyers said misuse of AI, including robotic language, obvious autofill or factual errors, was among their main complaints. Buyers in the US and in healthcare and life sciences were especially likely to say so.

Separate reporting on the same research also highlights how often vendors simply waste buyers’ time. B2B Profs said Adience’s findings show that buyers complain about repetitive questioning, irrelevant materials and a lack of familiarity with their industry or use case. MarketingCharts added that 43% of buyers wanted to judge vendors more on fit and less on price, underlining a preference for relevance over discount-led selling.

6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report offers useful context. It found that in most cases the winning vendor is already on the shortlist before any sales conversation begins, and that AI features are now part of most solutions buyers purchase. Taken together, the reports suggest a more demanding buying environment in which vendors are expected to arrive informed, useful and specific from the outset.

For leadership teams planning 2027 commercial strategy, the implication is clear. Sales enablement cannot stop at messaging discipline; it has to equip teams to understand a buyer’s business before the first meeting. Training in AI should be matched by investment in market knowledge and sector expertise. In an environment where buyers are increasingly impatient with generic outreach, credibility is built less by talking harder and more by showing a precise grasp of what the customer actually needs.

Source: Noah Wire Services