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The Broken Funnel Report
How AI has transformed the B2C buying journey, and the data needed to shape your 2027 AI agent roadmap
Trouble lurks beneath the surface
At first glance, the state of the buyer journey for B2C brands is reassuring. Most marketing leaders report modest growth in website traffic, which is surprising given all the doom and gloom we’ve heard about this lately. A majority say that they can attribute leads to AI search and generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. And 44% have rolled out conversational AI agents, with another 27% piloting. Trouble lurks beneath the surface, though, especially when it comes to connecting the full buyer journey to revenue.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents cannot follow a lead from the first digital interaction through to a sale, 73% judge AI agent performance on factors other than revenue or booked outcomes, and 56% lose sight of a lead entirely the moment it reaches a dealer, franchise, or local branch. AI agents are also creating new visibility gaps in the buyer journey, as only 19% of those with agents can reliably send conversion signals from AI agents to their ad platforms.
Whether you're a CMO looking to maximize digital marketing ROI, a digital marketer working to improve conversion rates, or a CX professional building customer experiences for the AI age, this data will help guide your AI strategy in the coming year.
Research highlights
AI search hasn’t killed B2C website traffic, but it has moved the digital front door
Consumer brands are not experiencing the apocalyptic drops in traffic that are dominating headlines in the B2B and publishing worlds. Compared to 12 months ago, 60% report gains in website traffic, though over a third report modest growth of 9% or less, and 37% report it’s flat or declining. Nearly half attribute fluctuations in traffic to AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. No surprise there.
The best leads are coming from AI answer engines
As we previously reported in the Invoca Lead Benchmark Report, the most qualified leads are now coming from AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. It’s still a narrow margin, but the qualitative responses also show that AI is delivering buyers who are more informed and closer to making a purchase decision. This also suggests they are relying on AI to find answers about your brand rather than on your website.
Consumers now often arrive with more specific questions after using AI tools for research, and they also expect websites to give quick, clear answers while making it easy to book an appointment or request a quote.
Marketing manager, home services, 100–499 employees
As AI agent adoption ramps up, the shortcomings reveal themselves
Conversational AI agents are becoming commonplace for B2C brands. Over 70% of marketers report that they’re piloting AI agents or have them live and in front of customers. There’s still plenty of room for growth, however, as 28% are either still evaluating AI agents or have no plans to implement them.
ChatGPT has made consumers expect faster, more direct answers. They often use AI to research and compare information before visiting our website. They want our website to be clear, helpful, and easy to navigate.
Marketing manager, financial services, 5,000 or more employees
Most marketers don’t measure AI agent success on revenue outcomes
Only a small share of marketers measure their AI agents on revenue outcomes. About seven in ten use a KPI other than revenue or booked outcomes and describe that as performance.
The missing link: AI agents are disconnected from the buyer journey
AI agents should ostensibly contribute to the bottom line, but most marketers are not measuring their success against revenue-related metrics. The data shows this may be because they can’t. Only 19% of marketers surveyed said they can connect complete conversion data from their AI agents to their ad platforms, and only 26% can confidently track leads handled by AI agents from click to conversion.
This disconnect also impacts the buyer experience and conversion rates. Fewer than a third of marketers said their AI agents can use a lead’s digital journey data prior to the engagement. Without that data, agents start every conversation from scratch, frustrating potential customers by making them feel like they’re repeating themselves and being forced to use AI instead of talking to a person.
Agent can see the customer's digital journey and use it
Conversations tied back to the campaign, keyword, or ad
Outcomes can be returned to ad platforms as conversion signals
The AI would need to be perfectly integrated with our real-time CRM and inventory data. More importantly, it must have a flawless handoff system that instantly routes a high-intent buyer to a live human representative the moment the conversation gets complex.
Marketing manager, healthcare, 1,000–4,999 employees
Most marketers can spot AI-driven leads, but lose them further down the funnel
Reassuringly, most marketers report they can attribute leads to AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. There is still evidence that AI is complicating tracking and changing how consumers interact with their websites, though.
Attribution breaks down when leads leave marketing’s hands
The clear view of attribution breaks down at the most important part of the buyer journey. Over half of marketers (56%) say they can’t track what happens to a lead once it’s routed to a dealer, franchise, or local branch, and only 21% can both see and influence leads through conversion.
It has made consumer behavior much harder to track using traditional analytics, as many users gather information about our brand entirely inside the AI interface before ever visiting.
Marketing manager, healthcare, 1,000–4,999 employees
| Lead destination | Lose attribution | |
|---|---|---|
| Business locations, franchises, dealers, etc. | 56% | |
| Text or chat | 46% | |
| Phone call | 40% | |
A staggering 74% cannot fully track leads from the first click through to conversion. This makes revenue attribution, ROAS calculation, and conversion data-driven ad optimization inaccurate at best and, realistically, impossible.
One home services marketing executive said that to fully trust an AI agent with a revenue conversation, it would have to “provide granular, turn-by-turn analytics so I can see exactly why a revenue conversation succeeded or failed…” However, the data shows their agentic AI platforms are not capable of connecting the buyer journey from click to conversion.
Are marketers overestimating their speed-to-lead?
When we surveyed consumers earlier this year about how quickly brands respond after someone submits a lead form, the data showed they were clearly falling short of expectations. 56% of consumers said they expected a response within an hour, but only 36% actually received one within that window.
Consumer data: Invoca B2C Buyer Experience Report, 2026
When we posed the same question to marketers in this survey, 84% said they respond to lead form inquiries within an hour. That’s a massive disparity that is difficult to reconcile or dismiss as self-reporting bias. It’s important to note that in our previous consumer survey, we found that 20% expect a response within 5 minutes, and 79% choose the brand that responds fastest. So even if you call a lead back in an hour, that may not be fast enough.
Brands lose a significant number of leads—and revenue—to slow response times and unanswered calls
Whether or not brands are actually responding to leads within an hour of contact, they concede that they are losing significant lead volume to slow responses and unanswered calls. 1 in 4 marketers (25%) say they lose 20% or more of inbound leads due to slow response times and unanswered calls. That is a significant revenue leak.
What AI agent capabilities do marketers really want?
Marketers want AI agents that are connected to the full buyer journey. Ask marketers what would make their AI agents more useful, and the top two answers both depend on what the agent knows before the conversation starts. Over 40% ranked "tailoring the conversation to the consumer's digital journey" among their top three improvements. Another 41% chose "recognizing a returning consumer and having their history.” Evidence from across the survey suggests that agents disconnected from buyer journey data are causing significant reporting headaches and revenue leakage.
A great agent recognizes where someone is in the buying journey, provides immediate answers, and hands off the full history to a rep when needed. Bad agents operate like dead-end IVRs that annoy high-intent buyers.
C-level or SVP in marketing, healthcare, 1,000–4,999 employees
Learn how the Invoca Data + AI Platform powers better experiences and outcomes
Invoca connects every online and offline touchpoint, and every AI agent conversation, in your buyer journey to revenue. Learn how marketing, ecommerce, and contact centers use Invoca’s Data + AI Platform to optimize demand and convert more leads to appointments and sales.
Schedule a demoSurvey methodology
Gather fielded a 20-question guided interview with US marketing leaders between 14 September and 5 October 2026. Respondents qualified at manager level or above, at companies with 100 or more employees. Respondents work in automotive, healthcare (including dental), home services, financial services (including insurance), or telecom. They have direct or shared responsibility for lead conversion, paid media performance, customer engagement channels, or website and demand generation.
Responses removed before analysis