A Faustian Bargain: Could Autonomous AI Risk Selling The Soul of Sales.

In the relentless pursuit of efficiency, outbound sales is at a crossroads. Companies like Artisan and AISDR are championing fully autonomous AI sales agents, promising to automate the entirety of the Sales Development Representative (SDR) role—from outreach to navigating the intricacies of a complex enterprise sales pitch and even booking the meeting and following up. At first glance, it sounds revolutionary: scale without limits, efficiency without the cost of human labor.

But a closer examination reveals significant flaws. Fully autonomous AI SDRs aren’t revolutionizing sales—they’re running the risk of devaluing it as a practice.

Human Sentiment Towards AI Interaction:

Fully autonomous AI SDRs function by mimicking human sales reps, using AI to craft emails, schedule follow-ups, and simulate conversations. Essentially, they repurpose the same technology that is on display with tools like Intercom 's FinAI.

However, I urge you to reflect on your own attitudes towards automated support and sales. Think about how frustrating it can be when a chatbot misunderstands your query or offers generic responses. How does that impact your trust in the company behind it? Now, imagine that same frustration amplified in a high-stakes sales conversation where trust and relationship-building are critical.

This reluctance is even more pronounced in sales scenarios, particularly in enterprise sales, where decisions are complex, there is a metric ton of context that needs to be carried forward from a previous conversation and relationships are paramount.

If customers are weary of engaging with fully autonomous basic support, expecting them to interact with AI-driven sales agents for complex, high-stakes decisions as if the AI agents are real salespeople is unrealistic. The issue isn’t the technology’s sophistication; it’s that people don’t(and I would argue, shouldn't) inherently trust AI output.

The Duplicity Problem

A fundamental issue with fully autonomous AI SDRs is their inherent duplicity. These systems are designed to impersonate human sales reps, crafting messages and dialogues that appear human-generated. This deception is precarious; the moment a prospect realizes they’ve been interacting with an AI under the guise of a human, the magic and novelty is gone and the notion of “building trust” becomes a pipe-dream.

For enterprise buyers tasked with making significant decisions, authenticity and transparency are non-negotiable. An “AI sales person” is actually just a GenAI model spitting out content based off of a curated, indexed knowledge base as its training material.

If you are reading this, ask yourself, would you continue to have a sales conversation with an AI in earnest once you learned there was no human in the loop on the other end?

Or imagine a present day frustration: Do you hate being robocalled or are you just frustrated that its not human sounding enough today but would be willing to engage once it sounded more human? (even though you know its a bot calling you)

This might be my most controversial statement on this topic but:

The majority of the appeal of autonomous AI sales agents is severely overstated and its hype is reliant on duping the prospect into believing they are having a real conversation.

The moment a prospect knows they are interacting with AI exclusively, there is a subconscious disengagement that happens. A feeling that the interaction you are having is no longer “real”.

Why Sales is Different

If customers prefer human interaction for basic support, this preference only intensifies as interactions become more complex and personal. Sales—especially enterprise sales—embodies this complexity and personalization.

Enterprise buyers seek expertise and a nuanced demonstration of value, not just efficiency. They value trusted advisors who understand their unique challenges and can offer tailored solutions. AI cannot fulfill this role in the immediate short term, but even as the tech improves, I don't think we are ready to trust AI to serve as an adequate stand in for an enterprise sales person.

The notion that fully autonomous AI SDRs can supplant human interaction in sales overlooks the essence of selling - Trust.

AI out of the box today cannot, as far as I have seen, replicate the nuance of a sales conversation, adapt to objections in real time in a way that feels organic, identify things being said “in between the lines” (the prospect said X but what they probably mean by that is Y), or build the trust necessary for high-stakes deals.

You may argue, “Well Rit, it's only a matter of time before the models get good enough and the tech is advanced enough that the AI agent can have as good of a conversation with a prospect as the best sales person can”.

My response to that is simple, I am fully aware that the tech will reach that point, but I think when it does we are more likely to decrease trust in the outbound channel altogether than to grant anthropomorphic legitimacy to the machines that are soliciting us.

Lets conduct a simple thought experiment with the robocalling example, if you found out that robocalls will sound exactly like humans starting tomorrow, are you more likely to:

• become welcoming and tolerant of robocalls that sound human enough?
• become less tolerant and more skeptical of ALL calls from numbers you do not know?

We are operating under a pre-supposition that people want to be solicited by machines and our only problem is machines are not human sounding enough. Where as the truth is, the humanness of an AI agent in sales communication is only valuable if its coupled with a lie to the prospect that they might be talking to a real person.

GlenX: A Different Approach

At Glencoco, we advocate for a different path. We believe technology should maximize the performance of salespeople, not replace them. That’s why we developed GlenX, an AI Sales Co-Pilot designed to empower sales reps to excel in building trust, solving problems, and closing deals.

Here’s how GlenX differentiates itself:

• No Pretending: GlenX operates transparently, handling repetitive, time-consuming tasks in the background, allowing salespeople to focus on high-impact activities without masquerading as human.
• Maximizing Performance: By automating mundane tasks like dialing individual numbers, post call email follow-ups, and lead data quality assurance, GlenX ensures reps spend their time engaging in the most meaningful prospect conversations without being bogged down by administrative work.
• Focusing on What Matters: GlenX supports salespeople in their craft with a killer AI tool kit, enabling them to connect with prospects authentically and creatively.

Unlike fully autonomous AI SDRs, GlenX isn’t here to replace the human touch in sales. It’s here to elevate it.

The Future of Sales

This has been my stance for a while and we have walked the walk with Glencoco , where we have enabled 100s of fractional HUMAN SDRs, sustainably build millions in sales qualified pipeline while just working part time.

GlenX offers a way to bring that same unlock in productivity for your in-house sales teams. As an AI Co-Pilot for Outbound Sales, GlenX doesn’t attempt to replace the human touch. Instead, it amplifies it, bolstering the productivity of the salespeople and freeing them to focus on what they do best: creating trust, solving problems, and delivering value.

Think about it like an Iron Man suit for your SDRs and BDRs that allow them to be sales super soldiers that get significantly more “at bats” with prospects but lets them wield all their naturally human ability to understand of nuance and context on the fly to get sales qualified pipeline booked with good prospects.

The future of sales isn’t about removing human touch from the equation. It’s about facilitating as much of it as possible. With GlenX, we’re demonstrating that AI can unlock massive productivity and value for your sale teams without you forcing them to lie to their prospects about metaphysical realities.

Come get your sales team fitted for their Iron Man suits over at GlenX ;)

https://glenx.ai/