Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
ICONIQ's 2026 GTM benchmark shows quota inflation at well-funded B2B startups: $2.25M for enterprise, $1.35M for mid-market, $750K for SMB. The kicker: attainment is holding at 85-90%, not cratering. The difference is AI-powered pipeline generation and comp plans that finally pay for expansion work.
Everyone wrote Zoom off as a COVID one-hit wonder. The data says otherwise. Q1 FY2027 shows revenue growth picking back up, customers actually paying for AI features, and free cash flow margins over 40%. Enterprise deals are driving the turn, not SMB bounce-back.
Podcasting platform Riverside loses customers at the two-seat threshold where pricing leaps from $24/month to $500/month prepaid. The gap exists because sales teams push minimum deal sizes around $5k annually, but many B2B products leave revenue on the table between self-serve and enterprise tiers.
The government is standing up an Office of AI inside PM&C and backing it with $101 million over five years. But the announcement leaves two big questions hanging: copyright exemptions for AI training and data centre investment rules. For now, those decisions are parked.
Apple filed a lawsuit alleging OpenAI stole proprietary hardware designs through former employees, including Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan. The suit claims OpenAI coached candidates on dodging scrutiny while sharing confidential product data. This marks a sharp turn from their ChatGPT partnership.
First federal AI employment report shows slower hiring in AI-exposed roles, not mass layoffs. Software dev jobs up 25% since ChatGPT launch. Youth employment holding steady. For sales teams: watch clerical and admin roles, but the pipeline is not collapsing yet.
Total B2B software spend is accelerating to $1.4T, growing 15% year over year, the fastest in a decade. At the same time, public SaaS companies are trading at a discount to the S&P 500 for the first time ever, with Monday, HubSpot, and Atlassian down 60% to 70%. The market has bifurcated: AI-native companies are tapping new budget and re-accelerating, while legacy SaaS runs the old playbook and waits for a recovery that is not coming.
Toast posted $6.5B ARR growing 22% while turning GAAP profitable for the first time. The restaurant POS company crossed 171,000 locations, added 7,000 net new in Q1, and has 40,000 using its AI agent platform weekly. Software margins hit 80%. Not slowing down.
Open USD launches 2026, backed by 140+ firms including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, and Shopify. Unlike Circle or Tether, reserve yields flow to partners, not a single issuer. Zero-cost minting targets payment companies and fintechs tired of high transaction fees.
Government considering splitting audit and consulting arms at KPMG, EY, Deloitte, PwC after KPMG withdrawn AI report contained fabricated case studies. Caps on partner numbers also on table. Combined $219B revenue firms could face structural changes affecting thousands of ANZ consulting and sales roles.
A US government order blocked Australian access to Anthropic's top models in June. Days later, OpenAI delayed its GPT-5.6 launch, limiting rollout to 20 White House-approved partners. The moves highlight how little control ANZ has over AI infrastructure sales teams increasingly rely on for prospecting, research, and customer engagement.
Noam Shazeer and John Jumper left Google for Anthropic within 48 hours, wiping $225 billion off Alphabet's market cap. The departures signal a talent retention crisis as Google holds #3 in AI behind OpenAI and Anthropic. Wall Street is questioning whether the company can compete when pre-IPO rivals offer equity upside that a public giant cannot match.