AI Software Proves to Be Tougher Sell Than Before --- Some vendors say potential customers are taking longer to evaluate purchases

“The golden age of unbridled spending on AI software might be behind us, as vendors say it's a lot harder to make a sale than it used to be.

 

Last year represented something of a boon era for vendors peddling AI apps.

 

 Spurred by board-level mandates, corporate FOMO and an aggressive campaign from tech giants about the world-changing capabilities of AI agents, enterprises were spending willingly and wildly -- an estimated total of more than $1.249 trillion in software, according to Gartner.

 

Alex Levin, co-founder and chief executive of AI-powered customer-service startup Regal, said until recently he could make an enterprise sale with a single demo -- a phenomenon he called "shocking," given how big companies can sometimes take one to two years to make a purchase. Last year, Levin said he was closing deals in as little as 60 or 90 days.

 

That isn't the case anymore. Vendors say big companies have become more cautious about what they buy. They are taking longer to evaluate solutions, involving more internal stakeholders from legal and finance teams, and placing more emphasis on the kind of financial returns they might get out of the investment. The breakneck pace of AI innovation -- like recent updates around Anthropic's Claude -- is also making potential customers wary of sales commitments.

 

"There was a period where the early adopters were moving very fast on really interesting technology and that piece has slowed down," Levin said. The typical time for completing a sale is now about six months, he said.

 

"Everyone is a bit more cautious," said Craig Roth, a vice president analyst at Gartner. "I think reality has set in."

 

Early adopters who rushed into AI pilots and even deployments last year often hit a wall and learned some hard lessons. It wasn't necessarily because the technology didn't work, but because they found they didn't have the right guardrails or didn't fully understand the reality of the business process they were trying to automate, Roth said. Critically, they found it was hard to measure financial returns. And what they could measure wasn't overwhelmingly impressive, he said.

 

In a Gartner survey released in April 2025, only 11% of customer service and support leaders said generative AI met their primary business objective -- striking, since customer service has emerged as one of the most mature areas for deploying the technology.

 

Businesses are certainly continuing to invest in AI tools. Gartner expects software spending to grow 14.7% this year to about $1.434 trillion. But now that businesses are mature enough to understand those potential roadblocks, they are taking longer to evaluate and being more critical of potential solutions, Roth said.

 

"Overall, we've gotten a lot more disciplined in making sure that we understand what the outcome of a specific purchase is, not just following the hype," said Kyle Chu, senior manager of Business Intelligence at phone-accessory maker PopSockets.

 

Kathy Kay, chief information officer and executive vice president of global financial services firm Principal Financial Group said she is taking her time to think deeply about whether a given vendor will even be around or be useful in a few years, "which could make it seem like the sales cycle is longer to a company calling on us," she said.

 

Big tech players like Microsoft and Google, which have increasingly moved to bundle generative AI tools into existing broader offerings, are less affected. But for smaller companies whose AI offerings are their raison d'etre, there are pros and cons of the new era.

 

It might be harder to get in the door, but once they do, they find enterprises want to use the solution more broadly, and get everything they can out of it.

 

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Isabelle Bousquette writes for the WSJ Leadership Institute's CIO Journal.” [1]

 

1. AI Software Proves to Be Tougher Sell Than Before --- Some vendors say potential customers are taking longer to evaluate purchases. Bousquette, Isabelle.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 19 Feb 2026: B4.