Why AI is not optionally available: Insights from SaaS Capital’s 2025 B2B Benchmarking Survey

Some SaaS traits simmer; others ignite. Then there’s AI, in a class all of its personal. This 12 months, SaaS Capital’s industry-leading B2B Benchmarking Survey lined AI adoption and outcomes for the primary time and the outcomes are unequivocal: AI is not optionally available in SaaS.

What began as an experimental instrument has shortly turn into a defining lever of effectivity, productiveness, and now profitability. In our newest webinar, SaaS Capital’s Rob Belcher and ChurnZero’s You Mon Tsang and Rob Belcher explored how AI is altering the working mannequin of SaaS corporations in 2025, and the way customer-facing leaders can keep one step forward.

Watch the webinar in full right here, then maintain studying for our high AI takeaways and suggestions from the SaaS largest survey of its sort.

Our high takeaways from Rob and You Mon’s dialogue:

1: AI is already in every single place, however it’s inconsistently deployed.

AI adoption is rising quick. SaaS Capital’s benchmark survey reveals that 70% of corporations now have some degree of AI of their product, and an analogous quantity are utilizing AI internally throughout workflows.

The scope and seriousness of that adoption varies broadly. Some corporations are constructing AI-native platforms. Others are experimenting on the edges. And, when you may anticipate early-stage startups to be forward of the curve, the information tells a extra nuanced story.

“The proliferation is the most important with the big corporations,” says Rob. “That feels the wrong way up. I’d’ve thought all the brand new corporations could be all-in on AI.”

Internally, nonetheless, smaller corporations are main the way in which. They’re adopting AI into planning, content material creation, evaluation, and execution, they usually’re transferring sooner and extra constantly than some bigger companies.

“Extra corporations relative to the earlier slide are utilizing AI internally day-to-day,” says Rob. “Nearly all the businesses are utilizing it.”

Associated: Must drive AI adoption sooner? Discover your buyer group’s AI champion.

2: Profitability is already larger for corporations utilizing AI.

One of the crucial compelling takeaways from the survey information is that corporations utilizing AI usually tend to be worthwhile, particularly amongst equity-backed companies. 43% of equity-backed corporations utilizing AI are worthwhile or break-even, whereas solely 30% of these not utilizing AI can say the identical.

“This really says that AI is extra environment friendly,” says Rob. “It’s serving to these corporations be extra environment friendly.”

Even bootstrapped corporations utilizing AI present a slight edge in profitability over their non-AI friends. Whereas correlation doesn’t equal causation, the message is obvious: AI isn’t a shiny object; it’s a instrument for doing extra with much less.

Associated: Tips on how to leverage AI for buyer retention and churn danger administration

3: AI adoption boundaries mirror early cloud skepticism.

When you’re nonetheless cautious about AI, you’re not alone. Considerations round legal responsibility, information safety, and confidentiality had been widespread amongst survey respondents. Nevertheless, says Rob, this second mirrors earlier technological shifts.

“I really feel like AI is similar to cloud within the late 2000s,” he says. “I hesitate to belief AI with my information; again then, corporations didn’t belief AWS. You couldn’t promote a cloud product to Oracle, for instance—it needed to be in a closet of their constructing.”

The implication? These considerations will fade as case legislation, finest practices, and inner governance will evolve. As with the cloud earlier than it, AI will turn into enterprise as ordinary.

Associated: When is it time to centralize your buyer group’s AI?

The underside line: AI effectivity is the following battleground.

“The productiveness expectations round AI are actual, whether or not they’re coming out of your board, your CXO, or your rivals, says You Mon. “ The concept of corporations changing into extra environment friendly goes to be a headline message for years to return.”

By embracing AI now—not simply in imaginative and prescient decks, however in day by day workflows and buyer touchpoints—you’ll place your group and firm to emerge stronger, leaner, and extra aggressive in the long term.

When you’re a late adopter, right here’s what to do.

1: Begin utilizing AI in your day by day work! Undertake AI instruments to streamline widespread workflows — from summarizing QBRs to writing buyer emails to recognizing danger patterns. Constant use throughout your group will compound effectivity

2: Push AI into your product roadmap. In case your product has solely mild or experimental AI performance, it will not be sufficient. The window is closing between early adopters and everybody else. It’s time to maneuver decisively.

3: Handle inner danger boundaries head-on. Information confidentiality and authorized danger are actual, however they’re not new. Corporations confronted the identical considerations in the course of the transition to cloud. Those who overcame them early gained essentially the most.

4: Observe ROI, not simply utilization. Adoption is simply the beginning. Show AI’s worth with actual influence: time financial savings, improved productiveness, and margin development. Corporations that tie AI to monetary outcomes will lead the following section of SaaS.