Updated: December 2025 to reflect the latest "speed to lead" advancements in AI
Speed to Lead Is Broken: Why Accuracy, Not Speed, Now Wins the Revenue Race
According to a white paper authored by Google and the Corporate Executive Board, 35% to 50% of B2B sales go to the vendor that responds to customers first.
In other words, with each passing second your warm leads become colder and your competitors could snap them up. The race is on.
But things changed when AI and automation promised instant response times.
AI and automation now drive every GTM motion - from chat routing to lead scoring, email sequencing, and ad targeting. The promise was speed. Faster responses. Faster cycles. Faster pipeline.
Yet most AI tools and GTM engines still run on buyer intent signals that are less than 20% accurate.
As automation accelerates, these weak signals don’t just slow you down - they amplify poor experiences, misroute reps, and drag sales cycles longer than ever.
This is why the traditional definition of speed to lead is collapsing.
And why the companies winning today aren’t the ones responding faster - they’re the ones acting on the right leads with the right experience proactively, instead of reactively.
Accuracy is the new GTM battleground. And sales velocity now depends on one thing: whether your systems know who’s actually ready to buy.
The Real Problem: GTM Speed Is Pointless If You’re Accelerating the Wrong Leads
For more than a decade, “speed to lead” has meant shaving seconds off how fast a rep or bot responds after a form fill. But here’s the problem:
- Most “leads” aren’t buyers. Just because an account matches your ICP doesn't mean they're ready to buy.
- Most hand raisers are low intent. In a recent case study with RealVNC, 60% of their form fills were low-intent.
- Meanwhile, most buyers on your website don't even raise their hand for a sales response (for example, 88% of sales-ready visitors don't visit your pricing page, yet they are targeted).
Even perfect response time can’t fix this.
Speed becomes a liability when it accelerates the wrong conversations.
This is why sales cycles lengthen.
This is why reps chase noise.
This is why AI agents flood calendars with meetings that never convert.
The enemy isn’t slow response times.
The enemy is inaccurate signals.
The New Path to Faster Sales Cycles: Predict Real Intent Before Engagement
GTM teams win when every workflow, rep, and AI agent operates from one accurate, contextual signal - real-time behavioral intent from the website.
Lift AI provides that signal.
Lift AI’s model is trained on billions of buyer journeys and millions of purchases, using Micro-Behavioral Analysis™ to score every visitor with 85%+ accuracy, across all three critical audiences:
- Engaged Visitors (hand raisers, form fills, chat conversations)
- Identified Contacts & Accounts (ID reveal and ID match)
- Anonymous Visitors (who make up the majority of your traffic and can't be seen without Lift AI)
This is the shift that unlocks true sales velocity.
The Breakthrough: Be First to the Right Buyer With the Right Experience
Traditional speed-to-lead focuses on reacting quickly after a visitor identifies themselves or raises their hand.
The modern revenue engine works differently.
It predicts buying intent the moment someone lands on the website - long before they ever engage.
It routes high-intent visitors instantly to the best conversion experience possible (human SDRs for buyers, automation for non-buyers).
It deflects low-intent visitors to automation instead of wasting sales cycles.
It understands the visitor's intent before engaging them, which means it can provide the best experience possible.
For example, instead of pushing sales messaging on a low-intent visitor, your automation can nurture them instead.
And if you know in advance that a visitor has high-intent, you roll out the red carpet and reduce as much friction as possible.
This is proactive speed.
This is precision speed.
This is how you shorten sales cycles at scale.
Real Proof: How RealVNC Transformed Sales Velocity With Lift AI
RealVNC, a global software company, discovered the exact issue plaguing most GTM teams: form fills and "engagement signals" (like pricing page views) created the illusion of intent.
When RealVNC connected Lift AI’s ONE Accurate Intent Signal into HubSpot, everything changed.
High-intent form fills delivered 17.25× more revenue per lead than low-intent form fills.
1,476 high- and mid-intent visitors who never filled out a form generated 2.3× more revenue than 9,148 low-intent form fills.
Sales efficiency increased 216%.
Sales cycles accelerated because reps stopped chasing the wrong people.
Why Lift AI Changes Sales Velocity at Every Stage
1. Real-Time Engagement
Engage buyers while they’re ready - not after they submit a form.
Lift AI identifies High, Mid, and Low Intent across 100% of website visitors.
High-intent visitors can be instantly routed to sales or live chat.
Mid-intent get guided nurture.
Low-intent get automation or support.
This alone removes massive friction from sales cycles.
2. Intelligent Follow-Up
Prioritize the right accounts after they leave the site.
When a high-intent form fill is worth 17.25x a low-intent form fill, and a website visitor matched to an account that DIDN'T fill out a form is worth 14.4x revenue per visitor vs a low-intent form fill, the prioritization becomes clear.
This is how you fix sales velocity: fewer targets, greater precision.
3. Unlocking Anonymous Visitors
The largest, fastest-moving buyers on your site are the ones you can’t see.
Across customers:
- Up to 58%+ of pipeline comes from anonymous visitors (Boomi, Payscale)
- 85% of chat pipeline came from anonymous visitors (Chronus)
These are buyers that aren't raising their hands, filling out forms, requesting demos, but demonstrating buying behavior.
Lift AI is the ONLY tool that accurately pinoints these visitors so you can activate them before a competitors does.
The Result: Faster Sales Cycles, Higher Velocity, and Unlocked Revenue
Once sales teams operate from Lift AI’s ONE Accurate Signal:
- Sales velocity increases
- Sales cycles shorten
- AI agents become smarter
- Reps stop wasting time
- Pipeline grows from real buyers, not noise
When you feed your GTM engine accurate intent, every motion accelerates.
Lift AI is that accurate intent— with 85%+ proven accuracy — and activates sales-ready visitors across your GTM stack.
Ready to Transform Sales Velocity?
Start a free 30-day trial of Lift AI and see how the ONE Accurate Signal accelerates your entire GTM motion.
