A few months ago, I got caught up in the AI hype.

Between X (are we calling it X now?) and Linkedin, I watched founders claim they'd "10x'd their pipeline" with some new AI prospecting tool.

Or how it created 90 days worth of content for them in 15min. 

So of course… I bought in. Literally.

I signed up for tools, tested platforms, and watched a million Youtube tutorials.

And you know what happened?

Not much.

The copy and scripts felt like… well AI slop of course.

No substance. 

Whether it was writing cold emails, a video script, or a Linkedin post… 

Every time I ended up having to rewrite it myself. 

I did learn a lot along the way that’s useful and I’ll get to that shortly.

I think Demis Hassabis said it well:

While the results haven’t been zero, they have in fact been shockingly poor compared to what I had hoped. 

Especially for any prospecting or sales function. I think we are a far cry from seeing anything revelatory. 

Eventually, I think the technology will get there, but it’s not… yet. 

AI will not fix your GTM, it will only distract you. 

If your targeting is off, AI will help you reach the wrong people faster. 

If your messaging is weak, AI will help you send more weak messages.

 If you don't have a clear sales process, AI will automate your chaos.

And behind closed doors, when I talk to other founders they say the same thing. 

“It’s fun to use, but that’s about it”. 

In other words, it’s not actively solving problems other than making certain tasks more efficient. 

Here's the pattern… 

Rinse and repeat.

It's the same mistake I talk about with hiring. You can't hire A-players and expect them to thrive in a broken system. 

The same goes for AI.  You can't bolt on automation and expect it to fix foundational GTM problems.

AI is a lever, but a lever only works if you have something solid to push against.

So if you’re looking to grow, the best way to use AI is to accelerate the things that are already working. 

Where in your GTM process is there friction, repetition, or manual work that's slowing you down? Can AI reduce that friction?

That's a fundamentally different starting point.

When I approached it this way, I noticed two use cases. 

Aaaand that’s about it. Just two use case, not a full tech stack overhaul.

What’s also interesting is these AI outputs were human inputs for our team. 

Which is critical, these were not replacements for thinking. 

The human judgment… who to reach out to, what angle to take, when to follow up, etc that stayed with us.

Before you buy another AI tool or add another platform to your stack, run it through these three questions:

The best AI implementations keep humans in the loop for decisions that matter. If the tool promises to "fully automate" something that requires nuance (like personalized outreach to enterprise buyers), be skeptical.

If a tool passes all three? Test it. 

If it doesn't? Move on.

Another use case is coaching notes.

I’ve seen a lot of these “AI sales coaching” tools pop up and they’re underwhelming. 

Trust me, I get it. If I created an AI tool that coaching sales teams the exact same way we do, I’d be a very very rich man lo. 

The truth is, especially in B2B tech sales, an AI will not pickup on the nuance of the full sales cycle. 

Too many calls, multi threading, stakeholders, etc. 

A team we’ve been working with, NewtonX, was using AI for sales coaching before bringing us in. Nothing wrong with that, it probably helps to a degree. 

But we did a lot of work between changing their whole sales process, scripts, coaching them 1-1, changing their pitch deck, etc 

And in just 90 days their average deal value increased from 3.1M to 4.2M. 

AND their demo to close rate went from 29% to 33%. 

This added at least 10M/yr to their bottom line and I’m being conservative here.  

Don’t automate people development, especially for your sales team. It’s the life blood of your business. 

AI is genuinely changing GTM, but not in the way most people think.

It's not about replacing your sales team with robots. 

It's not about automating your pipeline coverage. 

It’s simply an accelerant.

Start asking where the friction is and experiment there. 

That's the unlock in my opinion. 

Till next time,

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