Most companies buying AI this year are buying a noun. What they need is a verb. Gartner expects the world to spend $2.7 trillion on AI in 2026, up almost 50% in a single year. In January, PwC asked 4,454 CEOs what AI had done for them over the past twelve months. Fifty six percent said they saw neither more revenue nor lower costs. Only 12% got both.

That gap is not a technology problem. The models work. The gap is a buying problem, and almost everyone in the deal is in on it: the board that asked for “an AI strategy,” the vendor that slapped “agentic” on last year’s chatbot, and the marketer who put AI in the headline because everyone else did.

For transparency, I co-founded a company that builds AI products, so take that stake into account. But in all my years selling to B2B buyers, I have never heard one ask for a technology for its own sake. They ask for a result.

What people buy when they say “AI”

Ask a B2B buyer what they want and listen past the first answer. A …