A Sales Leader's Playbook for Turning AI Hype into Real-World Value

While it promises to improve business operations, AI often fails to deliver the expected ROI, creating a gap between hype and tangible value. Yet, leaders feel pressured to invest in AI without a clear strategy that connects it to core business outcomes. For some, the solution is to reframe AI’s purpose as a powerful amplifier for human sales talent, refocusing on unlocking real value.

We spoke with Andrew Zinger, the Senior Director of Global Sales Enablement at cloud platform Fastly, who offers a grounded perspective on this challenge. With nearly two decades of experience designing programs for global sales teams at major tech companies like Figma, Dropbox, Visa, and Salesforce, Zinger has a long history of turning complicated tools into real-world value.

He says that unlocking AI's value starts with a firm dose of reality, prioritizing practical application over a purely technological leap. "It's very much a flying the plane while building it type of situation," Zinger cautions. "At first, there was a wave of fear that AI was going to replace everyone. Then, once we realized the technology wasn't perfect, that fear gave way to a sense of relief. Now we’re in a phase of coexistence, but I'm tempering some of that excitement for sure."

• A tale of two sellers: In Zinger’s model, once AI handles initial data gathering, the role of the human salesperson can fundamentally evolve. The result frees them from the transactional mindset of a "vendor" and allows them to embrace the strategic role of a "consultant" who builds trust and tells a compelling story. "We should prospect the same way we want to be sold to for big-ticket items. Think about buying a house: you align with an agent you trust, who has your best interest in mind. Whereas a vendor might focus on features for a quick sale, a true consultant shows up with a deeper understanding," he explains.

• The human narrative: AI excels at data aggregation and initial content generation, but the nuanced art of persuasion and relationship-building remains firmly in the human domain. "That part of the craft is on you to learn. You've got to earn the time, trust, and wallet share of these companies more so than ever before," he advises.

But where Zinger sees a key opportunity is in applying AI to a fundamental business problem: the disconnect between sales and marketing. He says it could act as a real-time feedback loop to help align the two teams, a concept analysts refer to as augmented selling. "The capability moves beyond creating generic battle cards toward generating extremely specific ones in the moment," Zinger explains. "You can feed the AI context from a call. For example, if you detail the three biggest objections you faced against a specific competitor, it instantly generates a new, highly relevant battle card. If that information gets tied into a marketing campaign, then you can have specific messaging sent to that prospect."

This AI-powered feedback loop offers a solution to the perennial sales and marketing misalignment, promising to bridge the historical divide by providing actionable, real-time insights that directly inform campaign strategy. "One of the biggest complaints from sales is that marketing isn't giving them the specific leads they need. This AI-driven feedback is the exact tie-in both teams have been looking for," he finds.

• Focus on the few: The obvious challenge to this approach is scale. But Zinger’s solution is one of ruthless prioritization, focusing the deep, consultative model only where it will have the most impact. "A seller with 300 accounts can't personalize every interaction. The strategy is to identify the 20 to 45 accounts that will make your number and focus all your specific messaging there. This means digging into their business challenges and customer stories that align. For the other 250, you cast a wider, more general net," he outlines.

• The productivity paradox: The goal of this approach is to use technology to free up human teams for the irreplaceable work that actually drives business. The idea is central to Zinger’s approach to AI enablement. The tech handles high-speed data processing and repetitive tasks, enabling humans to engage in more deliberate, high-touch interactions crucial for complex sales. The ultimate goal, he says, is "speeding things up so that you can slow things down," creating space for the slower, more meaningful conversations that build trust and close deals.

AI’s role, Zinger argues, ends with providing the source material. From there, the work is fundamentally human. The newly created time can then be reinvested in activities that machines can't replicate. "You can't take the human element out of the delivery, coaching, feedback, and evangelization. I can create the greatest content in the world, but if leaders don't help evangelize and reinforce it, it won't matter," he emphasizes.

This powerful analogy underscores the critical, yet often neglected, importance of human practice and collaborative role-playing in mastering sales delivery. "We go home and practice our hobbies, like pickleball and golf, things that don't pay the bills, yet we rarely practice our professional craft," Zinger says. "The team selling aspect, practicing your biggest discovery call, is a critical human activity that AI can't do for you today."

• Proof point problem: AI is crucial, however, in systematically identifying and surfacing the specific data, metrics, and success stories needed to justify investments and demonstrate tangible ROI in a competitive landscape. "Having the right metrics, stories of influence, and value proof points is critical, but we struggled to find that data. That’s where AI can help us. Its job is to serve up the numbers and the impact much better, finding those stories that prove your value when you’re struggling to find them yourselves," he says.

Ultimately, Zinger encourages his executive peers to move past fear and get their hands dirty. As high-performing organizations begin to find success with agentic AI and look toward future concepts like agent readability, he advises leaders to learn from each other on LinkedIn or at conferences. "Don’t fight it," Zinger concludes. "Do your homework. Learn from your peers. But don’t be late to the table."