003 - AI in Sales

"Kirsti was excited during the call."

"John was not paying attention."

"Mac was about to fall asleep because your salesperson is so emotionally dull."

It didn't take long for my feelings on AI in the sales process to go from curious to "oh this is actually helpful" to "this is gross and has gone too far."

Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised — we always seem to have a knack for pushing a new technology right to the edge. Humans do love to take something good and ruin it in the pursuit of those ever-important revenue goals, don't we?

Using AI to automatically take notes and summarize a call? Super helpful, lets you focus on actually being present in the call.

Using AI to automatically find information about a company and summarize it without having to go digging through Google? Great!

Using AI to predict the personality of someone you're selling to so you can use that information to personalize emails? OK, this is getting a bit weird.

Using AI to record and analyze a prospect's face and body language during a call so that you can have 'emotional intelligence'? Yeah, no thanks.

Yes, there are actually companies building products for both of those last use cases. One self describes as an “AI call partner that reads body language on your sales calls,” promising to help you “read the room on Zoom and close more deals.”

They're even named after a character who was known for their dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder).

Feels a bit like naming your 'meal replacement drink' Soylent. (For the uninitiated, Soylent Green is a nightmarish 70s dystopian movie about a company of the same name that makes 'meals' out of human remains —?and Soylent, established 2013, is a real-life US company that makes meal replacement drinks.)

Maybe, at the ripe old age of 29, I've become the old man yelling about an inevitable technological change, telling AI to get off my community lawn. Or maybe, if your salesperson needs an AI to tell them that a prospect wasn't paying attention during a call, you need a new salesperson? God forbid they're asked to pitch someone in-person. I know we've all lost a little bit of touch with in-person interaction since 2020, but come on.

I know every revenue leader and CEO is desperate to hit revenue targets right now, but maybe you should reflect if you're having to toe (or maybe outright leap over) ethical lines to hit those goals.

In a world where AI is making everything easier, I firmly believe that those who invest in authentic relationships and real community building will be the long term winners. AI has its place in augmenting that, but how far is too far?

Maybe I need to start showing up to calls wearing an anti-facial tracking mask. I hear they're the hottest new fashion trend of our upcoming future.