So for many years, so many B2B founders wanted to be “more PLG” or “add a PLG motion”. What they really wanted though was to add a better self-serve product with a more viral element. PLG was a great way to describe the next evolution of self-serve + viral:
- HubSpot added self-serve, it worked great
- Atlassian added self-serve, it worked
- Canva and Figma and other B2B leaders perfected PLG motions
For some, PLG was an expansion, adding new lower-end customers (HubSpot + Atlassian). For others, it was the core, and just an evolution of freemium, done better (Canva + Notion), where later a sales team would be added.
For many next-generation AI leaders, PLG is core. ChatGPT, Windsurf, etc. all at their core have PLG motions, often with large enterprise teams backing up the bigger deals:
But PLG isn’t just about adding editions or being cheaper. In fact, it’s not necessarily cheaper in the end, as in many cases, dollars saved on sales went into marketing.
But with PLG you don’t have to hire as many sales people. That just makes it inherently more scaleable. Because it’s just harder and harder to find those humans.
As we head into the full AI age of B2B, we’re just going to have fewer people that really want to do the grind, the real work in sales. I know many will challenge me on this … but I also know most CROs agree with me. Killing yourself in B2B sales isn’t what it was. Most folks don’t want to do it.
We’ve entered an age where folks don’t want to work as hard and the way they used to. It’s not a gripe, it’s a reality. We’ve all changed. And we all have to adapt. Including in sales.
So what are you left with? A low energy, more expensive sales team, maybe armed with a few AI tools to enhance them? Maybe. The Mech AE is and will be real. We will all soon have digital AIs joining all our sales calls, and that will help:
But even that doesn’t address a general lack of top-tier, hungry, driven sales reps for B2B products.
So what I think is going to quickly happen is as soon as AI AEs work really well for SMB and lower dollar sales, is that almost everyone will quickly adopt this motion. PLG + AI AEs.
There will be some trade-offs, and humans will still be there for the more complex calls. The AI AEs will still kick some interactions up to humans.
And importantly, products will have to adapt to this motion. They’ll have to be even easier to deploy, easier to integrate, easier to roll out.
Because while an AI AE will be smarter and more productive-savvy than 95%+ of humans, it also can only do what can be done … in the browser and on the server. It can’t fill as many gaps in the software, in onboarding, in integrations, etc. as a human can.
So that will lead to change. But we have no choice. More and more founders will optimize around a PLG + AI AE motion.
You almost have to. Gartner for Sales says 61% of leaders can’t source the team they need. I think in tech, it’s probably well over 85%.
