Competitive intelligence was born in a slower market.
You could track a handful of rivals, refresh battlecards quarterly, and feel confident your reps were covered.
That model worked because buyers were predictable, ankle-biters were rare, and sellers had time to study.
None of that holds true today.
Features drop daily, new competitors surface overnight, and a single LinkedIn post can tilt a deal you thought was locked.
And your sellers? They’re not flipping through Harvey Ball charts at 7 a.m. They’re staring at their pipeline and asking the only question that matters:
“How do I close the deals in front of me – today?”
If your competitive enablement program can’t help them answer that question in‑flight, it’s falling short.
Because the future of CI isn’t competitor‑first.
It’s deal‑first.
Where Competitor‑First CI Falls Short
Let’s look at the scoreboard: 30% of your pipeline is lost directly to competitors.
And every one of those losses tells a different story.
Some deals fall apart over price, timing, or missing features. Others derail due to internal politics. And some unravel for reasons no playbook could predict:
- The buyer became obsessed with a niche AI solution the night before the demo.
- The champion left two weeks before the signature.
- A new CFO froze all net new spend mid-cycle.
Even the most thorough battlecard can’t account for that kind of volatility because traditional CI assets tackle competitors at the company level.
Sellers, meanwhile, live inside deals, each with its own context, stakeholders, and shifting dynamics.
So, if we truly want to help sellers win more, we need to meet them where they are: in the deal itself.
The typical [competitor-first] approach was a comparison table – ‘us versus them.’ But customers don’t care about feature functions. They care about how you solve their problems and the outcomes you’ll help them achieve…" - Bhavik Patel, Head of Competitive Intelligence, SS&C Blue Prism
What Is Deal‑First CI, and What Does It Look Like In Practice?
Deal‑first CI is exactly what it sounds like: a shift in focus from tracking competitors to enabling reps in the moments that matter most – inside the deal.
It doesn’t replace the research, the win-loss analysis, or the strategic work that competitive intelligence and product marketing teams already do. It simply changes how, where, and when that work gets delivered.
Instead of packaging insights into static assets and hoping reps find them in time, deal‑first CI surfaces the exact intel a seller needs right when they need it. It’s proactive rather than reactive.
Here are two examples of what that looks like in practice:
- Proactive competitive coaching: When a deal turns competitive, AI scans call transcripts and CRM data to detect the primary threat and key buyer themes like use cases or objections. It automatically sends the rep a personalized briefing: what to lean into, what to watch for, and how to respond – before they even ask.
- Real-time guidance in Slack: Mid-deal, a rep pings a Slackbot: “How should I position against Competitor X for an IT buyer?” Seconds later, they get a focused reply with a talk track, proof point, and potential pitfalls to avoid. They follow up with more questions. The back-and-forth happens right in Slack, no switching tools.
These aren’t just workflow tweaks. They’re the foundation of a new, deal-first model of competitive enablement.
Why Deal-First Is the Future
Deal-first competitive enablement reflects how modern selling (and buying) actually works.
Deals are multi‑threaded, fast‑moving, and prone to last‑minute curveballs, and buyers increasingly expect vendors to adapt to their exact context. All of this makes one‑size‑fits‑all content and enablement harder to rely on.
That’s why forward-thinking teams are adopting deal-first competitive enablement as their new default.
1. It aligns with how sellers actually work
Sellers don’t live in enablement docs or PMM playbooks. They live in Slack, email, CRM, and Gong. To be useful, intel needs to show up in those tools at the moment it’s needed.Deal-first CI meets sellers in their workflow with insights tailored to the deal at hand.
2. It keeps up with the pace of modern deals
Today’s deals shift fast. Stakeholders suddenly multiply, budget conditions change, competitors make surprise moves.
Traditional content can’t adapt quickly enough, but AI-powered, deal-specific intel can. It’s built for speed, not shelf life.
"Org-changes, new tech, sudden budget cuts – there are so many ways a deal goes sideways…" - Cody Bernard, Director of Product Marketing, Klue
3. It’s proactive vs. reactive
Competitor-first CI reacts to what has already happened. Deal-first CI anticipates what’s happening inside open opportunities — and gets ahead of it.
Instead of waiting for sellers to raise a red flag, it delivers intel automatically, before they even ask. Proactive insights win deals. Reactive assets catch up to losses.
4. It scales smarter
It’s not realistic to create new slides, cards, or docs for every competitor, let alone every opportunity. But it is realistic to systems that deliver relevant insights across every deal – automatically.
Deal-first CI isn’t more manual work – it’s what’s possible when we leverage the full capabilities of AI and agentic workflows.
What I would love to do is pull a report that says, ‘Hey, these sellers are up against these competitors and they’re at this stage in the deal. Here are some tips.’ Or create automated workflows around that in Salesforce… something scalable." - Veronica Bernard, Director Product Marketing, Competitive Intelligence, JAMF
5. It makes PMM and CI impact measurable
When insights are tied to specific opportunities and show up in the flow of work, you can finally see what’s landing and what’s helping close real revenue.
Deal-first CI doesn’t just support sellers. It elevates the role of product marketing and competitive intelligence into true revenue-driving functions.
We started asking, ‘How can we support sellers while the deals are in flight?’ And we jumped on these opportunities to the point where we closed double-digit millions in 2023." - Bhavik Patel, Head of Competitive Intelligence, SS&C Blue Prism
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6. It matches rising buyer expectations
Buyers don’t just want a better product, they expect a vendor who understands them. They’re evaluating how well you adapt to their needs, not how well you recite your strengths.
Deal-first CI helps your sellers meet buyers with precision and relevance, in real time.
7. Frees up product marketing to focus on strategic work
Deal-first CI automates the repeatable stuff—surfacing the right message, to the right rep, at the right time – so your team isn’t stuck fielding the same questions over and over.
That means less time chasing Slack messages and more time driving launches, refining positioning, and partnering on key deals. It positions CI and PMM where they belong, not just as support functions but as strategic revenue drivers.
The Shift That Sets Teams Apart
Competitors can copy features; they can’t copy a worldview. Teams that internalize deal‑first thinking will iterate faster, learn from every win-loss loop, and build a network of seller trust that your rivals can’t fake.
And that trust compounds.
So, next time you’re building your enablement plan, try flipping the frame:
- What does each live deal need to move forward right now?
- What signals tell us that?
- How do we deliver the insight before the rep even asks?
Answer those, and you’re not just supporting sellers.
You’re shaping outcomes and driving revenue.
The shift to deal-first CI is already happening. Make sure your team is leading it.
