Who owns the number now?
Recent CRO appointments at BILL, Digimarc and Zscaler took in customer success, marketing or RevOps. Four tests for when one owner of the number holds, and where the design breaks.
Read the storyLatest
The Brief: ZoomInfo and Gong move into each other’s lanes
Dreamforce 2026 recap: Salesforce moves the CRM into Claude and Slack
Expansion revenue needs an owner. Who should carry it?
The GTM engineer is competing for your SDR budget
Seats now come with a meter. Your comp plan hasn’t caught up.
HubSpot UNBOUND 2026 recap: a self-updating CRM and a lot of public beta
The forecast call, rebuilt around three questions
Attribution is a peace treaty. Sign it before the quarter starts.
More stories for this seat are on the way. See all stories.
Tech Stack
Rankings of the tools revenue teams are buying, with the criteria printed above every list.
Revenue platforms, ranked by who owns the seller’s day
Eight sales platforms scored on seven criteria and one question: whose software writes the CRM record while your reps sell. What shipped in 2026, and where each one bites.
- 1Salesforce Agentforce Sales (formerly Sales Cloud)The system of record backed by Data 360 and the Informatica purchase, with Agentforce ARR above $1.5 billion (up more than 240% year over year) and Momentum’s call capture bundled into all three new editions.
- 2HubSpot Sales HubCRM, sequences, calling and agents at prices printed on the website, plus a self-updating CRM unveiled at UNBOUND in September.
- 3GongOwns the conversation record that agents now feed on. Gong said in May that ARR had passed $500 million with growth above 55% year over year, and it holds a 4.7 rating on G2.
- 4OutreachA Leader in Forrester’s Q3 2026 Wave for B2B revenue orchestration platforms, with the top score on 15 of 22 criteria and, by Outreach’s account, strong controls for AI agents in production.
- 5Salesloft, with Clari ForecastCadence, Conversation Intelligence, Rhythm and Clari Forecast now come from one company under the Salesloft brand, which counts more than 4,000 sales teams as customers.
AI SDRs, ranked by what they can replace today
Seven AI prospecting agents ranked on the prices they publish, the control buyers keep, the data behind them and the independent record of results.
- 1ApolloContact data and sequencing plus agents that research, build lists, write outreach, follow up and book meetings, with a 4.7 G2 rating on more than 9,000 reviews.
- 2AmplemarketThe Duo copilot pairs AI intent signals with deliverability tools on every plan, including a domain health center and a spam checker. The entry price is public, and G2 reviewers rate it 4.6 across 690 reviews.
- 3TopoSignal-based outbound by email and LinkedIn, with AI-drafted sequences and campaign advice from Topo’s own experts, from $89 a seat a month. Reps can approve each lead and message, Topo says, and G2 reviewers rate it 4.9 across 121 reviews.
- 4AiSDRAn outbound agent priced in public, from $250 a month for 200 AI-researched contacts to $2,500 for 2,500, with domain warmup, bounce checks and domain health tracking on its plans, and a 4.6 G2 rating on 102 reviews.
- 5UnifySignals from more than 40 data sources, enrichment, AI copywriting and multichannel sequencing in one product, with self-serve seats from $20 a month and a $40 million Series B led by Battery Ventures in 2025.
Intent data, ranked for teams that need pipeline this quarter
Eight intent sources ranked by how close the signal sits to a purchase and what it costs to prove, plus a 60-day test to run before renewal.
- 1G2 Buyer IntentThe closest signal to a purchase for software sellers: accounts viewing your product and category pages, comparing you with competitors, checking pricing and reading or writing reviews.
- 26senseForrester rated it among the most complete platforms in its Q1 2026 Wave for B2B revenue marketing, with the highest possible score on data, and its MCP server puts keyword-level intent and predictive buying stages inside Claude, ChatGPT, Writer and Agentforce.
- 3Common Room by ZoomThe strongest first-party engine here, stitching website visits, product usage, community activity and CRM records into profiles of named people, with its entry price published.
- 4BomboraThe wholesale layer of third-party research intent, with 25,300+ topics from a co-op in which 86% of the data is exclusive to Bombora, and the plumbing behind other products, from Warmly’s third-party signals to G2’s new ad audiences.
- 5DemandbaseAn enterprise ABM platform that sells intent, including what it calls person-level intent, with advertising and account identification on one contract, plus Mojo, a campaign agent launched in September.
Watch & Listen
Talks and shows worth your time. We pick the episode, so you can skip the back catalog.
Watch
- Dreamforce Main Keynote 2026Salesforce · 1 hr 48 min
- HubSpot’s Spotlight with Yamini Rangan, Duncan Lennox & Jon Dick | UNBOUND 2026HubSpot · 1 hr 26 min
- ‘Headless Architecture’ Explained | SalesforceSalesforce · 2 min
- Salesforce x Anthropic. A Partnership Made for the Enterprise.Salesforce · 50 sec
Listen
- #612: Sales Kickoff Masterclass: The Ultimate Planning Guide30 Minutes to President’s Club · 49 min
- Why Proprietary Data Beats AI Software for 2x Pipeline Growth with Ann DavisRevenue Builders · 54 min
- 1:1 Accountability Cadence + Consistency = A Fresh, Fat Pipeline!The Sales Management. Simplified. Podcast · 21 min
- How Sprout Social builds revenue marketing around segmentation (with Hailey McDonald, VP of Revenue Marketing)The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five) · 39 min
Field notes
What happened on the big stages, and the events worth your travel budget.
Dreamforce 2026
Salesforce wants your reps working in Claude and Slack. We sorted the Dreamforce launches into live and pilot, and flagged the Flex Credit meter coming for agent MCP calls.
UNBOUND 2026HubSpot renamed INBOUND and staked its fall release on company context, with much of the news in public beta. A status check on what shipped and what marketing leaders should decide now.
Coming up
- Gartner Customer Service & Support ConferenceNov. 4-5, 2026Denver, USA
- B2B Marketing Live (formerly B2B Marketing Expo)Nov. 18-19, 2026London, UK
- AIforce World Tour New YorkDec. 3, 2026New York, USA
- HumanXMarch 7-10, 2027Las Vegas, USA
- Adobe SummitMarch 22-25, 2027Las Vegas, USA
- Forrester B2B Summit North AmericaMay 3-5, 2027Phoenix, USA
Voices
Operators worth following, sorted by the seat you sit in. Each one publishes work you can use.
Forecasts, comp plans, territory and the board deck.
- Mark RobergeCo-founder and Managing Partner, Stage 2 CapitalHubSpot’s founding CRO wrote The Science of Scaling, his data-driven framework for scaling revenue predictably.
- John McMahonCo-host, Revenue BuildersFive-time CRO who co-hosts Revenue Builders, a weekly show where B2B sales executives work through territory planning, discovery, champions and why deals don’t close.
- Armand FarrokhCo-founder, 30 Minutes to President’s ClubCo-hosts 30 Minutes to President’s Club, a tactics-first sales podcast with more than 3.6 million downloads, after leading sales teams at Pave and Carta.
Pipeline targets, brand spend and the attribution fight.
- Kipp BodnarChief Marketing Officer, HubSpotSets HubSpot’s global marketing strategy and co-hosts Marketing Against the Grain, a podcast that demos AI marketing workflows and takes on problems like zero-click search.
- Emily KramerCo-founder, MKT1Led marketing at Asana and Carta, then co-founded MKT1. Her newsletter covers how B2B marketing teams are built and paid, most recently from 1,100-plus job posts.
- Dave GerhardtFounder, Exit FiveFormer Drift VP of Marketing and Privy CMO who built Exit Five, a community of more than 7,000 B2B marketers, and writes its twice-weekly newsletter for more than 40,000 readers.
Retention, expansion and who owns the renewal.
- Jeff BreunsbachHead of Customer Success, JunctionRuns customer success at Junction and co-hosts The Chief Customer Officer Podcast, a weekly show from ChiefCustomerOfficer.io, which he co-founded, on topics like CS segmentation and agent-first customer teams.
- Alex RaymondFounder, AMplifyWrote The Growth Department, a post-sale operating system for account management and CS leaders that treats every renewal as a decision, and sends the Account Management Secrets newsletter each Tuesday.
- Kristen HayerFounder and CEO, The Success LeagueRuns The Success League, a firm that trains and advises customer success teams, and writes its blog on coaching and managing CSMs.
Systems, data and the stack the rest of the org runs on.
- Matt VolmCEO, RevOps Co-opRuns RevOps Co-op, a community of 21,000-plus revenue operations pros whose RevOpsAF podcast ships a new episode every week.
- Scott BrinkerMartech analyst and author, chiefmartecCo-founded the MarTech Conference in 2014 and publishes the annual martech supergraphic, which counted 15,505 products in 2026.
- Eddie ReynoldsFounder and CEO, Union Square ConsultingCo-hosts GTM Science, a podcast for GTM and RevOps leaders on process design and growth planning.
Founder-led sales and the first revenue hires.
- Jen AbelCo-founder, JJELLYFISH, and GM of Enterprise Sales, State AffairsFirst sales hire at The Muse who has since worked with hundreds of early-stage founders on founder-led sales and the path to first revenue.
- Jason LemkinFounder, SaaStrFounded SaaStr and writes there on scaling B2B companies, from founder-led sales to the first VP of Sales hire.
- AJ BrunoFounder and CEO, QuotaPathRuns QuotaPath, commission software with comp plan modeling built in, and co-hosts Topline, a weekly show where three CEOs debate news and trends in B2B tech.
Library
Reports and field guides you will open more than once.
Browse the libraryThe state of the revenue org, fall 2026
Fewer than half of AEs hit quota, and buyers pick their shortlist before they talk to a seller. The 2025-26 research that shows its work, and what it should change in your 2027 plan.
Read the reportThe first 100 days as CRO
A phase-by-phase plan for a new CRO: who to hear from, which numbers to audit, when to touch comp and territories, and what to leave alone.
Read the guideSignal-based outbound runs on two scores and a quarterly cut
How to score buying signals on fit and heat, route each to a named owner, match the play to the trigger and cut what loses to cold outbound, plus the sender rules that can burn your domain.
Read the guideComp plans that hold up for a full year
How to set pay mix, quotas, accelerators, caps, clawbacks and crediting so the plan survives to December, and how to change it mid-year when you must.
Read the guideScore renewal risk 120 days out, before procurement sets the price
Six risk signals, a T-180 to T-30 timeline with owners, save plays by risk type, and how to forecast and price renewals while you still set the terms.
Read the guideCouncil
Awards
For the operators and teams doing the best work in B2B revenue, judged by people who have done the job.
Nominations open soon. Subscribers hear first.
Get the briefingGet the
briefing.
Lead a revenue team? Request a seat on the council