Why the B2B Software Evaluation Stage Just Got Much Longer

What happened

G2 published its 2026 Buyer Behavior Report: The Evaluation Maze on July 22, based on a survey of more than 1,000 B2B software buyers paired with interviews across 50-plus sales and marketing leaders. The headline shift: discovery has compressed into a single AI chatbot prompt for 82% of buyers, but evaluation, the stage where finalists get compared, security gets reviewed, and pricing gets negotiated, has become the longest part of the journey for the first time, surpassing research. IT security review is now the single biggest source of delay, cited by 39% of buyers overall and 50% among enterprise buyers, followed by budget approval at 32% and implementation planning at 25%. Finance involvement in software decisions jumped from 31% to 46% year-over-year, and in companies with a dedicated AI or token budget, the CFO veto rate climbs to 54%.

Why the evaluation stage is where deals now die

AI didn't remove friction from B2B buying, it moved it. Buyers can build a shortlist in one prompt, but getting a shortlisted vendor across the finish line now runs into more internal resistance, not less: concern about internal resistance to AI adoption grew from 16% to 29% in a single year, the largest single-year shift in G2's entire study. Sellers who spend their energy winning the shortlist and treat the demo as the finish line are increasingly losing deals they'd already assumed were won, because the real negotiation happens afterward, inside finance and security review, largely without the seller in the room.

1. 01
   Build a security packet before legal asks for one

   39% of buyers name IT security review as their top delay, rising to 50% at enterprise accounts. A SOC 2 summary, data-handling one-pager, and answers to the ten most common security questionnaire items, ready before a prospect asks, can cut weeks off a deal that would otherwise stall in someone else's inbox.
2. 02
   Arm your champion with a CFO-ready cost case

   Nearly half of buyers report a CFO vetoing an approved deal in the last year. Give your internal champion a one-page ROI case with a payback window under six months, since three in four buyers who've experienced a late veto now expect exactly that before they'll champion a purchase again.
3. 03
   Offer flexible terms before a buyer has to ask

   Preference for outcome-based pricing more than doubled since 2025, and 91% of buyers are already navigating or expecting variable pricing options. Vendors still anchored to a flat annual seat license are negotiating from a weaker position than most of them realize.

By the numbers: Review sites now edge out AI chatbots as the top source shaping a buyer's shortlist, 38% to 37%, the first time either has led, and only 9% of buyers are comfortable letting an AI agent execute a purchase even within approved guardrails.

What to do this week

Pull your last five closed-lost deals that made it to a demo or trial and check how many stalled in security review or budget approval rather than being lost to a competitor. For the security-review stalls, draft a one-page security summary this week covering data handling, SOC 2 status, and uptime, and attach it to every proposal going forward instead of waiting for it to be requested.