Imagine getting a purchase order that no person wrote.
An AI agent working for a retailer noticed stock running low, compared three suppliers, checked delivery dates against the store calendar and placed the order. Someone approved it with one click. Or didn’t need to.
That isn’t science fiction. It’s where Gartner pointed at its big symposium last October. As Digital Commerce 360 reported, Gartner expects AI agents to handle around 90% of B2B purchases within three years, touching more than $15 trillion of spending by 2028.
Predictions like this are always a bit bold. But even if it’s half right, it changes what selling looks like.
Who are you selling to?
If an agent is doing the comparing, it doesn’t care about your lovely brochure or your firm handshake. It cares about what it can read and trust.
Are your product details complete and consistent? Are your prices and lead times clear, and live? Is it obvious what works with what? Is there proof, like reviews and certifications, that a machine can check?
A lot of B2B companies, especially smaller ones, aren’t ready. Their best information lives in a sales rep’s head or a PDF from 2019.
What stays human
Not everything will be bought by agents. One of the same Gartner predictions made me smile: by 2027, three quarters of hiring processes will test candidates on their AI skills. People will still be choosing people.
In my world, an agent might happily reorder printer labels or replace a broken scanner. But a retailer rethinking how its stores run, or a warehouse moving to a new system, will still want a human who understands the whole picture and answers the phone when it goes wrong.
So I see two jobs for sellers. First, be easy for agents to buy from: clean data, clear offers, fast answers. Second, get really good at the decisions agents can’t make alone: the big, risky, new ones.
A small test
Try this. Ask an AI assistant to recommend a product in your category for a customer like yours, and read what comes back.
If you’re not in the answer, or the answer about you is wrong, that’s your homework for this quarter.
Sell to the agent. Win the human.
