Deloitte: 38% of B2B Buyers Now Use Agentic AI

Deloitte research, published via The Wall Street Journal in March 2026, reports that 38% of surveyed B2B buyers are already using agentic AI in their purchasing process. Cited use cases include product search and evaluation, order configuration, purchase processing, contract review, pricing benchmarks, and supplier performance monitoring.

A gap between supplier and buyer views of automation

According to the same Deloitte research, 72% of surveyed suppliers describe their sales processes as mostly or highly automated, compared with 47% of surveyed buyers who say the same about their purchasing processes. Deloitte also reports that surveyed buyers are six times more likely than suppliers to describe their processes as mostly manual, and three times more likely to say it is difficult to do business with a given supplier.

Deloitte's research further finds that surveyed suppliers estimate an average of 13% of sales bids are lost due to negative buyer experience, and that buyers report spending 29% more with suppliers that deliver a positive experience. Only 13% of surveyed suppliers say their front- and back-office sales and e-commerce functions are completely integrated, per Deloitte.

ERP upgrades are widespread and tied to AI readiness

Deloitte reports that nearly nine in 10 surveyed B2B suppliers are currently upgrading their enterprise resource planning systems or planning to do so. Deloitte's analysis argues these upgrades can determine where master data resides and what systems are available to support automation, though this is Deloitte's own interpretation rather than a separately measured outcome.

Deloitte also reports that suppliers with high digital maturity beat annual sales goals by 6.1% on average, compared with 2.9% among lower-maturity peers, and that high-maturity suppliers are five times more likely to use AI extensively and five times more likely to use agentic AI at all. Separately, Deloitte found that 67% of surveyed suppliers are not yet using agentic AI but plan to in the future.

Related coverage of AI in B2B buying

CMSWire reported in October 2024 that generative AI was being adopted to automate parts of B2B buyer research, RFP preparation, and vendor comparison, and that sellers were adapting marketing and lead-scoring processes in response. MarketingProfs, also in 2024, described B2B marketing use cases for AI including content tagging and dynamic personalization, citing McKinsey survey figures that 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions and 76% report frustration when it does not occur. A Wall Street Journal sponsored video series in October 2024, titled 'AI and Designing the Ultimate B2B Buying Experience,' also covered AI's role in B2B commerce, though as sponsored content it does not carry the same evidentiary weight as the Deloitte survey data.

Taken together, the reporting indicates that agentic AI use by B2B buyers is measurable and growing, while supplier-side integration between front-office sales systems and back-office operations remains limited according to Deloitte's own figures.