The Sales Mastery Series  //  Episode 12

AI in Sales: Overhyped Yet Under-deployed

A calm and direct look at AI in sales, the most overhyped and under-deployed tool in the profession today. Where it earns its place, and where leaders need to keep it out.

The numbers you need to hold side by side

As of May 2026, 87 percent of sales organisations in the UK are using some form of AI in their sales operation. But 74 percent of those companies say they cannot scale the value from the investment they have made.

Eighty seven percent are using it. Seventy four percent cannot make it pay. That is not a technology problem. It is a leadership problem.

Zoom out beyond sales teams and the gap gets starker. Enterprise Nation's new national report on digital and AI adoption among UK SMEs, produced with Google, Sage, Square and Dell Technologies, found that only 21 percent of UK small businesses use AI regularly at all, with cost and skills the biggest barriers. So the market splits three ways: most businesses have not started, most of those who have started cannot make it pay, and a small group is quietly compounding an advantage.

Sales Geek features in that report as a case study of what disciplined adoption looks like, through the work of our Greater Manchester director Jon Walkington. The example travelled further than we expected.

"Sales Geek in Manchester has integrated AI into its management systems and uses it to support client work."

Rishi Sunak, former Prime Minister, highlighting best practice AI adoption from the report. Read the post on LinkedIn or read our full breakdown of the report.

At Sales Geek we work across hundreds of businesses, from one person operations to large corporate functions. In 2026 there is one conversation we are having more than any other. The AI conversation. And most businesses are not having it well. There is fragmentation everywhere.

Some are paying for tools that nobody is using. Some are letting AI write everything and watching conversion rates fall. Some are doing nothing and falling behind a market that is moving on. Almost no one is being honest about which camp they are in.

AI is overhyped and under-deployed. It is a minefield for salespeople and for business leaders. The tension is not whether you should use AI in sales. The market has already made that decision. The tension is where it earns its place and where it does not.

AI in sales: the current state of play

Adoption is no longer the story. Value is the story. And value is where the gap is. Across our portfolio we see two failure modes.

AI without judgment is expensive noise.

Buyers have changed too

Seventy four percent of sales professionals say AI has made it easier for buyers to research before speaking to a salesperson. Buyers walk into the first call having read competitor websites, asked an AI assistant for a comparison and watched product reviews.

The salesperson's job has shifted. It is no longer to give information. It is to give confidence. To provide judgment. To navigate ambiguity. To hear what the buyer cannot quite articulate and name it back to them. AI cannot do that.

Thirty six percent of sales professionals say their primary role is helping buyers feel confident in decision making. Thirteen percent say their role is helping buyers navigate internal politics. These are human skills.

If your team is still leading with features and demos, they are competing with an algorithm that can do that job cheaper and faster.

The green zones: where AI earns its place

1. Research and pre-call preparation

   AI can gather everything publicly available on a company in minutes. Industry context. News. Funding. Executive moves. It saves time. The salesperson still has to think.

2. Admin and CRM hygiene

   AI can handle transcription, updates, logging and surfacing deals that need attention. Clean data is essential. AI will automate whatever you give it.

3. Summarisation and recall

   Call summaries. Meeting notes. Deal timelines. AI is exceptional at this. It helps the salesperson walk into conversations prepared.

4. Draft then edit

   AI can produce a first draft of emails, proposals and follow ups. The salesperson must edit it. Personalise it. Remove generic phrasing. Add context. The edit is non negotiable.

5. Pattern recognition and pipeline data

   AI can spot patterns across deals and activity. It can highlight where deals stall and which signals correlate with success. Leadership must act on what it shows.

The red zones: where AI does not belong

1. Discovery

   Discovery is human. It is listening for what is not said. AI cannot hear tone, hesitation or emotional cues.

2. Negotiation

   Negotiation is real time judgment. AI can give frameworks. It cannot make the call.

3. Closing

   Closing requires courage. The buyer must feel a human asking for their business.

4. Difficult conversations

   Service failures, escalations and recovery conversations must be handled by a human. Trust is rebuilt or lost here.

5. The trust layer

   Trust is built in small human moments. AI can simulate them. Buyers can tell.

Why most businesses cannot scale value

Three reasons.

1. No strategy

Tools are bought without deciding what problem they solve. Productivity, quality, coverage, speed or visibility all require different deployment.

2. No skill

The team has not been trained. AI rewards people who know how to ask, refine and verify. Without training, people copy and paste the first output.

3. No standards

There are no rules of engagement. No clarity on what AI can be used for and what it cannot. No defined brand voice. Improvisation at scale creates inconsistency at scale.

Leadership has changed. It is no longer enough to approve the AI budget. Leaders must define the strategy, build the skill and set the standards. That is exactly the gap the Enterprise Nation research describes at national scale, and exactly where the businesses featured in it, ours included, are pulling away.

So there we are. AI in sales: where it helps, where it hurts, the most overhyped and under-deployed tool in our profession currently. Used well, it gives your team back the one thing they never had enough of, and that's time to actually sell. Used badly, it quietly hollows out the trust that the relationship was built on. The job of a leader is to know the difference and enforce it.

Next week we're back into more of the commercial disciplines, because AI gives you that selling time back. Go download the playbook, test these things in your business, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

If you want to go deeper, you can listen to the full conversation in The Sales Mastery Podcast. Each episode explores the decisions, structures and leadership behaviours that shape sales performance in the real world.