Gartner's finding is stark: 67% of B2B buyers now say they prefer a rep-free experience — a digital, self-directed buying journey over working with a sales representative.

That number, reported by Demand Gen Report, comes from Gartner's buyer research and represents a majority preference, not a marginal trend. For sales leaders, it reframes a familiar problem. Buyers are not simply researching before they talk to sales; a large share would prefer never to be sold to in the traditional sense at all.

What the number means for deal stages

The rep-free preference hits hardest at the top of the funnel. Discovery, needs assessment, and solution comparison — stages sellers historically controlled through discovery calls and demos — increasingly happen without them. Buyers assemble requirements, compare vendors, and shortlist options using content, review sites, product trials, and peer input.

For enterprise teams with long, multi-stakeholder cycles, the implication is different than for SMB motion. In complex deals, sellers still enter — but later, and on the buyer's terms. The seller's window to add value narrows to the stages where human judgment genuinely matters: validation, stakeholder alignment, business-case building, and negotiation.

How sellers should respond

The practical shift is from controlling the journey to being findable and credible within it. That puts weight on several concrete moves:

• Publish pricing and comparison content. Buyers who want a rep-free experience will find third-party data anyway. Vendors that withhold basic information push buyers toward competitors who don't.
• Make product experience the first touch. Free trials, sandboxes, and product-led entry points let buyers self-qualify before any conversation.
• Redesign rep workflows around late-stage value. If buyers arrive 70% of the way through their decision, discovery scripts aimed at educating from zero waste both sides' time. Reps need to diagnose where the buyer already is, not restart the journey.
• Track rep-free engagement as pipeline signal. For teams of any size, product usage and content depth in an account now predict intent more reliably than form fills.

Measured versus asserted

One caution: 67% is a preference statistic, not a behavior measure. Buyers saying they prefer to avoid reps does not mean two-thirds of revenue will flow through fully automated channels. Gartner's own research has long shown that B2B buying is non-linear — buyers loop through independent tasks repeatedly, and preferences shift when stakes, complexity, or internal politics rise. Enterprise purchases with six- or seven-figure contracts and buying committees of 6–10 stakeholders still involve sellers, because consensus-building among stakeholders is something buyers struggle to do alone.

The defensible read: the default mode of early-stage B2B engagement has flipped. Self-service is now what buyers expect to start with, and rep involvement must be earned by demonstrating value that digital channels cannot replicate.

The forward view

Gartner's data points toward a continued expansion of rep-free buying paths — digital commerce, configurators, AI-assisted evaluation — with sellers concentrated where human involvement demonstrably improves outcomes. Sales organizations that treat the 67% figure as a workflow mandate rather than a threat will be the ones still holding the late-stage conversation when the buyer finally does want to talk.