The AI readiness gap: why revenue teams need a stronger execution foundation

TL;DR: A new Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned by Outreach modeled the potential financial impact of Outreach for a composite organization, finding 244% ROI, $19.2M in benefits present value, $13.6M net present value over three years, and payback in under six months. One important takeaway from the study: the measurable value modeled today is grounded largely in workflow standardization, automation, execution consistency, and visibility, while AI and agentic capabilities represent additional upside as adoption matures. Read on for the breakdown.

Every revenue organization is under pressure to show that AI can improve productivity, not just add another layer of tools. Gartner, Inc. predicts, “By 2028, AI agents will outnumber sellers by 10 times, yet fewer than 40% of sellers will say AI agents have improved productivity.” Gartner also warns that more agents will not automatically translate into productivity gains without the right data foundation, workflow integration, and seller experience. That is the real readiness gap: AI adoption alone does not create value; the systems underneath it determine whether AI can improve execution at scale.

So if AI adoption alone does not guarantee productivity gains, what separates the organizations that will capture value from those that simply add more tools?

A new 2026 Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study, commissioned by Outreach, offers one lens: the measurable value modeled today is tied to the workflows, data, and execution foundation underneath the technology.

The real gap: having AI vs. being built for AI 

AI is only as good as the context it can act on. Teams running fragmented, disconnected systems hand AI an incomplete, ungoverned picture, no matter how capable the model is. That's the difference between having AI and being efficient for AI. And it's why agents without trusted context and clear guardrails aren't just less effective, they're a liability. 

An agent working from bad data can automate the wrong action just as fast as the right one.

The pressure to close the AI readiness gap is real. Gartner, Inc. found that sales organizations providing sellers with AI-enabled next-best actions are 2.6x more likely to achieve commercial growth, and that organizations prioritizing AI upskilling for sellers are 2.4x more likely to achieve strong revenue growth. Gartner also found that B2B buyers used an average of seven information sources during a recent purchase, and 45% used GenAI, primarily to gather information on vendors and products. The takeaway: AI is reshaping both sides of the buying process, but adoption alone is not enough. The real question is whether revenue teams have the workflows, data, and execution layer underneath AI to turn signals into action.

The proof point: what a unified foundation actually returns 

Feature checklists are easy to produce. Business impact is harder to quantify, which is why the Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study modeled the potential financial impact of Outreach for a composite organization. Forrester Consulting interviewed four decision-makers at organizations using Outreach and modeled the results into a composite organization: a B2B company with $9 billion in annual revenue, 20,000 employees, and a 6,000-person revenue organization.

Those numbers break down into four benefit drivers that are grounded in consistency and execution at scale:

• ‍Productivity lift across the revenue organization — $4.2M in three-year labor savings from automating admin work across sales, customer success, and professional services
• Profit increase from sales effectiveness — $12.4M from improved response, conversion, and win rates through standardized, consistent execution‍
• Profit increase from sales efficiency — $2.4M from expanded prospecting capacity as reps spent less time on manual admin‍
• Prior tool retirement — $224K from consolidating point solutions and internally built tools into one platform

Before Outreach, interviewees described exactly the kind of fragmentation the readiness gap predicts. The global head of GTM at a software organization put it plainly: workflows were "very rep dependent," reps were "doing things off spreadsheets," and the process was, in their words, "completely archaic."

The report study notes that most measurable value today comes from workflow standardization, automation, execution consistency, and visibility, while AI and agentic capabilities represent "a source of future value as adoption matures." In other words, the modeled ROI is grounded largely in the foundational work many organizations are still building.

Why this is a leading indicator, not the ceiling 

For leaders weighing where to invest next, one important point is that the modeled return was grounded largely in foundational workflow, automation, and execution capabilities while agentic AI remained earlier in adoption.

The composite is still in early pilots with Amplify, Outreach's AI and agentic workflow offering.

The same unified data and workflow layer that supported the modeled value is also important for agentic AI to work well and be trusted to act on. Fragmented systems can give AI a partial, ungoverned view of the customer, the deal, and the rep.

A consolidated foundation gives it the full picture and the guardrails to act on it responsibly — which is what turns AI outputs from generic to precise, and turns AI from a task-level assistant into something that can run an entire workflow with confidence.

Organizations that have already done the consolidation work may be better positioned to capture additional value as agentic AI matures on top of that same foundation.

Frequently asked questions 

What is a Forrester Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study?
A TEI study is an independent research methodology developed by Forrester Consulting that evaluates the potential financial impact of a technology investment — measuring benefits, costs, flexibility, and risk to calculate ROI, net present value, and payback period. This study was commissioned by Outreach and based on interviews with four decision-makers at organizations using the platform, aggregated into a single composite organization.

Why does workflow consolidation matter for AI value?
Why does workflow consolidation matter for AI value? AI is only as effective and trustworthy as the data and context it can act on. A fragmented foundation can give AI an incomplete, ungoverned picture; a unified data and workflow foundation can give it more complete context and clearer guardrails. In the TEI study, the measurable value modeled today is grounded largely in workflow standardization, automation, execution consistency, and visibility, while AI and agentic capabilities represent future upside as adoption matures.

What did Forrester Consulting model about ROI from Outreach specifically?
Forrester Consulting modeled the potential financial impact of Outreach for a composite organization representative of the interviewees' organizations, finding 244% ROI, $19.2M in benefits present value, and $13.6M net present value over three years, with a payback period of less than six months. The modeled benefits came from productivity gains, improved sales effectiveness and efficiency, and retirement of legacy point solutions.

How doesWhat’s our take on how this relates to Outreach being named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™?
They are two different lenses. The analyst-led Forrester Wave evaluates platform capabilities and strategy against a defined set of criteria — where Outreach earned the highest possible score in 15 of 22 criteria in The Forrester Wave™: Revenue Orchestration Platforms for B2B, Q3 2026the Q3 2026 Wave.

The commissioned Forrester Consulting TEI study models the potential financial impact of Outreach for a composite organization based on customer interviews. Used together, we believe these assets can help buyers evaluate both platform capabilities and potential business impact.

How does this connect to agentic AI value going forward?
The TEI study notes that most measurable value today came from workflow standardization, automation, execution consistency, and visibility, while AI and agentic capabilities represent future upside as adoption matures. Because agentic AI depends on a unified, governed data and workflow foundation, organizations that have consolidated their revenue stack may be better positioned to capture additional value as those capabilities mature.

Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. This report is part of a broader collection of Forrester resources, including interactive models, frameworks, tools, data, and access to analyst guidance. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here .