Revenue teams using AI plan to hire more aggressively than those who don’t, dispelling fears that AI will replace salespeople
Gong, the revenue AI company, shared the results of its inaugural annual report, The State of Revenue Growth 2025, which shows that revenue organizations are returning to growth after years of decline. In particular, organizations that already use AI are experiencing more of a rebound, with 29 percent higher revenue growth compared to their peers who have not yet begun implementing AI.
Of the more than 600 revenue leaders surveyed at global organizations of all sizes, nearly half (48 percent) say their teams are currently using AI, one quarter (24 percent) plan to deploy AI in the next 12 months, and the remaining 27 percent are not using AI and don’t plan to.
In addition to contributing to higher growth rates, the report found that AI is helping companies do so more efficiently. Companies currently using AI have 11 percent more go-to-market efficiency, measured when total sales and marketing spend are divided by revenue growth. The results suggest that AI supports companies in growing revenue while keeping spend low, contributing to a more sustainable growth than their counterparts not using AI.
Fears Debunked: AI is not replacing salespeople
Concerns have persisted that AI – in particular, agents – will replace sellers, a fear that Gong’s report found is decidedly unfounded. Companies currently using AI reported slightly more aggressive hiring plans in 2025 than their peers, with seven percent reporting plans for a significant increase (greater than 20 percent headcount) vs. four percent of those planning to implement AI. Only 15 percent of all organizations reported that they plan to decrease sales headcount by any amount.
“The results of our Annual Report make it clear that AI is not replacing sellers,” said Shane Evans, CRO, Gong. “What it is doing is helping organizations grow more efficiently. It’s helping them better understand their customers and the market, get more out of their technology investments, and streamline some of what used to be the common drudgery of a salesperson’s day-to-day. AI is a key driver of the increased growth we are seeing across many revenue organizations.”
Additional insights from the report include:
- Traditional selling competencies are still critical. Regardless of their organization’s use of AI, the top skills leaders looked for were emotional intelligence and relationship-building.
- Email and customer engagement automation (for example, generating emails to prospects) was the top AI use case, with 63 percent of sales leaders reporting that their teams use it. This was followed by call summary and analysis (52 percent) and automated note-taking and automated data-entry, each with 42 percent.
- A recent Gong Labs report shows that 85 percent of sellers have used AI in their jobs over the past six months, with 68 percent using solutions that they seek on their own. As enterprise AI adoption continues to mature, revenue leaders are under pressure to deploy AI not just for basic tasks but at the organizational level to ensure their teams execute strategies that impact the bottom line.
- AI also leads to a greater understanding of the business: Leaders of organizations currently using AI are 47 percent more likely to be very confident that their sales team fully understands buyers’ and customers’ needs, preferences, and buying behaviors. They also get more out of their CRM, with 62 percent more likely to agree that CRM provides the insights needed to gain this understanding.
- In general, organizations using AI are more likely to be satisfied with the ROI they receive from their technology investments (57 vs. 34 percent).
Methodology
Data featured in Gong’s State of Revenue Growth 2025 was collected through a double-anonymous survey of full-time revenue leaders holding a director or higher role at their organization. Global respondents from North America, EMEA, and APAC participated from October 7, 2024, to October 18, 2024.
About Gong
Gong empowers everyone in revenue teams to improve productivity, increase predictability, and drive revenue growth by deeply understanding customers and business trends; driving impactful decisions and actions. The Gong Revenue AI Platform captures and contextualizes customer interactions, surfaces insights and predictions, and powers actions and workflows that are essential for business success. More than 4,000 companies around the world rely on Gong to unlock their revenue potential. For more information, visit www.gong.io.
