B2B sales is entering the agentic age. And it changes more than the tools we use.
For 25 years the model was simple: humans used software to sell to humans. Seller, CRM, sales tools, buyer — we digitised the sales process, but the human remained the actor.
AI is no longer just a tool. It can observe, reason, decide and act. A tool executes instructions with limited context; an agent understands context, reasons across data, takes action, collaborates with other agents and is increasingly autonomous.
Why are we still buying every capability as SaaS, when AI agents can increasingly manufacture capabilities themselves? Today we buy CRM, marketing, collaboration, communication, analytics, support and infrastructure separately. Tomorrow an agent assembles the capability on demand.
The question has changed. Not “which software should we buy?” but: what should we buy, what should we build, and what should we stop paying for? Buy proven capabilities, build differentiating ones, stop paying for what agents can replace.
The Five Tests. 01 Liability — who carries the risk? 02 Moat — does owning it differentiate us? 03 Specificity — how unique is our requirement? 04 Volatility — how quickly will it change? 05 Blast radius — what happens if we get it wrong?
Do you really need a full CRM seat to update a CRM? Today a human opens the CRM and types the update, on a paid seat. Agentic: the human shares the update by text, voice or chat and an agent writes the record. Buy the CRM. Build the window you look at it through.
The SaaS stack is becoming a capability stack. Instead of many applications and many contracts: data, intelligence, action and human layers. Own what differentiates you, buy what is irrational to reproduce, orchestrate everything in between.
Navigating B2B Sales — The Agentic Age Unpacked. What happens to B2B sales when AI stops being a tool and starts becoming an actor?
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Where to next End

The same argument, at two lengths

These ten slides make the case. The Build-or-Buy Executive Audit is what happens when someone runs it against your stack — the Five Tests applied to the contracts that renew next.

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01This slideshow10 slides, portrait, as a PDF02Executive Audit DeckThe long version, 17 pages, 16:903One-pager — brandA4, buildorbuy.guru house style04One-pager — editorialA4, the editorial direction
Roland Kümin · buildorbuy.guru
In partnership with Avanti Group · avantigroup.ai
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