Two-thirds of B2B buyers now prefer a rep-free purchasing experience, according to Gartner research reported by Digital Commerce 360 — a single number that reframes the debate over what sellers do when buyers no longer want to talk to them.

The finding lands at a moment when AI is actively reshaping how deals get done. Buyers are not simply avoiding salespeople out of habit; they are replacing seller-provided information with self-service channels and AI-assisted research. The practical consequence for revenue teams is that the traditional first-line discovery call — historically the seller's entry point into an account — is happening without the seller in the room.

What the number does and does not say

The two-thirds figure is a preference statement, not a transaction record. It tells us how buyers want to buy, not yet what share of deals close with zero seller contact. Digital Commerce 360's report does not break out the underlying methodology, sample size, or segment splits by deal size or industry, so teams should treat it as directional rather than a benchmark to forecast against. Still, Gartner's buyer-preference research has tracked a consistent multi-year drift toward self-service, and this data point marks the point at which rep-free preference crosses from minority behavior to the modal answer.

Where this hits the funnel

The pressure concentrates at the top and middle of the pipeline. Late-stage, high-value deals involving legal review, security vetting, and multi-stakeholder alignment will continue to require human negotiation. The buyers pulling away from reps are concentrated in evaluation and shortlisting stages — exactly where content, pricing transparency, and product-led trial mechanics now do the work a first discovery call used to do.

That has different implications by team size. Large enterprise organizations with established brand equity can lean into self-service because buyers already trust the product category they occupy. Smaller and mid-market vendors face a harder problem: their differentiation is less discoverable through self-guided research, and losing the rep conversation removes one of their few chances to reframe the buying criteria.

The AI variable

The same forces depressing rep demand are raising the floor on what reps must deliver when they do get engaged. If buyers arrive having already researched capabilities, pricing, and peer comparisons — increasingly with AI tools summarizing vendor claims — the seller's value shifts from information delivery to judgment: navigation of tradeoffs, internal consensus-building, and deal architecture. Vendors making unverifiable claims in marketing copy face a sharper test, because AI-assisted buyers can cross-check those claims against reviews, documentation, and competitors in minutes.

Sales enablement priorities follow from this. Content that answers buyer questions without requiring a form-fill or a meeting, transparent pricing where category norms allow it, and rep training oriented toward consultative late-stage work all map directly to where buyer preference is moving.

What to watch next

Whether rep-free preference converts into rep-free revenue at scale depends on vendors building purchase paths buyers can complete alone. Gartner's ongoing buyer-behavior tracking — and any methodology detail that accompanies fuller publication of this research — will show whether the two-thirds figure holds across deal sizes or concentrates in the transactional segment of B2B.