Searches for "GTM engineer" grew from 120 to 40,600 a year as older sales buzzwords faded
The Language of Modern Sales: a search data study by Hollerly. Published October 2026.
Key findings
- US searches for "gtm engineer" rose from 120 a year in 2022-23 to 40,600 in the 12 months to August 2026.
- "gtm engineer" searches grew 257.1% in the latest 12 months alone, the fastest growth of the 29 sales terms we tracked.
- "ai sdr" searches grew from 1,040 to 21,100 a year over three years, though they fell 32.8% from the prior 12 months.
- 20 of 24 established sales terms drew fewer US searches in the latest 12 months than three years earlier; the median change was -39.4%.
- "revops" (+18.1%) grew over three years while "revenue operations" (-31.3%) declined.
- "signal based selling" remains a niche search term, with 370 US searches in the latest 12 months.
A new job title takes off
Sales vocabulary changes fast. We tracked US Google searches for 29 sales and go-to-market terms over four years, from established ideas like account-based marketing and sales enablement to newer ones like GTM engineering and AI SDRs.
The clearest riser is "gtm engineer", a role that blends sales operations, data and automation. It drew 120 US searches in the 12 months to August 2023. In the 12 months to August 2026 it drew 40,600, and it is still climbing: up 257.1% on the year before. Monthly searches first passed 100 in October 2024.
"ai sdr" rose earlier. Searches went from 1,040 a year to a peak of 31,400 in the 12 months to August 2025, then eased to 21,100.
Established terms are drawing fewer searches
Most of the familiar terms moved the other way. Of the 24 terms that already drew at least 1,000 US searches a year in 2022-23, 20 drew fewer searches in the latest 12 months. The median change was -39.4%. "social selling", "product led growth" and "account based selling" fell the most, each down more than 65%.
The exceptions were "cold outreach" (+57.8%), "founder led sales" (+100.0%), "buyer intent data" (+27.0%) and "revops" (+18.1%). The short form "revops" grew while the full phrase "revenue operations" fell.
Full results
| Term | Sep 2022 to Aug 2023 | Sep 2024 to Aug 2025 | Sep 2025 to Aug 2026 | 3-year change | 1-year change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| signal based selling | 0 | 660 | 370 | new | -43.9% |
| gtm engineer | 120 | 11,370 | 40,600 | +33733.3% | +257.1% |
| ai sdr | 1,040 | 31,400 | 21,100 | +1928.8% | -32.8% |
| founder led sales | 1,190 | 2,230 | 2,380 | +100.0% | +6.7% |
| cold outreach | 4,830 | 7,500 | 7,620 | +57.8% | +1.6% |
| warm outreach | 290 | 460 | 450 | +55.2% | -2.2% |
| buyer intent data | 1,630 | 2,650 | 2,070 | +27.0% | -21.9% |
| revops | 26,500 | 29,800 | 31,300 | +18.1% | +5.0% |
| multithreading sales | 820 | 1,040 | 690 | -15.9% | -33.7% |
| outbound sales | 12,780 | 13,500 | 9,080 | -29.0% | -32.7% |
| revenue operations | 26,200 | 23,000 | 18,000 | -31.3% | -21.7% |
| demand generation | 51,200 | 54,200 | 34,500 | -32.6% | -36.3% |
| buyer enablement | 1,450 | 1,070 | 960 | -33.8% | -10.3% |
| inbound sales | 11,280 | 11,010 | 7,130 | -36.8% | -35.2% |
| lead scoring | 19,500 | 19,700 | 12,060 | -38.2% | -38.8% |
| sales playbook | 13,080 | 11,030 | 8,070 | -38.3% | -26.8% |
| sales cadence | 5,800 | 5,160 | 3,570 | -38.4% | -30.8% |
| sales enablement | 65,400 | 50,100 | 39,000 | -40.4% | -22.2% |
| revenue intelligence | 5,820 | 4,310 | 3,450 | -40.7% | -20.0% |
| sales intelligence | 5,800 | 8,100 | 3,010 | -48.1% | -62.8% |
| go to market strategy | 115,600 | 83,600 | 57,400 | -50.3% | -31.3% |
| intent data | 8,590 | 8,360 | 4,270 | -50.3% | -48.9% |
| account based marketing | 63,000 | 51,200 | 30,200 | -52.1% | -41.0% |
| conversation intelligence | 24,300 | 26,600 | 9,630 | -60.4% | -63.8% |
| personalization at scale | 2,270 | 2,050 | 890 | -60.8% | -56.6% |
| sales automation | 12,170 | 14,240 | 4,650 | -61.8% | -67.3% |
| product led growth | 41,600 | 20,100 | 13,620 | -67.3% | -32.2% |
| social selling | 34,600 | 15,620 | 10,680 | -69.1% | -31.6% |
| account based selling | 4,550 | 3,370 | 1,360 | -70.1% | -59.6% |
Reading the numbers
A drop in Google searches for a term does not mean the practice is fading. Mature ideas can generate fewer "what is" searches once teams already know them, and research now happens in many places besides Google. The rise of a new term is the stronger signal: thousands of people are now looking up GTM engineering where almost nobody did three years ago.
For more on the AI SDR side of this shift, see how Hollerly's AI SDR software researches leads and drafts outreach for a person to approve.
About the data
- Data: monthly US Google search volume (English), September 2022 to August 2026.
- Terms: 29 sales and go-to-market terms covering established concepts and newer ones, with no brand or vendor names. "gtm engineering" carries the same reported volume as "gtm engineer", so the two count as one term.
- Windows: searches are summed for three 12-month windows (Sep 2022 to Aug 2023, Sep 2024 to Aug 2025, Sep 2025 to Aug 2026). "Established terms" are those with at least 1,000 searches in the first window.
- Spikes: isolated one-month values more than 4 times a term's centered 7-month rolling median are replaced with that median (3 months in total).
- Limitations: search volumes are rounded estimates, so small terms move in coarse steps. Search volume measures interest, not adoption.
Sources
- US Google search volume (English), September 2022 to August 2026
Source: Hollerly, The Language of Modern Sales, October 2026. https://hollerlyai.com/research/sales-buzzword-trends
Charts and data are free to use under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. Press questions: hello@hollerlyai.com