Hello and welcome to The Modern GTM Executive by Lunar Executive Search - read by 2,000+ leading Sales, Marketing, and Executive Leaders within Growth-Stage Technology businesses. We’re here to help people redefine their perspective on modern revenue acquisition models, understand what talent & skills are necessary to do so, and how to find the to 10% of GTM Leaders to execute.

To help readers stay grounded in the reality of today’s GTM hiring landscape, I’ll be sharing a weekly snapshot of active sales roles on LinkedIn. These metrics offer a simple but powerful pulse check: where demand is rising, where it’s cooling, and how the broader software market is shifting beneath the surface.

(Our updated news & trends sections to highlight all relevant stories you need to know going into this week.)

AI mega-round: OpenAI raises $110B in one of the largest private funding rounds ever, backed by Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank.

VC concentration: OpenAI, Anthropic, and Waymo account for the majority of global venture funding in February, highlighting massive capital concentration in AI infrastructure.

Model race: Anthropic hits a $380B valuation after a $30B funding round, signaling continued investor confidence in frontier AI labs.

AI boom: Nearly 20 U.S.-based AI startups have already raised $100M+ rounds in early 2026, underscoring continued investor appetite for enterprise AI.

Enterprise shift: Companies are accelerating AI investments and restructuring teams around automation and productivity tools, reshaping how tech organizations operate.

AI jobs growth: Research shows AI-exposed roles are actually growing faster than other occupations, with higher wage growth as well.

Infrastructure wave: Massive AI infrastructure initiatives like the $500B Stargate project aim to build next-generation U.S. data-center capacity to power future models.

For most of the past two decades, the playbook in software was simple: hire more sales reps to drive more revenue.

That equation is starting to break.

Over the next two years, I believe a meaningful percentage of traditional SaaS sales roles will disappear. Not because companies don’t want growth, but because the mechanics of how software is purchased are rapidly changing.

Three forces are converging:

1. AI replacing low-value human steps

AI is quickly automating large parts of the traditional sales process - research, qualification, demos, follow-ups, and even parts of negotiation.

2. Product-led buying behaviors

Buyers increasingly expect to try software before talking to anyone. PLG and self-serve motions remove the need for a salesperson in many transactions.

3. Procurement becoming more structured

Enterprise buying is becoming more standardized, with clear evaluation frameworks and technical validation steps that don’t require a rep to “manage the process.”

The result: many transactional sales roles simply won’t be necessary anymore.

The sellers most at risk are those working in:

• Highly standardized product categories
• Low integration complexity solutions
• Products with minimal customization or deployment requirements

In these environments, a salesperson often adds friction rather than value.

A self-serve checkout experience is simply faster and easier for the buyer. Whoever makes their sales process easier for buyers - wins.

So where does the budget go?

Instead of large sales teams, we’ll see budget shift toward:

• Product-led growth infrastructure
• GEO / AIVO-driven marketing engines
• AI-native product capabilities
• Customer success and expansion teams

In other words: less persuasion, more product.

But sales itself isn’t going away.

What will survive, and thrive, are sellers who operate as true commercial advisors:

• Navigating complex deployments
• Driving multi-stakeholder enterprise deals
• Helping customers translate technology into business outcomes

The future of sales isn’t fewer sellers.

It’s fewer transactional sellers and far more strategic ones.

And that shift is already underway.

If you want our full breakdown of our thoughts on GTM compensation in 2026, and all appropriate salary bands across Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and more, the data is in this report.

A few select openings: 

I'm also always looking to speak to great candidates for future roles:

Check out our latest episode of The GTM Kickback!, Command the Room - The 7 Skills of Tonality | The GTM Kickback #84 w/ Michael Hewitt

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Till next time, 

Joey