The AI Job Apocalypse Is Probably BS

Good Morning. Today is National Cheese Day. Most people don't know this, but the reason we call money "cheese" or "cheddar" goes back to the 1980s when the US government gave out blocks of surplus cheese in welfare packages. Getting the cheese literally meant getting paid by the government. Now let’s go get some cheese. (:

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

If AI is about to replace salespeople, somebody forgot to tell the companies actually building the AI.

On a recent earnings call, Marc Benioff said that the only department still expanding at his company is sales. Engineering headcount has been flat for two years, but sales is growing because, in his words, "I need more capacity because we have more demand than ever."

He's not alone. All of the top private AI companies are rapidly growing their sales teams.

Remember, these are the companies that are building the AI models and tools that are supposed to replace salespeople like us. If AI could do the job of a sales rep, these are the companies that would know first.

Instead, they’re growing their sales teams as fast as they can, so they can sell more of their AI products. That gives you something to think about.

Every few weeks, there's another headline about a tech company laying off thousands of employees and blaming AI. Most recently, Meta cut around 8,000 jobs, and the narrative online was: AI is replacing humans.

But when you dig a bit deeper, you learn that Zuck admitted the company overhired during the pandemic and has been downsizing ever since. These companies added tens of thousands of employees between 2020 and 2022, and they didn't need all of them. Now they’re correcting that mistake with these layoffs and using AI as the excuse.

Those roles were redundant. AI isn’t magically doing them now.

That distinction matters, especially in sales, where the job is all about building trust, reading people, and navigating complex deals.

AI can qualify a lead based on a checklist. It can draft an email. It can summarize a call. What it can't do is sit across from a VP of Operations, figure out what they actually care about versus what they say they care about, and close a six-figure deal with 10 stakeholders.

Now that it’s clear AI isn’t going to replace you anytime soon, the real question is whether you're using it to get better at your job.

Here are 3 easy things that you should already be using it for.

Auto-log everything. Use an AI note-taker on every call. My favorite is Granola, but they all mostly do the same thing. Have it automatically log your calls and notes into your CRM. Then plug that data into a tool like Claude so you can pull from everything said across all your calls when writing follow up emails, prepping for meetings, or giving your manager an update. It's like having an assistant that’s pretty good at writing and remembers every conversation you've ever had.

Research before every call. Before you get on a call, spend 2 minutes using Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Claude to research the prospect and their company. It’s as simple as dropping their name and company into your favorite AI and saying “research this person and tell me everything I should know about them and their company before my sales call.” Even better if you can connect your AI to a sales data provider through an MCP (which is basically an API for AI but better). Now you have no excuse for not being prepared for a meeting.

Build proposals, decks, and emails faster. Create a project in your favorite AI setup (mine is Claude Cowork), and feed it your product offerings, pricing, sales assets, and call transcripts. Then use it as your own personal assistant to draft proposals, sales decks, pricing docs, and emails based on what was actually said in the conversation. The output still needs your voice and your judgment. So don’t just copy, paste, & send. But the first draft that used to take an hour can be done in two minutes.

If you use it right, AI feels like a superpower right now.

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.