AI and The Future of Sales

AI and The Future of Sales

It’s nearly impossible to avoid headlines and hot takes on the topic of artificial intelligence.

And sure, while throwing “AI” onto the descriptions of products and services isn’t new, advances in generative AI are game changing.

If you’re like many, maybe the idea of seeing your current role suddenly vanish to the gaping maw of automation keeps you up at night. Or at least, looking around online for other jobs that don’t seem threatened by AI… yet. But when we pull back the curtain of the “AI hype cycle,” what does the future of AI and sales actually look like – and does it really mean the end of human-based sales as we know it? Or are we simply seeing a leap forward into a world where human touch will be even more valuable?

Looking At The Numbers

To grasp the impact that AI is having, we need to go to the hard data. And the hard data is pretty shocking, showing the dramatic global shifts already occurring.

Saudia Arabia (known for having a pulse on emerging tech) is looking to implement a $40 billion AI initiative. Megacorporations such as Microsoft and Amazon are already dumping upwards of $15 billion into gen-AI startups. And on the geopolitical front, the fault lines of superpower competition are already being laid on who can host the most AI chip makers.

How AI Is Impacting Sales

If the data around AI are impressive, the ways that companies are already investing in and integrating AI tools into their sales environments show just how big of an impact may be coming. A McKinsey & Company report believes that within the next few years, AI will have automated away nearly 20% of a sales rep’s routine tasks.

Enhancing Efficiency

Focusing on making human connections rather than inputting data from touchpoints is now easier than ever. Automation of repetitive tasks like data entry, pre-call research, and follow-ups allows reps to focus on what they do best—building relationships and closing deals. AI can instantly upload and clean data from nearly any interaction – and give personalized feedback and responses that are best-fit to the results of the call. The more time you give to qualified leads, the better ROI. Now, trained AI algorithms can instantly analyze huge datasets and score/qualify leads with near-perfect accuracy.

Personalization

Once you’ve built a list of highly qualified leads, what do you do with them? You pull them down the funnel. Those same AI systems that built the lists can also generate and send highly personalized email campaigns tailored to tracked customer data and behavior. You can now leverage these insights to craft personalized pitches and offer recommendations that resonate with your audience.

Customer Insights

Part of fueling those personalized outreach campaigns and sales forecasts is having accurate pictures of your ideal customer. With AI, you can instantly build out use cases based on the persona/customer you’re speaking with, gather and analyze the right data based on customer interactions, search sentiment, etc.

Content Generation

There was a time when sales teams had to rely on others to pull data and create reports, white papers, and presentations for clients. This could drag out the process and create friction when a sale is on the line. Now, you can leverage AI to create professional proposals and presentations with a click, even building off of actual or proposed data sets.

Voice and Sentiment Analysis

An increasingly exciting area of AI tech is voice and sentiment analysis. This technology allows AI to “listen in” on customer calls or interactions and provide real-time insights into the likelihood of a particular response or suggestion leading to success.

What About The Human Touch?

When you step back and look at how AI impacts sales, it’s easy to feel threatened as a sales professional. After all, what part of the sales process isn’t being impacted or replaced by faster, more efficient AI?

But this begs the question – what if the future of AI and sales isn’t so much about what jobs and skills will be rendered unnecessary – but what skills will become even more valuable? After all, the root of sales is one person convincing another that they have the solution to their problems. But more importantly, sales involve a human-to-human interaction built upon the hard-wired human need for connection and survival.

Go back to our ancient roots. Sure, fire and iron-tipped spears did wonders for helping hunter-gatherers take down mammoths, but did this new technology make the human skills of cooperation, communication, and empathy any less important? Did the need for trust and companionship suddenly disappear? Of course not!

The same can be said for AI and sales. As AI continues to evolve and take on more tasks, sales professionals will need to focus on honing their uniquely human skills— emotional intelligence, relationship building, and adaptability to the unexpected. It’s that “real” factor that buyers will be increasingly more hungry for in their interactions, especially as AI becomes more and more normal in everyday life.

So, how will you adapt to the future of AI and sales? Will you choose to invest in developing your human skills and become an invaluable asset to your team? Or will you rely solely on technology and risk being replaced by a machine?

AI is only as powerful (so far) as those who wield it. So take the chance now to embrace AI and use it to your advantage. Become the best in your field at utilizing the technology, and then use your human skills to build trust and create meaningful connections with your clients.

Because in the end, people will still close deals with people. That “gut feeling” still matters, after all.

Co-Author: Aron B. Schreier