I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
Everyone's freaking out that AI will strip away authenticity.
That automation will turn us into robots.
That high-ticket deals will suffer because we're losing "the personal touch."
But when I look at what most people were doing before AI? It wasn't exactly human.
It was:
- Templates with [First Name] tokens pretending to be personal
- Surface-level "research" that's really just LinkedIn stalking
- The same pitch deck, slightly tweaked, sent to everyone
- Volume disguised as strategy
AI didn't create that problem.
It just made it impossible to hide.
Here's what I've learned:
AI doesn't replace connection.
It exposes where connection was already missing.
The salespeople panicking about AI?
They're the ones who were already treating prospects like numbers. Just with more manual effort.
The ones thriving?
They use AI for what it's good at, logistics, research, follow-up,
so they can spend more time on what actually matters: understanding people.
The shift isn't about doing less automation.
It's about showing up better when it counts.
Automate the reach. Protect the conversation.
One scales. The other closes.