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Who we sat down with
Okta’s CRO Jon Addison joins GTMnow host Sophie to break down the full story behind Okta’s remarkable revenue turnaround, the launch of Okta for AI Agents, and the go-to-market playbook that’s carrying them from $3B toward a $5B ARR target.
From nearly $850M in operating losses to over $760M in operating income, Okta’s transformation is one of the most significant turnaround stories in enterprise SaaS. In this episode, Jon pulls back the curtain on exactly how it happened.
Discussed in this episode
Why 91% of enterprises are already deploying AI agents but only 10% have a security strategy for them
How Okta’s “AI governance gap” insight became the foundation for their biggest product launch in years: Okta for AI Agents
The GTM restructure around specialization that unlocked productivity and drove 40% higher average contract value on new product deals
How Okta became a partner-first company: 95% of their top 100 deals in the last fiscal year were partner-led, and what operationally made that possible
Why the first discovery call no longer exists, and how sellers need to show up differently in the AI era
Jon’s new internal sales methodology, APEX, built on Command of the Message for the AI era
How Okta is using AI internally to transform their own go-to-market motion, from conversational intelligence to pre-sales assistants
What the path to $5B ARR actually looks like: enterprise expansion, international growth, public sector, and the massive new TAM unlocked by non-human identity
Jon’s leadership philosophy: why human-centric selling is becoming more critical as AI takes over the repetitive work
Episode highlights
1:19 - Welcome + Jon’s background: from London to Silicon Valley
1:52 - How Jon got into software and identity management
4:08 - Okta for AI Agents launch announcement
5:04 - 90% of customers live with agents, only 10% confident in securing them
6:31 - What’s driving the governance gap in the market
7:53 - Speed of agent innovation must be matched by security and governance
8:36 - 40% higher ACV on deals that include new products
9:43 - Why consolidation around a single identity platform is resonating
11:45 - How AI agents unlock a massive new TAM for Okta
13:05 - Okta’s turnaround: from $850M operating losses to $760M operating income
13:36 - Key decision 1: GTM specialization drove productivity
15:02 - Key decision 2: becoming a partner-first company
16:14 - What cracking the partner-led model actually looks like
19:08 - How long it takes to see ROI from a partner-led pivot
20:12 - The path from $3B to $5B: enterprise, international, public sector
21:49 - Using AI internally: launching “Apex,” the AI-era sales methodology
23:04 - What the Apex sales methodology entails
24:25 - Buyers now show up with strong opinions before the first call
25:44 - How discovery is changing: human-centric selling in the AI era
27:33 - Headcount and AI: what skills matter in the future
29:31 - Why relationships are Okta’s core competitive advantage
30:36 - The role of experiences: F1, events, and the 7-touchpoint rule
31:47 - Broad GTM surface area: ABM, ecosystem, brand
33:47 - The future of identity: SaaS disruption, consolidation cycles, and Okta’s position
37:06 - Jon’s leadership style: coaching reps and unlocking potential
39:01 - Positive vs. negative leadership and the 1-to-10 touch points framework
Key takeaways
1. The AI governance gap is the biggest GTM opportunity in enterprise security right now.
91% of companies are already live with AI agents in production. Only 10% have any real confidence in their strategy to secure them. That gap is not theoretical, it is happening inside Okta’s own customer base of 20,000 companies, and it is the core insight behind the Okta for AI Agents launch. The companies that move fast to own this category will define the next decade of identity security.
2. New products are the single biggest ACV lever hiding inside most SaaS companies.
Deals that included Okta’s new products in Q4 had 40% higher average contract value than deals that didn’t. 30% of all Q4 revenue came from new products. The lesson is not just about product breadth, it is about how you message, position, and sell those products. Specialization in the GTM motion was the operational change that unlocked this, not the products alone.
3. Partner-led is not a strategy, it is a multi-year cultural commitment.
95% of Okta’s top 100 deals last fiscal year were partner-led. But Jon is clear: that did not happen because of a program. It happened because of three years of consistent direction-setting, incentive alignment, friction removal, and genuine investment in partner practices. Most companies treat partner-led as a channel motion. Okta treats it as the primary growth engine and builds everything around it accordingly.
4. The discovery call is dead. Sellers need a completely different value proposition now.
Buyers are arriving at the first call already informed, already with strong opinions about your product and your competitors. The nature of selling has fundamentally shifted from discovery to validation. Jon’s argument is that the sellers who win in the AI era will not be the ones who ask the best questions. They will be the ones who show up with the most differentiated and human point of view, who build genuine relationships, and who bring empathy and contextual awareness that AI simply cannot replicate.
5. AI inside the GTM org is about freeing up humans for higher-yield work, not replacing them.
Jon is explicit that the goal of embedding AI into Okta’s sales motion through APEX, conversational intelligence, quoting agents, and pre-sales assistants is not headcount reduction. It is focus. Automate the repetitive, knowledge-base, administrative layer so that sellers can spend more time on the relationships and conversations that are genuinely mission-critical. For a company where customers are making multi-year, generational bets, trust and depth of relationship are the actual product. AI is what clears the path to more of that.
Follow Jon Addison
Okta’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/okta-inc-/
Okta’s website: https://www.okta.com
Follow Sophie Buonassisi (Host)
X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
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