AI is going to kill the PLG sales motion

At least for a while....

Product-Led Growth (PLG) has been the darling of SaaS GTM motions for years. But AI is about to change that, at least for now. Here's why...

C-Suite from day one

In the PLG world, products often enter organizations through individual teams. They prove value, spread organically, and by the time they reach the c-suite's desk, they're entrenched.

AI doesn't play by these rules.

There's no blueprint for buying AI tools in large organizations. It's uncharted territory. Employees are immediately escalating AI tool adoption to senior leadership.

Why? No one wants to be the cautionary tale.

The fear of becoming the poster child for "what not to do" is real. This fear transforms what might have been a simple credit card purchase into a multi-stakeholder sale from the get-go.

PLG just doesn't align here.

AI POCs are hard

Most SaaS POCs are straightforward. Success criteria can be clearly defined, timelines are predictable. AI POCs? They're a different animal entirely.

The non-deterministic nature of AI makes performance unpredictable.

How do you define success when outputs can vary widely? What's the timeline when fine-tuning and customization are part of the process?

Compared to traditional SaaS, AI POCs require constant interaction, feedback loops, and technical work. They're less "try before you buy" and more "let's co-create value."

Again, PLG struggles in this environment.

Security: the never ending story

For AI to function, it needs to ingest vast amounts of internal data. It can't live in isolation. This raises security questions that go far beyond the standard privacy policy checkbox.

Data officers aren't satisfied with FAQs.

They want assurances, indemnification policies, deep dives into data handling practices. It's a far cry from the "click and forget" approach we've grown accustomed to with SaaS.

More importantly, security will be an ongoing conversation. Traditional SaaS? Get through security once, and you're typically in for good.

AI will be a whole new ballgame.

Every model update and improvement will likely trigger a new round of security review. Data officers won't be initial gatekeepers – they'll become constant companions.

Again, this doesn't lend itself to PLG.

The Future of AI Sales

Does this mean PLG is dead for AI? Not necessarily. As the market matures and best practices emerge, we may see a resurgence of PLG principles.

But for now, in these early days where both buyers and sellers are writing the playbook as they go, sales-led approaches will likely dominate.

Key questions remain:

• How will buyers evaluate probabilistic systems?
• Will AI performance be benchmarked against human performance?
• How will ROI calculations factor in necessary human oversight?
• Will startups compete on access to different data sets for fine-tuning?

As with all shifts, we have more questions than answers. But one thing is clear: the path to AI adoption is complex, and for now, that path looks more like enterprise sales than PLG.

The PLG playbook isn't obsolete. It's just taking an intermission while we figure out how to sell outcomes in a world of non-deterministic, probabilistic systems.