While marketing leaders obsess over AI product discovery for back-to-school and holiday shoppers, they’re missing a $50,000 opportunity sitting right in front of them.
Here’s what’s actually happening: A prospective home buyer spends hours with generative AI tools comparing mortgage rates, loan types and qualification requirements. They research refinancing options, understand conventional versus FHA loans and arrive at specific questions about closing costs. Then they call a mortgage company, not to learn about mortgages but to execute a decision they’ve largely made.
The same pattern repeats across every high-consideration purchase category. Insurance shoppers call already knowing policy types and coverage limits. Telecom prospects understand plan details and device compatibility before dialing to sign up to a new plan. Healthcare patients research procedures and provider outcomes before scheduling consultations.
According to Invoca’s 2025 B2C Buyer Experience Report, 41% of consumers use generative AI tools to research high-stakes purchases, jumping to 61% among Gen Z customers. These are AI-educated, high purchase-intent customers who’ve compressed months of traditional sales education into hours of research.
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The High-Stakes Revenue Opportunity for Brands
Salesforce recently reported that AI and agents drove $67 billion in sales, influencing 20% of all purchases through personalized product recommendations and conversational customer service. Most discussions focus on obvious applications: product recommendations, price comparisons and new shopping features launched by popular gen AI tools like ChatGPT. Marketing leaders gravitate toward these use cases because they’re visible and measurable.
But there are other use cases worth considering. As interest rates drop, refinancing applications are on the rise. Mortgage applications that were for a refinance recently reached nearly 47%, the highest since October 2024, according to Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, health insurance open enrollment ran from November 1 to January 15, with 21.3 million consumers researching and selecting coverage plans in 2024, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
These aren’t impulse purchases; they’re carefully researched, high-value decisions where AI research meets phone-based conversion.
The same AI tools driving gift recommendations simultaneously impact how customers research life’s biggest decisions, such as mortgages, insurance policies, healthcare procedures and telecom services. These purchases represent exponentially higher values and profit margins, yet most organizations haven’t connected their online marketing (e.g. digital ads, website, shopping carts) to their offline channels (e.g. contact center, conversations). Their marketing and contact center sales teams operate in silos and lack a shared understanding of how that customer got to this crucial final step.
High consideration purchase customers need fundamentally different experiences. The consumer researching a $50 impulse buy and the prospect investigating a $500,000 mortgage both use AI. But while one converts immediately online, the other needs expert human guidance for complex decisions.
Companies that connect their online marketing all the way through to that ‘final touch’ moment a customer picks up the phone will capture disproportionate market share in these categories.
Why AI-Educated Customers Convert Better
Here’s the surprising truth: AI-educated customers aren’t harder to convert; they’re easier when handled correctly.
In fact, in that same study, we learned that while 41% of customers use AI for research, 67% still prefer human representatives when both AI and human help are available. Phone call preferences have risen 12% since 2022, with 67% of consumers calling businesses during high-stakes purchases.
Traditional sales processes assume customers need extensive education. But AI-educated customers call with specific questions, technical requirements and clear purchase intent.
Consider what call center agents hear now:
- “ChatGPT compared your mortgage products and recommended the lowest closing costs. Can you walk me through the application?”
- “Research shows your surgeons have the best outcomes. When can we schedule?”
- “Your unlimited plan ranked first in AI recommendations. Can you confirm rural coverage?”
These customers represent the future of high-stakes purchasing. They’ve done homework, know what they want and are ready to buy. The question: Are your teams ready to convert them at scale?
The Conversation Quality Crisis
While AI makes customers smarter, most businesses aren’t keeping pace. Invoca’s data shows contact center managers score only 28% of phone calls as “excellent.” Just 35% of agents ask leads to buy or book appointments.
Consider this disconnect: customers call with specific purchase intent, but fewer than four in 10 agents recognize and capitalize on that intent. This isn’t just a customer experience problem. It’s a revenue execution failure that worsens as the gap between AI-educated customer expectations and agent preparedness widens.
Four Steps to Capture High-Stakes AI Revenue
According to Invoca research, 77% of consumers are more willing to use AI when they know they can easily connect with human representatives, creating the perfect bridge between AI discovery and human conversion.
Audit your AI footprint: Test how your brand appears when AI platforms research your category. What do they say about mortgage rates? How do they compare insurance coverage? Which telecom recommendations include your services?
Optimize for AI discovery with substance: High-stakes AI optimization requires depth. Ensure detailed pricing, qualification requirements, coverage areas and competitive advantages are accessible to AI platforms. These customers want facts, not marketing fluff.
Prepare teams for AI-educated conversations: Train agents to recognize AI-educated customers. Develop conversation flows that skip basic discovery and move quickly to specific questions, technical details and purchase logistics. Traditional sales scripts fail with customers who’ve done their research.
Close the intelligence loop: Use conversation insights to improve AI positioning. What questions are AI-educated customers asking? What competitors do they mention? What misconceptions need correcting? This intelligence should flow back into your strategy.
The Closing Window
As more businesses recognize the AI-to-call conversion opportunity, the competitive advantage diminishes.
The brands that prepare revenue operations for AI-educated customers, while competitors fight for AI visibility, will establish market positions that become increasingly difficult to challenge.
Recent AI launches represent more than another discovery platform. They signal a fundamental shift in how customers approach complex purchasing decisions, arriving more educated, focused and ready to buy than ever before.
While your competitors fight for AI visibility, focus on AI-to-revenue conversion. Customers are getting smarter. The question is: Will your revenue operations keep up?
Peter Isaacson is Chief Marketing Officer at Invoca. He’s a business leader with deep experience as a full-stack CMO, having managed all aspects of marketing, including brand, product, demand gen, business development and partners. As CMO at Demandbase, he helped create the Account-Based Marketing category and established the company as the market leader in the space. Isaacson also has held CMO positions at Replicant, Castlight Health and Microstrategy. He’s passionate about building world-class teams that focus on business impact.
