Can AI replace a salesperson?

The short answer is no, not yet. What AI can replace is a large share of the manual work that used to fill a salesperson's week, and on some jobs, proposals among them, it already does better and faster than a person. What still needs a person, as I see it, is the human side: being personable, building relationships and closing the deal.

So the question worth asking isn't whether to swap your salesperson for software. It's which parts of selling to hand to AI, and what kind of person to keep for the rest.

What can AI do in sales now?

Less than two years ago, I was updating my own CRM, setting calendar invites by hand so I'd remember to follow up, sourcing leads one at a time and scraping websites myself. Nearly all of that is done for me now.

AI is incredibly powerful in sales. It's excellent at finding leads, at scoring them so you know which are worth your time, and at keeping your data in order. It can even come up with good ideas: hooks, and angles for how to run a campaign.

Proposals are the clearest example. With the right setup, AI produces a much better proposal than a person can, and far faster.

How we write proposals nowAfter a sales call, four things go in: the call transcript, our proposal templates, our own knowledge base about the business, and AI trained on what we offer, how we work and how we speak. What comes back needs only a couple of tweaks before it goes out. You can sort it into versions by segment or by client, too. The process takes some time, but it's well worth it, and it picks up far more from the call than notes or a recording summary ever did, because it reads every word that was said.

What is an AI SDR?

If AI is this good at the manual work, the obvious next step looks like an AI SDR. An AI SDR (an AI sales development rep) is software sold as a stand-in for the salespeople who find and contact new prospects. It does market research, watches for signals that a company might be ready to buy, writes the messages and, in some cases, sends them on behalf of the company or the person using it.

Research, signals and ideas for messages are all things I've just said AI is good at, so on paper it sounds like the answer. The trouble starts when it's left to do them on its own.

Why shouldn't an AI SDR run on its own?

I think leaving an AI SDR to work unsupervised is a bad move, because what it sends without a person thinking it through is obvious to the people receiving it.

Look, we all get AI-written outreach every day. I get about five a day. They're badly researched and badly written, and you can spot them straight away: an odd gap after your name at the top, or an em dash, the long dash most UK writers don't use. Anyone who works with AI sniffs them out immediately.

Nothing does more damage than sending messages like that. It tells the reader you've put no thought into the campaign and have no real interest in it. What people want from outreach is to at least feel seen. They might not want what you sell, but they want to feel that someone took the time to look at their business, or at least put together something worth reading.

That's what goes missing when the AI is left alone: the heavy research, and the checking each time. You build a list, then you go through it again and look for what's wrong with it. With AI-built lists and copy, you've got to evaluate your own work.

What does a person still do that AI can't?

A person still has to do the thinking, and all of the human side. To get the best out of AI in sales, you have to be clear on what you're after before you start, and you need some authenticity running through what goes out. AI is an aid, and a very good one, but it needs critical thinking around it.

Once the AI has done the research, that thinking means writing the copy yourself. Let AI help with the draft, then do a second version. In sales, AI should be your assistant, not your CEO.

Then there's the human side of selling. Closing deals is still a skill worth having, and so is being personable. And in the age of AI, I think people actually like a human touch.

Should you hire a salesperson or use AI?

If you're an owner about to hire, here's what I'd tell you: don't look for somebody who sells themselves on their AI skills. Look for somebody who is personable, good on calls, has hustle and is ready to go.

I'm biased, but if you need the AI work done (the data, running the campaigns), outsource it or learn it yourself, and spend the salary on someone brilliant at winning deals and looking after relationships. That's the skill now, and AI can cover much of what's left. Someone whose pitch is that they're good at prospecting, or good with AI tools, isn't worth a full-time salary.

What you need is someone who turns up every day to look after your clients and close, and the test for that is simple: are they personable, ambitious and smart?