Sales in North America and the Middle East: fewer sellers, higher stakes

Fewer than half of the account executives at American business-to-business companies are now reaching their quota. The Bridge Group’s 2026 study of 158 companies, published in June, put attainment at 48%, down from 51% in 2024. The median account executive now takes 6.2 months to become fully productive, the longest the study has recorded, and the experience employers require for the role has risen from 2.7 years in 2022 to 3.7 years. Median on-target earnings rose to $200,000 against a median quota of $960,000. Matt Bertuzzi, who leads the research, observed that “the market hasn’t snapped back to the 2021/early-2022 peak.” [1] Selling has become harder, slower and more expensive to staff, and employers are responding by asking for more from each person they hire.

The same respondents reported more stakeholders in each deal, longer sales cycles and more deals slipping from one quarter to the next. Gartner’s research describes the buyer behind those numbers. In a survey published in March, 67% of business buyers said they would prefer a purchase without a sales representative, and 45% had used AI during a recent purchase. Alyssa Cruz, a senior principal analyst in Gartner’s sales practice, warned that “sellers can’t rely on static collateral to carry influence in those moments.” [2] Read alone, that finding suggests a profession in decline, but Gartner’s survey in May qualified it. Although 70% of buyers said they preferred a fully digital, self-service purchase, 69% turned to sales representatives to check insights generated by AI, and buyers were slightly more likely to expect misleading information from generative AI than from a rep, at 51% against 49%. Robert Blaisdell, a vice president analyst at Gartner, cautioned that sales leaders “should not interpret buyer preference for digital self-service as a signal that sellers matter less.” [3] Buyers are doing more of the work themselves, and they want a capable person available when the information they have gathered needs testing.

That combination is reshaping where American companies hire. Analysis by Kyle Poyar, using data from Sumble, found that US go-to-market job postings fell 15% year on year in the first quarter, with postings for sales development and business development representatives down 21%. Three-fifths of open commercial roles were for account executives or solution engineers. The exception was instructive: companies building AI products more than doubled their sales development headcount, which led Poyar to note that “the companies selling the automation apparently aren’t buying all of it.” [4] A year earlier, Emergence Capital’s survey of more than 560 companies, reported by SaaStr, had already found that 36% had cut sales development headcount in 2025, more than any other sales role. [5] The entry-level prospecting job, long the route into enterprise sales, is the part of the function most exposed to automation.

Gartner’s research suggests the payoff from AI depends on how it is used rather than how much of it is bought. Sales organizations that gave sellers AI-enabled recommendations on their next best action were 2.6 times more likely to achieve commercial growth, and those that trained sellers in AI were 2.4 times more likely to report strong revenue growth. Greg Hessong, a senior director analyst, said that leaders who succeed with AI “will not ask sellers to do everything they did before, just faster.” [6] In July, Gartner predicted that AI agents would outnumber sellers ten to one by 2028, while fewer than 40% of sellers would say the agents had improved their productivity. Dan Gottlieb, a vice president analyst, explained that agents “are only as effective as the systems they operate within. If those systems are fragmented, the agents will scale the fragmentation.” [7] For hiring managers, the implication is that the next generation of strong sellers will be people who can work alongside these tools, interpret what they produce and take it into conversations with senior buyers.

Overall American hiring has held up better than sales hiring. Indeed’s measure of job postings stood at 101.0 at the end of June, slightly above its pre-pandemic baseline, and 5.9% of postings mentioned AI. [8] The commercial function is not shrinking because the economy is; it is shrinking at the entry level because employers believe a share of that work can now be done differently, and they are spending what they save on fewer, more experienced sellers.

The Middle East reached a similar place by a very different route. The conflict with Iran that began on February 28 hit commercial hiring before almost anything else. The Naukrigulf Hiring Index, reported on July 6, found that UAE hiring in April and May was 23% lower than a year earlier, with sales and marketing down 42%, the steepest fall of any function. Hiring for AI, data and cybersecurity rose 20% over the same period. The decline was concentrated at the lower end of the pay scale: postings for roles paying under Dh10,000 a month fell 26%, while those paying more than Dh80,000 fell only 5%. [9] S&P Global’s survey for June showed UAE employment falling for the first time in more than four years, which David Owen of S&P Global Market Intelligence attributed to “the double whammy of soft client demand and rising cost burdens.” [10]

Cooper Fitch’s Gulf Employment Index for the second quarter, published in mid-July, found hiring across the region down 3% and in the UAE down 4%, the sharpest fall since August 2020. Software, and sales and marketing, were among the largest decliners. Its chief executive, Trefor Murphy, described a market in which employers were “recruiting right up until the final stage, but not making the final hire.” [11] Mark Chahwan, the co-founder and chief executive of the Dubai investment platform Sarwa, described how the hiring question inside companies had changed: “It’s become less of, ‘Do we need this or not?’ and more of, ‘Can this be done by AI or not?’” [12] On July 8, the interim ceasefire agreed in June broke down, with President Trump saying of the truce, “For me, I think it’s over.” [13]

The two markets are cutting sales hiring for different reasons. In the US, the change is structural: buyers prefer to research alone, AI is absorbing prospecting work, and employers are concentrating on experienced closers and technical sellers. In the Gulf, the immediate cause is the war, which froze discretionary hiring and hit sales roles tied to tourism, trade and consumer demand hardest. The two paths lead to similar outcomes, though. In both regions, employers are hiring fewer sellers, paying more for experience and protecting senior and technical roles while cutting junior ones. In both, the questions the Sarwa founder described, about whether a role could be done by AI, are being asked of every new sales position.

Looking to the second half of the year, I expect American sales hiring to remain selective. Demand should hold for enterprise account executives, solution engineers and sales leaders who can show how they used AI to improve forecasting and pipeline, while sales development teams continue to shrink outside AI companies. Quota attainment is unlikely to recover quickly while buying groups stay large and cycles stay long. In the Gulf, the timing of any recovery depends on the conflict. If hostilities ease again, I would expect hiring to return first for senior enterprise sellers representing technology, AI, data and security vendors, where demand held up even in the spring, and later for consumer, hospitality and trade-related roles. If the fighting persists, employers will keep running processes to the final interview and then waiting.

For candidates, the profile that commands a premium is consistent across both regions: a seller who has carried a complex quota, can explain their results in context, uses AI to prepare rather than to replace preparation, and can hold a credible conversation with a buying group that has already done its own research. Employers looking for that profile will find that the strongest candidates are being approached by more than one company, even in a market that otherwise feels quiet.

A 48% attainment rate would once have prompted employers to hire more sellers to cover the shortfall. In 2026, in North America and the Gulf alike, the response has been to hire fewer people and to expect more from each of them. The quota has not become easier to reach, but the sellers who reach it have become much more valuable.

Sources

1. The Bridge Group, 2026 AE Models, Motions and Metrics, June 2026.
2. Gartner, Gartner Sales Survey Finds 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience, March 9, 2026.
3. Gartner, Gartner Survey Finds 69% of B2B Buyers Turn to Sales Reps to Validate AI-Generated Insights, May 20, 2026.
4. Growth Unhinged, Who’s actually hiring in GTM right now, May 20, 2026.
5. SaaStr, The great SDR downsizing: 36% of B2B companies cut sales development teams in 2025, June 23, 2025.
6. Gartner, Gartner Survey Finds Sales Organizations That Provide AI-Enabled Next Best Actions Are 2.6 Times More Likely to Achieve Commercial Growth, May 20, 2026.
7. Gartner, Gartner Predicts AI Agents Will Outnumber Sellers 10 to 1 by 2028, July 28, 2026.
8. Indeed Hiring Lab, US labor market snapshot, June 2026, June 30, 2026.
9. Khaleej Times, UAE jobs: hiring for salaries under Dh10,000 drops 26%, July 6, 2026.
10. Arab News, reporting S&P Global UAE PMI for June, July 3, 2026.
11. Khaleej Times, GCC hiring falls 3% in Q2 as Strait of Hormuz disruption bites, July 14, 2026.
12. EnterpriseAM, UAE hiring contracts for the first time in four years as firms recruit to the final stage, then pause on uncertainty, July 17, 2026.
13. WLOS, Trump says Iran ceasefire is over after US strikes, July 8, 2026.