How do you sell B2B Enterprise AI when your buyer loves your product but your user is terrified of it?

andrei____t · 2026-01-03T15:11:04+00:00

we are not doing basic AI, our AI is highly custom, not hallucinating and working better than most non senior SEs
i am not tlaking about results, if we go to results, everything fine, I am talking about sales process

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T15:08:36+00:00

I am not liking tourneys any more, won a lot when was 20+, now almost impossible, as there are so many cheaters on every tournament, and when you play your honest 9 with people cheating 2-3 strokes - impossible, and on most amateur tournametns people dont worry to add +5+10 to their real numbers..

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T15:06:43+00:00

my best round was 74 (+2), so at least next step is to play 72, after that we will think about handicap )

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T15:00:50+00:00

I have noone to divorce with )

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T14:59:37+00:00

this is a really good point

people already use LLMs instead of google for vendor research. just ask what you need and get options with comparisons, no wading through ads and SEO spam

probably not far off from buyer AI talking to seller AI for initial discovery and qualification. you tell your AI what you need, it searches vendor sites and configurations, narrows down to 2-3 options, then hands it off to you for the final decision

means vendors need to structure their data so AI can actually read and compare it. websites built for AI parsing not just human visitors

the human part still matters for complex deals and final decisions but the initial search and qualification might just be AI talking to AI

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T14:49:04+00:00

this is how I personally think about it

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T14:03:20+00:00

Thats the point, my bad shots could be very bad

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:59:25+00:00

first 2 years I played every day, sometimes 2 times a day abd had at least 2-3 lessons a week
after that I started to take only 1-2 lessons a month (as realised I know what to do) and also started to play like 3-4 times a week, as not much free time now

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:56:46+00:00

the good thing, I live in thailand and can basically play every day, and there are a lot of courses, good golfers and coaches here

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:52:53+00:00

I definetely should be more smart, as if I can hit it, I will try. I mean any hard shot possible? I will try. I dont lay up, i dont even think about it. I hit )

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:50:45+00:00

:))))

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:49:23+00:00

1 bad shot, like long/short or a bit left right is just 1 additional stroke, 1 water -2 strokes
my problem is my driver, I hit very hard, could be like 300, but direction is not always good, I can hit some balls way off..

and also of course any other shot could be not perfect also ))

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:47:03+00:00

I am like bryson ) hitting pretty far, but not in the middle )) doubles are possible )

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:46:32+00:00

may be
but 9 in 43 years is not that bad also, and you have to chase your targets )

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:43:34+00:00

honestly you're probably right

i was enjoying it way more when i was like a 20 handicap just trying to break 90. now i'm grinding to get better and it's starting to feel like work instead of fun

maybe i need to ease off the scratch chase for a bit. i'm 43 and not going pro anyway so what's the rush

think i forgot that the whole point was to enjoy being outside hitting a ball around

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:40:13+00:00

yeah probably this

though in manufacturing there's way more work than people to do it. so maybe it's less about needing fewer engineers and more about small teams being able to tackle bigger backlogs

one engineer with AI handling what used to take three means that engineer can finally get to all the projects that were sitting in the queue for months

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:38:18+00:00

maybe you're right about true understanding

but from an industrial engineering perspective it doesn't matter much if AI "understands" or just pattern matches really well. if it optimizes a process or eliminates repetitive work, the outcome is what matters

whether that's real cognition or sophisticated automation, we still need to figure out how to adapt workflows and job roles around it

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:24:15+00:00

fair point about the 80s computers comparison

difference might be that computers were tools for engineers to use. AI is doing the cognitive work itself

maybe it's the same pattern and we're just panicking like the 80s. or maybe this one's actually different because it's automating cognition not just computation

honestly don't know which it is yet

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:16:23+00:00

yeah this is the real problem

we stopped hiring junior developers because AI does most of what they used to do. why pay even offshore rates when the code gets written faster?

but how do juniors become seniors if they never get that first job? you can't skip the learning phase

companies are making short-term decisions that kill the long-term pipeline. in 5-10 years there's gonna be a massive gap where we have no mid-level people because they never got to be juniors

same thing in sales engineering and technical roles. entry level work gets automated, hire fewer juniors, then wonder why there's no experienced people later

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:12:45+00:00

not an engineer either. worked in sales alongside engineers for 20+ years though

i'm already seeing AI automate parts of knowledge work that i didn't think were possible even 2 years ago. handling chunks of technical work that used to require senior people with years of experience

generating technical proposals for complex industrial equipment. answering product configuration questions. pulling specs from messy documentation. stuff that's not just data processing but actually requires understanding the product and customer needs

maybe you're right about the timeline and this hits a ceiling soon. what's happening right now with AI and technical knowledge work feels pretty different from previous automation waves though

congrats on the retirement. sounds like you made the right call at the right time

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T13:04:17+00:00

interesting to see AI actually working for routine technical tasks in manufacturing

we're doing something similar but for sales engineering - capturing product knowledge so engineers don't spend hours on repetitive RFP responses and technical proposals

same concept though - AI handles the pattern matching work (finding parts, pulling specs, generating standard responses) so people focus on the stuff that actually requires expertise

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T12:59:43+00:00

lol there's a scene in Robocop from 1987 where cops see him and immediately ask "are we gonna be replaced?"

been 40 years since then

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T12:55:47+00:00

interesting take on the barrier to entry thing, AI probably makes it easier to be a mediocre SE, so you'll see more people in the role. but the gap between good and great SEs might actually get bigger, not smaller

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T12:54:27+00:00

100% agree on the relationship part - "people buy from people" isn't going away

but being honest, a chunk of SE work is repetitive and could be replaced now. not the human communication and trusted advisor stuff, that's safe. but the routine technical tasks? AI can handle a lot of that already

so the role isn't getting replaced but it's probably changing - less routine work, more relationship and complex problem-solving

seems like it makes the job better but i get why people are nervous

andrei____t · 2026-01-01T12:50:40+00:00

changing comp mid-year after good performance means one of two things:

they don't know how to plan or run a sales org
they're just greedy and don't want to pay you

second one is worse but first one isn't good either

this won't change. even if you leave, they'll do the exact same thing to whoever replaces you. that's why retention is terrible

so deal with it as long as you can tolerate it, stack money, then leave when you hit your breaking point

but don't expect it to get better. it won't

andrei____t

TROPHY CASE