Key findings from LXA's 201-leader report, produced in partnership with Seismic.
79% of B2B buyers say they want fewer direct interactions with sales reps. Meanwhile, the average deal still takes around 12 touches to close — and one in four respondents say their deals need 15 or more. Buyers want out of the conversation. The conversation won't let them go.
That's the contradiction sitting at the center of LXA and Seismic's 2026 State of Revenue Enablement report, based on a survey of 201 senior revenue and marketing leaders across the UK, Germany, and France.
Buyers are doing their homework before you ever get the call
The report points to AI-mediated discovery as the driver. Buyers are researching independently through chat-based search tools, AI-generated summaries, and automated vendor comparisons long before a seller enters the picture. By the time they do talk to a rep, they already know the product and have a clear view of what they're evaluating.
Buyers are doing their homework before you ever get the call
The report points to AI-mediated discovery as the driver. Buyers are researching independently through chat-based search tools, AI-generated summaries, and automated vendor comparisons long before a seller enters the picture. By the time they do talk to a rep, they already know the product and have a clear view of what they're evaluating.
It's a strange position for sellers to be in: less visibility into how preferences are forming, and less time to influence them once a buyer does show up.
Committees are getting bigger, not smaller
At the same time, the buying side of the table is expanding. 58% of respondents report their buying committee grew over the past year. Only 4% say it shrank. More stakeholders means more competing priorities, and more content and messaging tailored to concerns that have nothing to do with the primary contact.
This isn't hesitation. It's triage. Buyers are compressing the parts of the journey they can do alone and holding firm on the parts that require group consensus.
Two funnels, two strategies
The report frames this as a split funnel: self-directed research at the top, high-touch, multi-stakeholder engagement at the bottom. Organisations closing the gap are investing in AI-enabled self-serve infrastructure for early discovery, while reserving human sellers for the complex, multi-threaded conversations where judgment and consensus-building actually move a deal forward.
The mistake would be treating this as one problem. It's two, and they need different tools.
Read the State of Revenue Enablement Report 2026