The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. —Isaac Asimov
There are basically two ways to use AI in SalesOps. The first way is to automate outreach and send “personalized” messages to as many leads as possible — even if they’re not completely relevant.
The second way is to automate research so you can send highly relevant messages to high-potential leads — even if that means you end up filtering out 80% of your contacts.
The question is, which way should you choose?
The Temptations of AI Are Real
One of the great challenges of cold outreach is that you’re working with machines, but you’re trying to make an impact on human beings. In person, no one feels comfortable selling people products that they don’t actually need.
But when you work behind a screen, it’s incredibly tempting to do just that — to forget that you’re only going to bring people value if your products truly help them.
Add a few rows of data to your AI SDR, click send, and move on to the next task.
Perhaps that’s why many of us have a nagging sense that AI is intrinsically anti-human. If people use this tech to do things that they’d be embarrassed to do themselves, how can anyone expect it to improve our lives?
In this article, we’ll look at how you can use AI in SalesOps in a genuinely pro-human way — one that brings value, not noise, to the people who truly need your products.
Are We Training Models, or Training Humans?
We all know that spam isn’t a pro-human application of AI. So why is it so popular? If you ask the same question about junk food and a home-cooked meal, you’ll get a similar answer. When deadlines are looming, it’s simply easier to cut corners and consume ready-made products than to put in your own work.
What’s more, using AI in a pro-human way isn’t easy. To get it right, companies have to thoughtfully design processes so that the machines can free people up for high-value work. Judging by the state of everyone’s inboxes, that’s no simple task.
But here’s the scary part: your models aren’t the only things you’re training. You’re also training your team — and yourself. When you train people to use AI as an escape from the responsibility of thought, you’re training them to stop thinking.
If your team develops the habit of relying on AI to think, you’ll soon be less creative, less mindful, and frankly, less intelligent. You’ll have expensive new AI SDRs, but you won’t know who to sell to because no AI can find your product-market fit for you.
Come to think of it, very few people will be able to find your product-market fit, even when they’re fully engaged. It took us five years of trial and error before we found ours.
And like a home-cooked meal, it wasn’t easy or cheap, but it was worth it.
How to Do Sales Outreach in a Pro-Human Way
If you’re still here, you’re probably wondering how, concretely, you can use AI in a pro-human way. Our answer is simple: use AI to bring value to value. For instance, imagine that someone approaches you with the following message:
“Hey, I’ve been following your LinkedIn for a few months and I think we have a similar perspective on outreach. Here’s an article I recently wrote on the topic — I’d be curious to see what you think!”
Now let’s say the person messaging you used AI to flag posts from people that match their ICP definition. They then read the posts to confirm that you do, in fact, share a lot in common. Does that bother you?
If you’re like us, the answer is “no.” In fact, it’s a relief to be able to cut through the noise on a platform like LinkedIn and find people who you can truly partner with.
There’s nothing anti-human about automating time-intensive tasks like manual lead research if that automation enables you to build genuine relationships. In fact, it’s one of the best ways that revenue leaders can use AI to humanize the outreach process.
Using AI to Prioritize Human Interaction
The key to pro-human AI is to use it to take more responsibility over your funnel, not less. It takes a lot of thought to set up your processes so that every time you interact with someone, you’ve done your research — but that’s precisely what will make the interaction valuable to your leads.
When everyone uses AI, intelligence alone won’t set you apart. Wisdom will.
If you’re looking to humanize your AI-powered outreach process, let AlgOps know — we’d love to talk.
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