B2B Buying Committee Benchmarks

The B2B buying committee got bigger, more financial and more digital at the same time. Forrester's 2026 research counts 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers in a typical buying decision, finance now sits in on almost half of software decisions, and two-thirds of B2B buyers would rather not talk to a sales rep at all. Below are the benchmarks worth planning against, every one from research published in 2026, plus the honest answer to the question most people arrive here with: where the "6 to 10 decision makers" figure came from.

Where did "6 to 10 decision makers" come from?

From a Gartner web page, not from a dated report. Gartner's B2B buying journey page for sales leaders said a typical buying group for a complex B2B solution "involves six to 10 decision makers," each bringing four or five pieces of information they had gathered on their own. The line ran from 2019 until Gartner rewrote that page in late 2023. A near-identical version on Gartner's buyer enablement page stayed up until October 2025, when that page began redirecting to the rewritten one.

So if you are hunting for "the Gartner source," the honest answer is that it was an undated page that Gartner has since retired. No live Gartner page we could find still states six to 10. Gartner's most recent public description of the buying team, from its May 2025 sales survey, is "five to 16 people across as many as four functions" (Gartner). The figure descends from CEB research, which Gartner acquired in 2017, that counted 5.4 people who had to formally sign off on a purchase.

Stop quoting six to 10 as current. Use the 2026 numbers below, and say which one you mean: formal decision makers and everyone who influences the decision are very different counts.

B2B buying committee benchmarks at a glance

How big is a B2B buying committee?

Bigger than the slide in your sales kickoff deck. Forrester's State of Business Buying 2026 puts the typical buying decision at 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers, and the number rises for more complex or strategic purchases. Anything with AI in it makes the group bigger again: Forrester found that buying groups for purchases with genAI features are twice the size of those without, 14 members versus seven.

Big groups are not automatically bad news. In Forrester's 2026 research, 94% of buyers with groups of six or more report clear benefits, including broader perspectives, shared work validating solutions, and a better shot at budget and approval. A large committee slows a seller who sells to one person. It helps a seller who equips the whole group.

Who sits on the committee, and who can kill the deal

The people who can stop a deal are increasingly the ones sales never meets:

• Procurement: procurement professionals are decision makers in 53% of business buying cycles and engage from the start (Forrester, 2026).
• Finance: finance involvement in software decisions jumped from 31% to 46% in a single year, while information security fell from 32% to 25% (G2 2026 Buyer Behavior Report).
• The CFO veto: 49% of software buyers say their CFO reversed a deal the buying team had already approved in the last 12 months (G2, 2026).
• Hidden buyers: procurement, finance and IT hold about half of the influence over which supplier wins, according to Bain & Company's 2026 research with LinkedIn.
• Security review: after a supplier is chosen, IT security review is the biggest single source of delay, cited by 39% of software buyers and 50% of enterprise buyers (G2, July 2026).

The upside of reaching all of them early is large. LinkedIn's 2026 research with Bain found that brands are 20 times more likely to be bought when everyone in the buying group knows them from the outset (LinkedIn, June 2026).

How much of the buying happens without sales?

Most of it, by choice. Gartner's March 2026 survey found 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience, up from 61% a year earlier, and its May 2026 release found 70% prefer a completely digital, self-service buying experience.

The rep is not obsolete; the job changed. In Gartner's 2026 research, 69% of B2B buyers prefer to validate AI-generated insights with a sales rep, and confident buyers are twice as likely to report a high-quality deal as buyers with low decision confidence. The rep who helps a committee check its own research and agree is worth more than the rep who opens with a pitch.

You will also see "buyers are 57% (or 67%, or 70%) of the way through before they contact sales." The 57% figure comes from CEB research published in 2012, and we found no 2026 primary source that measures it. Treat it as history, not as a benchmark.

How AI changed committee research

Buyers now research with AI, and the published rates differ because the questions differ:

• 94% of business buyers report using AI somewhere in their buying process (Forrester, January 2026).
• 45% used GenAI during a specific recent purchase, mostly to gather information on suppliers and products, alongside an average of seven information sources (Gartner, May 2026).
• 51% of software buyers now start research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, up from 29% a year earlier (G2, April 2026).
• 82% of software buyers sourced software recommendations from an AI chatbot in the last 24 months (G2, July 2026).
• Gen AI has risen into the top five channels B2B buyers use to discover and evaluate suppliers, and buyers now use an average of ten channels across the purchasing journey (McKinsey, June 2026).

Every person on the committee can now ask an AI assistant about you before anyone talks to you. What those assistants find, and whether it holds up when a rep is asked to confirm it, decides a lot of shortlists.

Shortlists, trials and the longest stage

• Shortlists: review sites (38%) are now the top source shaping which suppliers make a software buyer's shortlist, just ahead of AI chatbots (37%) (G2, July 2026). G2 runs a review site, so weigh that finding accordingly.
• The longest stage: 40% of software buyers say evaluation is the longest stage of their buying journey, up from 36% the year before (G2 2026 Buyer Behavior Report).
• Trials: more than 60% of business buyers use a trial to evaluate solutions, rising to 78% for purchases of $10 million or more (Forrester, 2026).

How to use these benchmarks

1. Map the whole group, not the champion. Plan for 13 internal stakeholders, not three, and name procurement, finance and IT security in every opportunity before the shortlist forms.
2. Arm the champion for finance. With finance in almost half of software decisions and CFOs reversing approved deals, the business case has to survive a CFO who never sat through your demo.
3. Put security answers up front. If security review is the biggest delay after selection, publish what reviewers need before they ask.
4. Build for the rep-free majority. Two-thirds of buyers prefer to research without a rep, increasingly through AI assistants. Your public answers are your first sales conversation.
5. Get known by the whole committee early. Being known by everyone in the group from the outset is the single biggest lever in this data.

For the wider buyer journey numbers, see what B2B buyer journey statistics show, and for the operating model behind committee selling, our buying committee strategy guide. If you want help turning a 13-person committee into a plan your team can run, that is the work our GTM strategy practice does.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Gartner "6 to 10 decision makers" figure still current?

No. It came from an undated Gartner page that was rewritten in late 2023, and the last Gartner page carrying a version of it began redirecting in October 2025. Gartner's most recent public description of the buying team is "five to 16 people across as many as four functions." For a current figure, Forrester's 2026 research counts 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers in a typical buying decision.

How many people are in a B2B buying committee?

Forrester's State of Business Buying 2026 counts 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers in a typical buying decision, and buying groups for purchases with genAI features average 14 members. Those counts include influencers, not only the people who formally sign off.

What share of B2B buyers prefer to buy without a sales rep?

67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience and 70% prefer a completely digital, self-service experience, according to Gartner research published in 2026. In the same research, 69% prefer to validate AI-generated insights with a sales rep.

Do B2B buying committees use AI to research purchases?

Yes. Forrester's 2026 research finds 94% of business buyers use AI during the buying process, and G2's 2026 research finds 51% of software buyers now start research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google.