AI & sales professions – how to navigate between opportunities and risks?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly transforming sales professions and the role of sales directors. In this interview, Laurianne SCHMITT and Sandra ARRIVÉ analyze the impact of these technologies as well as the opportunities and risks for the sector. The two experts also offer some tips on how sales directors can incorporate AI into their strategy while maintaining a human and authentic approach.
11/05/2025
4 min
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How is AI impacting various sales roles, including that of sales director/manager?
Laurianne SCHMITT: Artificial intelligence is profoundly transforming sales professions and the role of directors. For sales teams, AI is becoming a real everyday assistant. It enables real-time analysis of large volumes of data from the web, social networks, and CRM systems to identify customer needs. In concrete terms, for example, it can recommend the best time to contact a prospect, propose a personalized offer, or detect signals that need to be addressed in the future.
This improves both the relevance of sales approaches and productivity. AI can be integrated directly into CRM systems (such as Salesforce, Hubspot, or Zoho) to offer a wide range of features or deployed in a more targeted manner through complementary tools dedicated to specific uses, such as Leexi for note-taking or Gong for scoring and tracking customer interactions.
For managers, AI provides leverage at all levels of their role: performance management, strategic account management, recruitment, and training. Beyond simply tracking indicators, it enables predictive sales analysis and facilitates segmentation. AI is also revolutionizing sales coaching: “virtual coach” solutions can analyze salespeople’s interactions, suggest personalized areas for improvement, and provide managers with detailed reports to help them adjust their support. There are many sales coaching tools available; at IÉSEG, for example, we use Muchbetter.ai to support our students and train them effectively in sales techniques.
Sandra ARRIVÉ: In summary, AI can enable salespeople to be more efficient and save time at every stage of their interactions with clients. At the prospecting stage, it allows them to enrich their database and collect accurate information about their prospects. It can then be used to help write and personalize messages to prospects and customers. It also provides support for preparing for complex interviews: salespeople can prompt their AI to simulate difficult social interactions, such as a tense or difficult exchange with a customer, allowing them to prepare their arguments for the meeting. AI can also help with writing visit reports: at the end of the visit, you can record a long voice memo listing the main points of the meeting, follow-ups, and actions to be taken. Like an assistant, AI can structure jumbled ideas to keep track of the exchange and write a roadmap for the future.
What are the main opportunities and risks that sales managers (current and future) should consider when using AI?
LS: The major opportunity lies in increasing team productivity. By automating certain tasks such as lead generation or qualification, AI frees up time for salespeople to focus on their real added value: customer relations. It also transforms salespeople into “augmented salespeople,” who are capable of arriving at a meeting with a complete report on the customer and their environment, and therefore being more relevant and convincing.
This evolution can be seen as an opportunity to enhance the profession, which now requires new skills and the ability to adapt to the growing integration of AI into everyday life. But it can also represent a risk for those who remain attached to a strictly traditional approach to sales and refuse to adopt these new tools.
AI also paves the way for ultra-personalization of the sales message, sometimes more refined than what a human can offer even after several exchanges with a customer. However, this strength can also become a weakness: the use of sensitive data raises questions about confidentiality and can make customers feel vulnerable if the information used lacks transparency. Added to this is another risk: information overload. Too much data or poorly filtered recommendations can cloud decision-making rather than clarify it.
Faced with these challenges, it is essential that sales managers integrate AI into their tools while defining a clear and responsible framework for its use. They must support their teams through training, encourage the exchange of best practices, and, above all, set an example themselves through thoughtful and ethical use of these new technologies. AI is therefore not only a lever for efficiency: it is also a channel for managers today and tomorrow to reveal their leadership.
SA: Of course, AI can never replace human contact. Salespeople have their own personalities and emotional intelligence, and that is what makes customer relationships so rich. AI should be seen as a way to offload certain administrative and time-consuming tasks. This will give salespeople more time to stand out by personalizing their customer relationships through direct, empathetic contact.
How can sales managers best combine a human and technological approach to be perceived as authentic?
LS: To best combine a human and technological approach, it is essential to rely on AI where it brings real added value, i.e., in everything related to data collection, processing, and analysis. AI can thus prepare the ground, provide relevant information, and offer recommendations, but it is up to humans to make sense of this information and translate it into an authentic relationship with the customer. Salespeople must remain in control of what AI produces: they must review and adjust the messages generated, personalize exchanges based on their feelings, and ensure that communication remains consistent with the company’s culture and the personality of the person they are talking to.
Ultimately, it is the combination of these two dimensions that creates value: technology provides precision, speed, and efficiency, while humans bring empathy, intuition, and authenticity. Sales managers play a key role in establishing this balance by encouraging their teams to make full use of AI as a support tool, but without ever neglecting the human dimension of customer relations. By showing that technology is there to serve the relationship, not replace it, it becomes possible to remain credible, authentic, and truly customer centric.
Sandra, you are the director of an executive education program for sales managers. How do you integrate the topic of AI into your program?
SA: The instructors in our program regularly update their courses to include topics related to the environment and technologies that are part of the major changes that companies from all sectors face. For example, in the course on customer experience, the instructor uses an artificial intelligence tool to measure customer experience performance (www.evaluationshub.com).
In addition to references to AI in several courses in the program, this year we have launched a new course dedicated to AI and the sales profession.
This course was created in response to the growing interest in AI among program participants, as well as the suggestions put forward at a meeting of experts and active sales executives. The aim is to raise awareness among the program participants of the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence and best practices. In practical terms, they will use tools and applications in class that will be useful to them in their daily work.
*Sandra ARRIVE is Academic Director of the School’s Executive program in Sales Management and Business Development, a program built on a dual technical and managerial approach.
Discover the program, which is taught in French.
Laurianne SCHMITT is a professor and sales enthusiast. Her Ph.D. focused on the use of social media by B2B salespeople, enabling her to develop a strong interest in technology in sales and the growing field of AI.
This is the English version of an interview originally published in French.
Accompanying photo at top of article: IStock/ PeopleImages
