Buyers Are Choosing Vendors Long Before Sales Engagement — Leaving Sellers Less Time to Influence Decisions

6sense®, the first agent-powered Revenue Intelligence platform, today released its 2025 Buyer Experience Report, an annual global study examining how B2B purchasing decisions are made and what shapes them. Based on responses from more than 4,000 buyers across North America, EMEA, and APAC, the research reveals that the moment of persuasion in B2B buying now happens long before a first call — as artificial intelligence, digital habits, and economic pressure compress timelines across the board.

Buyers Are Picking Winners Sooner

B2B buyers are making up their minds earlier — and the timeline for influencing them is shrinking. The study found that the balance between independent research and seller engagement has shifted from a 70/30 split to 60/40.

The vendor buyers prefer before engaging with sellers still wins 80% of deals, underscoring that sellers are now confirming decisions, not creating them.

“Buyers are choosing a preliminary winner much earlier than they have in the past,” said Kerry Cunningham, Head of Research & Thought Leadership at 6sense. “That early choice is often driven by the need to evaluate AI capabilities — but it’s happening before vendors even know they’re being considered. The real urgency for revenue teams is to influence those early journeys before buyers reach out.”

Key findings from the study include:

• Average buying cycles shortened from about 11 months in 2024 to 10 months in 2025.
• The buying journey shifted from a 70/30 to 60/40 split between research and seller engagement.
• 94% of buying groups ranked preferred vendors before first contact.
• They ultimately purchased from that preliminary favorite 77% of the time.
• 89% of purchases included AI features, and 58% of buyers engaged sellers earlier to clarify missing AI details.

The AI Information Gap

The report exposes a widening AI information gap between what buyers want to know and what vendors actually communicate. Nearly nine in 10 purchases now include AI features, but most vendor websites fail to clearly explain them — from data sources and security to pricing and performance. That lack of clarity is pulling buyers into earlier conversations with vendors, but it hasn’t stopped buyers from picking a winner before the first call.

“Buyers are sophisticated,” Cunningham added. “They’ve been through eight or nine purchase cycles on average. Vendors that can’t provide clear answers upfront aren’t even making the shortlist.”

LLMs Are Tools — Not Decision-Makers

Despite hype that generative AI is transforming B2B buying, large language models (LLMs) are used primarily for synthesizing and organizing research. Ninety-four percent of buyers used them to summarize reviews or analyze data, yet they still averaged 16 interactions per person with the winning vendor — unchanged from last year.

Economic Pressure Is Raising the Stakes

Economic pressure is compounding the trend:

• 49% said financial pressure shortened their buying cycles.
• 62% engaged sellers earlier as a result.
• 70% said economic anxiety directly influenced vendor choice — often favoring incumbents.

“Buyers are moving faster but not taking more risks,” Cunningham noted. “In uncertain times, trust and clarity win.”

Get the Full Report

The 2025 Buyer Experience Report is available for download here. Kerry Cunningham will host a webinar on November 18, 2025, to discuss the findings in detail.

About 6sense

6sense is the Revenue Intelligence Platform that helps B2B teams multiply what matters: building predictable pipeline and closing deals with speed and certainty. Powered by 6AI and the Signalverse™ — the industry's most complete B2B signal network — 6sense captures trillions of buyer signals to uncover in-market accounts, prioritize the right contacts, and orchestrate personalized engagement. With one connected platform, AI Agents can turn these insights into action, automating manual tasks across sales and marketing so teams stop guessing and focus on the buyers who matter most. Companies use 6sense to win bigger deals, close faster, and drive real pipeline growth — with 2X deal sizes and 4X higher win rates.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251112018032/en/

Buyers are choosing a preliminary winner much earlier than they have in the past. That early choice is often driven by the need to evaluate AI capabilities - but it’s happening before vendors even know they’re being considered.