The AI Paradox: How AI Can Make Human Interaction More Human
Like many AI-native companies, we are planning to grow our GTM team with AI-sellers – hiring AI-workers for inbound sales. You might think the notion of offloading sales calls to AI-workers is a cold cost-cutting tactic. But that would be misunderstanding the value that agents can bring to human interactions and experiences.
Think about buying a car, or any other product for that matter. Whether you are on the website or walking into a showroom, do you really want to talk with the sales person? My reticence to be sold to is pretty common. You probably feel it too. This is because sales reps are trained to develop relationships when all they really need to provide is transactional information, which creates friction: small talk and forced friendliness standing between you and the information you need.
With AI, that friction disappears. You don’t need to manage the bot’s feelings. No social calibration required. You reveal your real concerns faster than you ever would in a human conversation. The ones you might have danced around because they felt too demanding or too particular. You just say what you need.
Of course, when you want to talk with a human, they should be ready to add value. And that experience will be better when AI has already learned what you need and equips the human seller with that context.
I experienced this recently when I interacted with a company’s sales agent. The nine minutes I spent talking to the AI on their website turned into one of the most effortless and constructive sales calls I’ve ever had, including booking a meeting with a human to negotiate price. When I finally got on the phone with the human sales rep, she was ready, saying, "our AI briefed me, and I understand that your top concerns are X, Y, and Z. I put some case studies together to show you how we solve those and the ROI we’ve delivered." Our very real human-to-human conversation was direct, specific, and focused on my needs. Within 15 minutes I was sold and getting the solution I needed.
When AI sales agents complement the human seller, they learn your context, the pains you are solving for, and what features you are interested in. It enables the human to dive right into the topics that you care about most and get to the right solution faster. Then the solution and its success become the foundation for your healthy relationship (not performative small talk which never had a chance).
This is the AI paradox: Artificial agents like these can make human interactions feel more human. By that I mean more authentic and more helpful. The kind of interaction where you feel heard and cared for ❤️. My conversation with that bot was fundamentally artificial, but it revealed what I needed in a faster, kinder, more respectful, more human method than a typical sales rep could.
Understanding this paradox can transform your business – whether augmenting your people in sales, customer services, operations, or even management. The pattern is the same across all these use cases. The bot gets the unfiltered version. The human gets the context. The transactional stuff gets handled. The human stuff gets better. You can build more trust, clarity, and human capacity for everyone, unlocking greater impact and joy.
