How AI Has Changed the World RevOps Was Built For — And What RevOps Leaders Should Do Next

# Executive summary

Revenue operations (RevOps) grew out of a need to bring discipline and alignment to increasingly fragmented B2B go-to-market (GTM) organizations. Forrester's Ross Graber argues that the environment RevOps was created to manage is now unrecognizable because of AI. That shift changes what RevOps must do to remain effective.

# What changed

Three AI-driven forces have materially altered RevOps' operating conditions:

• Changing buyer behavior. Buyers use AI for research and vendor comparison, which reduces the observable engagement signals organizations historically used to track journeys and trigger GTM activities.

• Pressure to adopt AI without clear outcomes. Executive urgency around AI investments risks prioritizing deployment over measurable customer or business improvements.

# Why that matters for RevOps

# Practical priorities for RevOps leaders

Apply AI to maximize customer value first

• Make customer outcomes the principal criterion for AI use cases. Internal efficiency wins are valid only when they don't create new friction for buyers.

Build a data foundation for AI excellence

Focus resources on transformative operations

• Prioritize redesigning how decisions are made and how teams coordinate, instead of spending the bulk of effort on making old processes faster.

# Immediate actions RevOps teams can take

• Reassess KPIs to include customer-facing outcome metrics tied to AI initiatives.
• Audit data definitions and quality specifically for AI consumers (models, agents, copilots).
• Inventory GTM processes and identify high-impact redesign opportunities rather than incremental automation pilots.
• Establish governance and guardrails that align AI usage with compliance, customer experience, and measurement needs.

# What success looks like

Success isn't measured by the number of AI tools deployed. It looks like clearer customer insights despite AI-mediated discovery, AI-driven workflows that reduce buyer friction, and operational systems that enable coordinated decisions across sales, marketing, and product.

# Where to learn more

Forrester links this perspective to its Budget Planning Guide 2027 for revenue operations leaders and notes an upcoming webinar on September 22 where authors will discuss 2027 budget recommendations for RevOps. The guidance centers on investing, divesting, avoiding, and experimenting with AI in ways that preserve customer value and operational trust.

# Bottom line