AI is the biggest crutch the job has ever had

When I started out in sales, we had no computers, no PowerPoint, no Microsoft, none of it. At the end of the day, you had to actually know how to sell. That was how you got paid.

AI is a useful tool. I use it regularly; however, I am also watching it become the biggest crutch the job has ever had.

Everyone is sending the same email

B2B cold email reply rates have dropped from roughly 5% last year to about 3.4% this year. Everyone is buying the same software, feeding it the same prompts, and now every pitch sounds like every other pitch. Buyers delete anything that reads like a template, and most AI outreach reads exactly like that. So unfortunately we are generating significant volumes of new junk mail, which makes it more difficult for receivers to evaluate credible opportunities.

Each new tool we added over the years took a little of the craft out of the work. The deck did some of the talking. The CRM remembered what you used to carry in your head. AI now writes the message, answers the objection, drafts the follow-up. Lean on it too hard and you never pick up what actually wins business which is how to read a person, hold a room, and earn trust.

The tell

In a serious deal, the software is never what closes the deal. The orders that matter come down to whether the buyer believes I will be there to support them and can deliver what we signed. You don't get that from a machine. You get it from having learned to sell before there was anything to hide behind.

AI will do the busywork, and it should. Just don't let it raise a generation of salespeople who never had to learn the hard part.

The tell is what happens when you take the tool away. Put a young seller in a room with no deck and no script and you find out fast whether they can sell or only operate software. I would hire the one who can carry the room empty-handed every time. The tools are easy to teach later. The instinct is not.