March 19, 2025
by Godard Abel / March 19, 2025
In a recent meeting with G2's Executive Advisory Board (EAB), our leadership team discussed emerging trends that will shape our strategy in the year ahead.
Established in 2023, G2’s EAB — made up of industry leaders and customer executives — provides insightful feedback to guide our path forward, helping us deliver maximum value to customers. The group’s latest input will be incorporated to ensure G2 is the most trusted data source in the age of AI for informing software buying decisions and go-to-market strategies.
Here are my key takeaways that were emphasized during our latest EAB discussions.
Gone are the days when a quick Google search was the only option to find a specific answer. With more options than ever, search behaviors are shifting away from the traditional Google query approach. While Google still dominates with 14 billion searches a day, AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are growing at over 300% year-over-year.
A shift towards AI-driven searches requires businesses to adapt their SEO strategies, especially since sites experience a 25% decrease in organic traffic when AI Overviews are present on search results. We at G2 know that the key is leveraging AI not just for traffic but also for higher engagement and conversions too.
With evolving search behaviors in mind, we’ve adapted our approach – shifting from a focus on keyword rankings to "topic visibility" across multiple AI-driven platforms. This includes optimizing for AI Overviews and Large Language Models (LLMs) in addition to prioritizing user engagement through interactive content, FAQs, and AI-driven personalization.
SaaS go-to-market (GTM) teams have been striving for alignment for years, with the goal of boosting efficiency to drive revenue. Now, companies are starting to see the fruits of these efforts.
Aligning sales, marketing, and product teams, businesses are now emphasizing high-quality, revenue-generating pipeline versus the siloed metrics they once tracked. For instance, while marketing may have previously measured MQLs, this is now seen as a vanity metric that doesn’t indicate the true impact of GTM efforts.
Going forward, successfully aligned GTM teams (including our own!) will have unified goals to assess what truly influences revenue — ensuring that every action taken is aligned, driving tangible business growth.
According to a Sprout Social survey, 76% consumers say they would buy from a brand they feel connected to over a competitor. While there are many steps a business can take to better connect with its customers, one way is through consistent, transparent communication. The importance of customer communications was a core theme covered in our conversation with G2’s EAB.
Customers want to be in the know regarding new products and features as soon as they’re available within their favorite tools. Not only will they feel more connected to the brand, but their visibility into these updates will lead to higher product adoption rates. And when customers are actively using your products, they’re more likely to see value from them and less likely to churn
One way we’re addressing this customer need at G2 is through a quarterly innovation series – featuring a virtual town hall with open Q&A and an announcement detailing our latest updates. This way, customers can remain informed about new innovations while also having a forum to ask any questions and provide feedback.
Finally, another trend we continue to see across B2B SaaS is the importance of relevant and timely reviews. In fact, a recent consumer survey shows only 13% of consumers feel a review left within the last 6 months is still relevant, while 27% are looking for a review left within the past month. As we see B2B increasingly mirror consumer shopping behaviors, we expect to see the same trend when people research software at work – relying on the latest reviews more heavily as the most credible feedback.
For this reason, G2’s scoring algorithm, used to rank products and services, applies a decay to reviews as they age – beginning the moment a review is submitted and recalculating daily.
And as the world’s largest software marketplace, with the most reviews (nearly 3 million!), we’re constantly developing features to keep reviews fresh and relevant, encouraging users to update past reviews as their experiences evolve based on new features and functionality from their favorite software. At the same time, we’re taking steps to ensure sellers have the resources they need to collect reviews on a consistent basis.
This initiative is intended to help sellers maintain an accurate and up-to-date representation of their products on our platform, while also ensuring review content is most useful for buyers.
I left the conversation with our EAB members feeling excited about the upcoming year. I’m confident in our strategies to adapt to buyers’ evolving behaviors and needs in the age of AI. And, I know our latest innovations — and more to come this year — will arm software buyers and sellers with the insights they need to power more efficient, informed decisions.
Thank you to the EAB member who joined us for this conversation, including:
Godard Abel is the co-founder and CEO of G2. He previously built cloud CPQ pioneers BigMachines (acquired by Oracle) and SteelBrick (acquired by Salesforce).