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About two months ago, my RevOps team put together an interesting report.
It compared anonymized AI token usage across our Account Executives against quota attainment over a 30-day period.
Here's what it looked like:
The results were mostly what you would expect.
The top-performing AEs were also the ones using AI the most.
However… you might be thinking, “Correlation doesn't equal causation” and to that I would say you are correct.
Using AI doesn't automatically make you a top performer.
But I also don't think that's what this chart is telling us.
The Best Reps Aren't Using AI To Work Less
I think this is where a lot of people get AI wrong.
The best reps aren't using AI so they can sit back and do less work… I can confidently say this is true for me & probably for a lot of you reading this.
They're using it to eliminate low-value work.
Instead of:
Spending 30 minutes to write a follow-up email… they spend 5.
Staring at a blank screen writing an email… they start with a first draft.
Manually researching every account... AI has already organized the info first.
None of those things close deals.
But it creates something incredibly valuable...time & bandwidth.
Time Gets Reinvested Into Selling
Every AE has the same 24 hours in a day. As a matter of fact this doesn’t just relate to tech sales reps… everyone has 24 hours in a day.
The difference is where those hours are spent.
The best reps are creating more time with AI to be able to focus on the things that truly matter when it comes to hitting quota:
Customer conversations
Building champions
Multi-threading opportunities
Negotiations
Prospecting
Strategic account planning
Those are the activities that actually create revenue.
A mediocre rep with AI probably becomes a slightly better rep.
A great rep becomes significantly more efficient because they already know what good looks like.
This isn’t about using some tool to replacing selling… it’s about removing the friction around selling.
We are entering a world where there are two types of sales reps:
Those who build AI into their daily workflow v.s. those who don’t.
And I am not talking about just using ChatGPT or Claude to write you an email… there are levels to this.
The second group of sellers won't suddenly become bad salespeople, they'll simply just be spending more time doing work that no longer requires a human.
That gap compounds… fast.
The chart doesn’t prove that AI creates top performers, but I think it does prove that the best reps are finding ways to create more leverage.
They aren’t using AI to avoid the work.
They’re using it to spend more time on the work that actually matters.
Until next week.
– Rook ♜
ps… not sure how to start adding automated workflows into your day? I shared one of Claude outbound systems HERE!