G2 On Agentic AI
Tim Sanders + team published G2’s “A Leap of Trust: AI Agents Are Winning Hearts and Wallets” (57 slides; n = 1,000+ B2B software buyers).
My report takeaways:
More evidence of solid AI ROI
Surprising signs of a “risk on” mentality from buyers despite meaningful incident rates and higher-than-expected human oversight
Excerpts for the AI ROI support:
This slide inspired my “risk on” take - 83% of buyers are satisfied despite this mix of incident rates:
Major Incident: 28%
Moderate: 40%
Minor: 32%
I appreciated the paraphrasing of (beyond his ‘Co-Intelligence’ book, he is the author of my strongly recommended AI digest on Substack
and a Professor at Wharton):Today’s agents are the worst agents we’ll ever work with. They get better every single day.
I interpreted the 63% more-than-expected need for human involvement as another indication of a “risk on” and “let it rip” despite challenges buyer posture:
August 2025 B2B AI Interest Index from Cloud Ratings
We’ve updated our Cloud Ratings B2B AI Interest Index through August 2025 - full slides below:
B2B AI interest trends continue to show some signs of *moderate weakness*.
With this moderate weakness aligning with AI/ML Prioritization in Morgan Stanley’s CIO Survey series, which peaked in Q1 2025:
Thematic Category Interest (n = 47 sub-categories tracked - i.e. “manufacturing AI” or “supply chain AI”) declined for the 5th straight month.
Bellwether Microsoft Copilot ticked up in August. Other “Blue Chips” (i.e., Hubspot, ServiceNow) remain range-bound at best and small in absolute terms.
SaaS Incumbents (n=340: the same 340 vendors tracked in our top-of-the-funnel focused, forward-looking SaaS Demand Index) have seen a notable 2025 breakout relative to a very range-bound 2024. That said, interest is ~flat past quarter:
Only in slides: AI Native B2B apps (n=50) have shifted from strength to plateauing.
Curated AI Content
One of my *very* favorite AI reports: Nathan Benaich and Airstreet Capital published their 313(!) slide “State of AI Report” for 2025
Nathan + team do an excellent job digesting the broad universe of AI research - like this people-pleasing, yes-men finding:
AI x Search Joint R&D Opportunity
For this audience, this slide is a critical topic with significant impacts on a) GTM and b) forecasting publicly traded SaaS going forward that we will be covering in depth:
We are open to *joint R&D* on this AI x Search topic with both institutional investors (as part of our quantamental Alto Model) and software vendors.
Please contact me if interested in an AI x Search R&D collaboration.
Podcast With Godard Abel Of G2
FULL EPISODE: VIDEO | AUDIO: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | All Platforms
Our podcast with Godard Abel of G2 complements much of this newsletter edition.
About Cloud Ratings
In mid-2024, we announced a research partnership with G2 - more here:
with this slide showing how our G2-enhanced Quadrants (like our recent Sales Compensation Software) release, this business of software newsletter you are reading, our podcasts, and our True ROI practice area all fit within our modern analyst firm:
