What happens when AI starts selling to AI? – Computerworld

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Today in Tech

Host Keith Shaw and his expert guests discuss the latest technology news and trends happening in the industry. Watch new episodes twice each week here or listen to the podcast.

What happens when AI starts selling to AI?

Episode 377 What happens when AI starts selling to AI?

Jun 2, 202638 mins

Generative AI

Procurement Software

Salesforce Automation

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Overview<br>AI is already writing sales emails, updating CRM systems, generating proposals, and responding to RFPs. But the next phase could be even more disruptive: AI agents negotiating with other AI agents before a human ever joins the conversation.

In this episode of Today in Tech, Keith Shaw sits down with QorusDocs CEO Ray Meiring to explore how AI is transforming enterprise sales, procurement, and business relationships. They discuss the rise of agentic AI, the future of RFPs, and why many companies may soon have AI handling research, qualification, and due diligence automatically.

But if AI can manage so much of the process, what happens to the human side of sales? Can an AI build trust? Close a deal? Read a room? Or will empathy, relationships, and human judgment become even more important as automation spreads?

The conversation also examines the risks of overtrusting AI, the future of enterprise buying decisions, and why trade shows, face-to-face meetings, and old-fashioned handshakes may not be disappearing anytime soon.<br>Register Now

Transcript

00:00

Keith Shaw: AI was supposed to make sales faster, smarter, and more efficient. But for many companies, it's creating new layers of complexity, new trust issues, and a new question: what part of sales should actually stay human?<br>On this episode of Today in Tech, we're going to look at how AI is shaping the world of sales relationships and trust. Stick around. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Today in Tech. I'm Keith Shaw. Joining me on the show today is Ray Meiring. He is the CEO of QorusDocs.<br>Welcome to the show, Ray.

00:36

Ray Meiring: Thank you very much, Keith. Thanks for having me on here. Excited to be with you.

00:40

Keith: All right, so let's talk about what you're seeing in the marketplace right now. What is AI actually doing for sales reps?<br>Everyone says AI is going to save time in sales, but out in the field, what are your sales reps or other sales reps you meet with actually spending their time on?

00:58

Ray: Today we do see some significant time savings taking place right now. Great tools like call recording software can automatically update your CRM records or provide deal updates without having to interview a sales rep for status reports. Those are significant time savings that sales reps are seeing.<br>Even research and follow-up tasks are being streamlined. What is it translating to? I think it's translating into reps having to cover more deals and more accounts. They have less time to spend on each opportunity, so they're being asked to manage more pipeline activity overall.

01:44

Keith: Are you seeing AI actually reducing workloads, or are we just shifting workloads from entering data into CRM systems like Salesforce into more prompt engineering and AI management work? Or is AI actually adding more work because reps are expected to handle more leads and contacts?

02:10

Ray: I think it's just a different workload. At Foundry, for example, sales reps used to manually update all of their MEDDPICC fields inside the CRM.<br>Now we have AI agents listening to calls and automatically filling those out, and reps simply review them to make sure the information is accurate. We don't really see reps becoming prompt engineers. If prompts are being created, it's usually handled by sales operations teams behind the scenes.<br>The reps themselves are mostly focused on talking to more customers, joining more calls, and having more conversations while AI handles many of the administrative tasks in the background.

03:10

Keith: So AI isn't necessarily replacing the sales rep. It's more like a support system or sales administrator. Ray: Exactly.

03:17

03:18

Keith: Are the reps you talk to embracing that? In a lot of companies I've worked with, sales reps can be resistant to technology because they're relationship-driven people. The administrative side always felt like...