At the 2026 Gartner CSO conference, nearly 8 in 10 sales leaders said their top concern was getting sellers to quantify value instead of pitching products, and the wider research explains why it has become existential: buyers now automate the logic with AI and reserve their scarce human attention for proof of value. The value gap and the growth gap have become the same gap, and closing it is no longer a training project but a structural mandate for every revenue leader.

Enterprise software is drifting into a dangerous cycle where buyers and vendors optimize for activity metrics like token consumption, utilization, and renewals, while the actual business outcomes behind the investment remain poorly measured and undervalued.

As AI accelerates the shift toward consumption-based pricing, companies are discovering that maximizing usage does not guarantee maximizing impact, fueling the need for a new model centered on realized business value: Outcome Maxxing.

Salesforce just introduced something called Agentic Work Units, or AWUs. On the surface, it looks like a new billing metric. But if you read it as a market signal, it’s much more significant than that.

We are officially entering the Outcome Economy for AI.

AI is forcing GTM leaders to rethink their Value Automation strategy, but the real question isn’t build vs. buy. It’s who owns the workflow that defines, proves, and delivers value.

For years, the role of the Value Engineer or Value Consultant has been a cornerstone of modern go-to-market teams. Helping quantify ROI, build business cases, and justify decisions has become essential in complex B2B sales.

But as the market shifts toward an Outcome Economy, it raises an important question: Is the role itself evolving beyond its name?