The sales trends leaders can't stop talking about

Revenue leaders are trying to keep up.

The past few years have been a whirlwind: Companies are adapting to the mass launch of chatbots, the dawn of programmable agents, the decline of traditional search, and an uncertain economy with higher interest rates. Headlines heralded the SaaSpocalypse, and the tokenmaxxing era has left managers dissecting the long-term ROI of AI.

There’s a lot of noise. So, Revenue Brew spoke with a dozen C-suiters, sellers, and strategists about the trends they’re watching right now—and the topics they think everyone will be talking about in six months.

Busy work begone

Bots haven’t yet ushered in the large-scale labor market shake-up that corporate America hoped for (or feared). A Yale Budget Lab analysis found that AI hasn’t yet shifted the jobs outlook more substantially than other technological advancements, like computers or the internet. An October Apollo report found that AI hasn’t notably changed total factor productivity in the US. The national unemployment rate remains historically low.

From a staffing standpoint, Silicon Valley companies have long touted the importance of lean teams and tight go-to-market rosters. Several experts emphasized that bots can’t replicate the critical thinking and judgment required for decision-making—and some companies have since rehired the staff they laid off to prioritize AI, or reinvested in human hiring.

Industry pros told Revenue Brew, however, that Claude, ChatGPT, and agentic platforms are reliably streamlining the busy work of their business. The tech is increasingly helpful for tasks like writing meeting memos, sending emails, organizing customer data, and keeping track of project progress.

“The great thing about AI is that it can free you up from the mundane tasks that were never actually that exciting and fun about the business of selling, anyway,” said Andrea Grodnitzky, CMO at Richardson Sales Performance. “But if you don’t invest that time back into your customers and deliver additional value and look for opportunities to help them transform their business, just getting that time back isn’t going to move the needle.”

Brian Birkett, CRO at AI-powered GTM orchestration platform LeanData, said the next step for AI at the office will be agents talking to agents, also known as AI agent communication. With limited employee oversight, these agents can carry out background tasks like discovery and ROI analysis. In some cases, agents can gather information about prospects and make cold calls (the FCC may have something to say about this one).

At the same time, Robert Blaisdell, VP and chief of research for the Gartner Sales Research Practice, said he worries about early-career sellers. Many of the tasks AI is automating, like market research and outreach, are traditionally done by new hires. The change could reshape the ladder for young talent in the coming years, he said.

“If you agree with the assumption that AI may eliminate some of the more simplistic entry-level roles, and/or eliminate some of those simpler entry-level types of activities, where does a new seller learn those uniquely human-centric seller attributes earlier in their career?” Blaisdell said.

Coffee chats are still cool

While AI gains are a main topic of conversation among revenue leaders, most pros spoke about what the tech can’t do.

Bots have been able to speed up customer outreach and support, which sellers might find helpful for top-of-funnel efforts. But for higher stakes strategic sales, like company mergers or big-ticket real estate moves, clients want a go-to human contact they can trust. AI is good at recognizing patterns—and even facilitating transactional retail sales—but bots aren’t able to grasp the nuance needed for more complex deals. Tech also can’t be accountable to mistakes.

“Who do you want making the apology when something goes wrong?” said C. Lee Smith, founder and CEO of SalesFuel. “Do you want a human doing it, or you want a computer doing it? It means a lot more coming from a human when it’s heartfelt and you can actually hear the empathy.”

Even founders on a budget shouldn’t skimp on people-focused head count, experts said. There’s a risk of overautomating front-facing responsibilities and turning off customers.

It’’s a smart financial decision, too. Throwing darts at the wall with AI is costly, and the picture is being further muddied as OpenAI, Anthropic, and others change their pricing models from per seat to per usage. Determining exactly what business practices bots are useful for—and what human tasks they can’t replace—can help startups save money and time, said Yasser Elsaid, founder and CEO of Chatbase.

Coffee chats and phone calls aren’t going out of style anytime soon. If anything, they’re being strategically deployed for stronger prospects instead of a general client pool. Sellers need to step up.

“Connect with the buyer on the other side,” said Kim Chamberlain, VP of growth at Lean Layer. “Build a relationship and really become an expert in the problem that you are solving for your company and for your buyer.”

Owning the narrative

Regardless of the niche, industry pros said it’s important brands own their story. But the way it’s done is shifting. Companies are putting more resources into partnerships with content creators, and B2B influencer marketing.

In terms of discoverability, this means having a consistent presence across platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube. A detailed website that anticipates customer questions, not just keywords is a must. The goal is to have a digital footprint that​​’s easy for humans to read and AI to crawl. And, the more credible information you share about your brand, the more likely it is that bots will surface those sources, instead of the outside chatter you don’t control.

(Revenue Brew covered the ins and outs of search engine optimization (SEO), generative engine optimization (GEO), and answer engine optimization (AEO) strategy here.)

Crafting a brand narrative that resonates with consumers—and translates to revenue growth—still leans heavily on clean, reliable data. Pros said that strategies like intent signal tracking and real-time data gathering are emerging as huge assets for sellers, both to draw in new clients and keep existing ones. AI, of course, plays a huge part in making this large-scale tracking and research possible. It’s one of the reasons Salesforce just bought data platform Braze and Clay is gaining steam in the real-time tracking space.

Several pros added that headless architecture, a tech practice that separates the front-end consumer experience from the backend business logic, is becoming a useful tool for sellers. It allows a brand’s offering to be hyperpersonalized to each individual user, versus a wider profile.

AI may be changing brand storytelling in technical ways, but leaders shouldn’t conflate business ease with customer desire. People still want to buy things made by people. And, in an era of AI slop, they want a strategy that actually catches their attention.

“The big one that keeps coming up more and more is shortening the distance between the signal and the action,” Christina O’Reilly, CMO at Hootsuite. “See what your customers or your audiences are talking about you, and then take that information and turn it into a useful response while the moment still matters.”