AI in Sales - don’t remove the human brain from the process

At a recent networking dinner I was discussing the advance of AI in the world of sales, and how so many low level and manual tasks can now be picked up by the 'machine'.

Indeed at what point do you need a human in the process at all we asked?

I raised the example of the development of fighter jets over the past few decades.

The machine is now so advanced - it can go faster, fly higher and turn quicker than the human body inside it can survive.

Even with G-suits the limiting factor is the pilot.

So why don't you just remove the pilot completely?

Read this from Paul Scharre in 2015 - senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and director of CNAS’ 20YY Warfare Initiative.

"Uninhabited aircraft have many potential advantages — smaller size, greater endurance, manoeuvrability, and the ability to take more risks (depending on the mission and aircraft cost).

In many ways, the human pilot is the greatest physical limiting factor in aircraft design and operations.

At the same time, the pilot is the greatest cognitive advantage.

[another author] rightly points out, “Aircrew are the ‘fighter’ in ‘fighter aircraft.’”

And therein lies the one tremendous shortcoming of uninhabited aircraft — by removing the human warfighter and placing her somewhere else,

the aircraft loses the most advanced cognitive processing system on the planet: the human brain."

And this is what I think about sales.

You can automate and remove the seller from more and more of the process, but in doing so you remove the most powerful tool at your disposal,

the ability for a human to build a relationship, understand when someone else is confused or bored, or introduce their prior experience to the conversation.

AI absolutely has a valuable place in the future of sales, but B2B sales is not a computer game - you can't win it with spreadsheets and sequences,

At some point, when you move to enterprise, when you add the second product, when you move into a new territory, when the customer questions a contract term - you will need a human to speak them.