GTM in 2026: The Music Has Changed… Are You Still Playing the Same Song?
By Rebecca Herbert – Head of GTM @ Oscar Recruit
Okay…so I've been sitting with this one for a little while. Mulling. Pondering. Reading the data, attending a few events, having some really candid conversations with people I respect in this market and I keep coming back to the same thought:
There has never been a more interesting time to be in GTM.
I know. I know what you're thinking.
"Beck, interesting is a very generous word for what's happening out there."
Fair. But stick with me because underneath what looks like chaos, there's actually a remarkable amount of signal if you know where to look.
So let's get into it. Grab a coffee. This is a long one.
The market isn't broken. It's just had a glow-up. (A slightly intense one.)
Here's the honest truth about 2026: the GTM landscape has been rebuilt from the foundations. Not renovated. Rebuilt. And the companies that are figuring this out first?
They're pulling ahead fast.
Now, yes…there have been layoffs. A lot of them.
According to data from Layoffs.fyi, over 121,000 tech workers have been impacted this year alone, and the Intellizence tracker has logged over 1,600 companies announcing mass cuts since January. That's real, and it affects real people, and I don't want to gloss over it.
But here's the reframe I keep coming back to when I talk to founders and investors: the companies cutting headcount are largely doing it because they've found a more efficient path to the same - or better - outcome. This isn't companies in freefall. For many, it's companies optimising at speed. And that creates a very different kind of opportunity for the right GTM leaders.
The shift happening at the startup and scale-up level is genuinely fascinating to watch. Companies that once hired 10 SDRs are now deploying one AI agent, two people to run it, and frankly outperforming the old model. SaaStr published a piece late last year documenting how their AI BDR was generating 25% of their pipeline within 90 days of deployment. Vercel reportedly runs their entire inbound motion with one human. One!
I was at an event a few months back and someone said something that stuck with me: "We're not building smaller sales teams. We're building smarter ones." And I think that's actually the right frame. The opportunity here, for the leaders who lean in, is enormous.
The question boards and founders are asking has shifted from "should we use AI?" to "how fast can we rebuild around it?"
And that, friends, is a very exciting question to be the answer to.
So why are so many brilliant GTM leaders looking for work right now?
Okay, here's where I want to have a real conversation. Because this is something I'm genuinely thinking about, and I'd love to know what you're seeing too.
The talent currently in the market is, by and large, exceptional. I want to say that loudly.
These are not people who failed. They're people whose playbooks were built for a world that has shifted, quickly and without much warning.
A lot of senior GTM leaders built their careers during the ZIRP era, when cheap capital meant you scaled headcount aggressively and the cost of GTM was almost an afterthought. VP Sales at a Series B meant leading a team of 25. CMO at a Series C meant brand, demand gen, content, events, the whole shebang. And those leaders delivered in that environment. Boards loved them.
But the environment has changed. According to Marketing Week's 2026 recruitment research, roughly 23.8% of surveyed marketing leaders said their businesses cut senior marketing roles last year and didn't replace them. The same research showed team restructures hit a three-year high. Senior marketing registrations at executive search firms jumped 438% between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2025, with roles that previously attracted around 300 candidates now regularly pulling over 2,000 applications. Around 70% of current applicants are either unemployed or working fractionally.
That's a lot of brilliant people. In the same pool. At the same time.
Now here's the thought I keep coming back to, and I genuinely don't have a clean answer: is this a mismatch problem or a skills gap problem?
I think it's a bit of both, actually. Some of it is timing - companies consolidated faster than the talent market could adapt. But some of it is that what startups and scale-ups need in 2026 looks different from what they needed in 2022. They need leaders who think in systems, not headcount. Leaders who can build lean, high-leverage operations. Leaders who can walk into a board room and talk about ARR per GTM employee rather than pipeline coverage alone.
The good news, and there genuinely is good news, is that demand for senior GTM leadership is growing again. The same Marketing Week research noted the "worst is over at the senior end," and conversations I've been having with people across the market back that up - 2025 was quietly a strong year for senior placements despite the turbulence. What's changed is the calibre expected, and the specificity of the brief. Companies aren't looking for a generic CRO anymore. They're looking for their CRO, someone who gets their stage, their ICP, their specific commercial challenge.
I'll ponder on this more below. But first…. the AI question.
Is AI all hype, or is it actually doing things?
Right. This is the one everyone wants to talk about. And every time I'm at an event or grabbing coffee with someone, this is where the conversation goes.
My honest take?
It's not hype. But the narrative around it is outracing the reality of implementation at most companies. And that gap, between the hype and the actual execution, is where a lot of companies are currently sitting, slightly confused, holding a very expensive tech stack they don't quite know how to use.
According to a 2026 survey from GapMinder VC, 86% of GTM professionals say they use AI tools daily, and 84% report genuine productivity gains. The Content Marketing Institute's 2026 Career and Salary Outlook found that nearly half of marketers say AI has "extensively or significantly" altered their workflows. That's not nothing.
But here's the nuance that doesn't always make it into the LinkedIn posts: the companies actually benefiting are those who've rebuilt their GTM motion around AI from the ground up. Not the ones who bolted a chatbot onto their existing CRM and called it an AI strategy. (We've all seen that deck. We've all smiled politely through that demo.)
The vertical AI story is where things get really interesting to me.
Harvey for legal workflows. Ambience for healthcare. Glean for enterprise search. These aren't generic tools, they're deeply specialised platforms built on proprietary data and domain expertise. And that's exactly what investors are backing right now.
According to the OECD's 2026 Venture Capital in AI report, AI companies captured 61% of global VC investment in 2025, $258.7 billion out of $427 billion total. For context, that's double AI's share from just three years earlier. Inforcapital's April 2026 deal tracker found that out of 1,314 funding announcements in a single month, 764 involved AI or machine learning companies - nearly three in five deals. Sequoia, a16z, Insight Partners, Bessemer, Index Ventures, they are not slowing down. OpenAI closed $110 billion. xAI raised $20 billion in early 2026.
Y Combinator's Spring 2025 batch arguably the best leading indicator of where early-stage money is flowing had 46% of companies building AI agents. Let that land.
And per Qubit Capital's 2026 AI Startup Fundraising Trends report, AI startups are commanding valuations 3x higher than comparable non-AI companies. The premium is real, the conviction is real, and the demand for commercial talent inside these companies is very, very real.
The question for GTM leaders isn't whether to engage with AI. It's how to lead through it with genuine intelligence rather than performative enthusiasm.
What roles are actually in demand?
Let me share what I'm genuinely hearing from the market not what the job boards say, but what founders and investors are actually telling me when we're speaking candidly.
The roles in demand look different from the traditional GTM org chart. Less about title, more about leverage.
GTM Engineers who can build and manage agentic workflows are genuinely hard to find. RevOps leaders who can connect the dots between data, AI systems, and pipeline, also scarce. AI-native marketers who understand signal creation (not just lead gen) and can articulate the commercial value of what they're building, in high demand. Senior leaders who can run small, high-output teams and explain their operating model clearly to a board, that's the unicorn right now.
The interesting thing I'm observing at events and in conversations is that demand is actually growing at the director and VP level, even as entry-level and mid-tier roles get squeezed. The Content Marketing Institute's 2026 research noted that hiring is now tilting toward what they called the "analog native" experienced leaders who can direct, interpret, and challenge AI output, rather than just execute it. According to senior-level hiring data and industry research, these appointments have moved up a level in seniority over the last 12-18 months. A year ago it was "head of" level. Now it's director and executive leadership roles.
And at the top of the market? According to a deep-dive from the Super Interviews Substack on AI GTM roles, total compensation packages at leading AI companies are running $200k to $500k+ for leaders at the intersection of GTM and AI. The talent is genuinely scarce. The premium reflects that.
Who's investing, and why it matters for you
Here's the part I find genuinely exciting and I think it should be exciting for anyone in GTM right now.
The companies getting funded are companies that need to go to market. They need leaders. They need builders. They need people who understand how to take a brilliant product and actually sell it to the world.
Healthcare AI, legal tech, fintech AI, and AI infrastructure are the hottest verticals by deal volume and valuation right now, per the Inforcapital April 2026 deal analysis. The US is dominating (around 75% of global AI VC deal value per OECD data), but European and Asia-Pacific deals are growing. Australia's King River Capital just closed a $157 million sixth fund specifically focused on AI startups globally, which I think is a very interesting signal for this part of the world.
Here's something the 2026 VC Playbook report on iExchange noted that I keep thinking about: AI pilots are converting to contracts at around 47%, nearly double the rate for traditional SaaS. Investors are seeing this, and they're pressing their portfolio companies hard: do you have the commercial talent to capitalize on that conversion rate? That's the gap. That's the opportunity.
What I’d actually tell any senior GTM leader right now
Okay. Here's where I want to be really direct with you, because I've had a lot of conversations recently with people who are genuinely frustrated and rightfully so, and I think some of what I'm about to say might be useful.
Stop leading with your CV. Start with the problem you solve. Seriously. This is the single biggest shift I'd encourage anyone to make.
Companies, especially Series A, B, and C startups, are not hiring a "VP of Sales." They're trying to solve a specific, often painful commercial problem. Maybe they've hit $3M ARR and pipeline has completely stalled. Maybe they've burned through two GTM hires who couldn't bridge the gap between PLG and enterprise. Maybe they've just raised a $20M Series B and the board is getting antsy about whether their GTM motion will scale.
Your job - before you ever step into a conversation - is to identify the problem. Do the research. Look at their website, their positioning, their job ads, their LinkedIn presence, their recent funding announcement. What does their current GTM motion tell you? Where are the gaps? What's the thing they haven't figured out yet?
And then pitch yourself as the answer to that specific problem.
Not "I'm an experienced CRO with 15 years in SaaS." Try: "I noticed your ICP has shifted post-Series B but your messaging hasn't caught up, that's a conversion leak I've fixed before. Here's how I'd approach it in your context."
That's a different conversation. That's the kind of thing that gets a reply.
Your AI fluency is now a filtering criterion. If you can't articulate how you'd use AI to build a leaner, more effective GTM motion, you'll lose ground to candidates who can. You don't need to be a prompt engineer, but you do need a point of view. Get one. Fast.
Be honest about what stage you're built for. The skills that make an exceptional enterprise GTM leader at a $500M company are genuinely different from what a 30-person Series A needs. Mismatching yourself to the wrong stage is one of the most common and most avoidable mistakes I see. Know your zone of genius and be unapologetic about it.
Don't undersell fractional. There's a growing number of companies especially post-Series A, who can't yet afford a full-time CRO or CMO but desperately need that level of thinking for 12–18 months. Fractional GTM leadership is having a real moment. It's not a consolation prize. For the right person, it's the best seat in the room.
And this one I feel really strongly about: network, network, network. I cannot say this loudly enough. In a market where a single role now pulls 2,000+ applications (Marketing Week, 2026), the people landing great opportunities are largely doing it through warm introductions, genuine relationships, and being visible with a clear and consistent point of view.
I mean it. Your network is not a fallback. It's your primary channel. And right now, it might be the most valuable asset you have.
Go to events. Show up to communities like this one. Have the real conversations not the polished ones. The ones where you're honest about what you're seeing, what you're thinking, what you're building toward. Be generous with what you know. Share your thinking. When you give genuinely, people remember you and they think of you when something relevant crosses their desk. That's how opportunities move in a tight market. Not through cold applications. Through trust that was built over time.
I've watched people land incredible roles in this market not because they had the most polished profile, but because they were the person who consistently showed up, added value, and stayed genuinely connected to their industry.
Don't update your LinkedIn to "Open to Work" and then disappear into the void. Show up. Keep showing up. The compounding effect of a strong, warm network is extraordinary and it doesn't happen overnight, which is exactly why you should start (or restart) today.
The Punchline
We are genuinely in the middle of a transformation. Not the kind that gets predicted every year and then quietly doesn't happen, but an actual one. Fast, a bit disorienting, and full of opportunity if you know where to look.
AI is reshaping how GTM teams are built. Capital is concentrating around companies that can grow with smaller, higher-leverage teams. And there's a remarkable cohort of exceptional GTM talent in the market right now, people who just need to recalibrate slightly to find themselves exactly where the demand is.
The leaders who lean into this, who genuinely understand the new model, who show up with a clear problem/solution frame rather than a job title, who invest in their networks like it's their job (because honestly, right now, it kind of is), those are the leaders that companies are desperate to find.
The music has changed. The good news is you already know how to play. You might just need to learn a few new chords.
I'd genuinely love to hear what you're seeing out there. Whether it's market insights, questions about opportunities, or you just fancy a good chin wag 🇦🇺 (for the non-Australians in the room, that's our very official term for a long, rambling, deeply satisfying conversation) drop me a message. No agenda. No pitch. Just people in GTM talking honestly about what's happening in our world. That's the kind of conversation I'm always up for.
Rebecca Herbert
Head of GTM @ Oscar Recruit
GTM Executive Search | Building the commercial teams inside high-growth startups and scale-ups.
Oscar-recruit.com