“Death of a Salesforce”: Why AI Will Transform the Next Generation of Sales Tech | Andreessen Horowitz

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses how AI will fundamentally transform the sales industry, reimagining the core sales platform and workflows. It explores how AI-native sales solutions are enabling new sales motions and blurring the lines between traditional sales, marketing, and customer success functions. The article also delves into the implications of AI on go-to-market strategies, pricing models, and the overall sales software stack.

🙋 Q&A

[01] How AI will change the core of the sales platform

1. Questions related to the content of the section?

• The core of the next sales platform will be multi-modal (text, image, voice, video), containing every customer insight from across the company
• An AI-native platform will be able to extract more insight from a customer and their mindset than current tools
• Sales workflows will fundamentally change, with AI able to do tasks like researching leads, assessing customer readiness, and producing personalized marketing collateral in seconds

2. What are the key differences between the current sales platforms and the future AI-powered sales platform?

• Current sales platforms are built on a structured representation of sales opportunities in rows and columns, with data often siloed in discrete activities along the sales funnel
• The future AI-powered sales platform will have an unstructured, multimodal core that includes data from various sources like conversations, emails, Slack messages, sales enablement materials, product usage, customer support, and more
• This comprehensive data infrastructure will enable new sales workflows and activities that are not possible with today's tools

[02] How AI-native sales solutions are evolving

1. Questions related to the content of the section?

• Emerging AI-native sales solutions are not simply AI-powered versions of existing categories, but are enabling new proactive sales motions and evolving to serve multiple use cases
• Point solutions in seemingly adjacent spaces are overlapping more, as an AI agent initially designed for one task could seamlessly expand to handle other tasks
• It won't be long before an AI agent is capable of growing an organization's sales pipeline across all channels

2. What are the key ways in which AI-native sales solutions are different from traditional sales tools?

• AI-native solutions are not just automating existing sales tasks, but enabling entirely new sales workflows and motions that were not possible before
• The boundaries between traditional sales, marketing, and customer success functions are blurring as these AI-powered solutions can handle a wider range of go-to-market activities
• The flexibility and adaptability of these AI agents allow them to expand their capabilities beyond their initial use case, blurring the lines between point solutions in the sales tech landscape

[03] Implications of AI on go-to-market strategies and pricing models

1. Questions related to the content of the section?

• With more comprehensive customer context and shared insights, go-to-market teams will be more in sync and able to collaborate better, potentially leading to blending of job functions like sales, account management, and customer success
• Companies may be able to reorient their resource allocation around the best go-to-market approach for each customer, rather than relying on pre-defined strategies
• There is an opportunity for AI-native sales companies to price based on outcomes delivered, rather than seat-based pricing, aligning more closely with the value provided

2. How will AI impact the way companies approach go-to-market and pricing models?

• AI will enable more fluid collaboration and handoffs between sales, marketing, and customer success teams, as they have access to a shared, comprehensive view of customer data and insights
• Companies will be able to be more flexible and dynamic in their go-to-market strategies, tailoring the approach to the specific needs of each customer rather than relying on pre-determined segmentation
• Pricing models for AI-powered sales solutions may shift away from seat-based licensing towards outcome-based pricing, where the value delivered is more directly reflected in the cost