Your Sales Playbook is Dying: 4 Industry Veterans on What Replaces It in 2025

The sales landscape is changing faster than ever. We asked four industry veterans what concrete changes they expect between now and 2025. Their responses paint a picture of five fundamental shifts that will reshape how businesses approach sales.

1. From Mass Outreach to AI-Powered Research

Today: Sales teams blast semi-personalized messages using basic data points from LinkedIn and similar sources, with declining response rates and growing inbox fatigue.

By The End of 2025: “Sales reps will use public models to start with broad account research, utilize AI to find signals of account pain, and then use AI to connect those broad business pain points to solutions,” predicts Todd Jenkins, VP of Sales at Codility. “Teams are going to get side-stepped by smarter Sales teams who are harnessing AI in the correct way.”

Companies Shaping This: Dream, OpenAI, Clay,

2. The Death of Manual CRM Work

Today: Sales reps spend hours inputting data and notes into CRMs, with inconsistent quality and completion, leading to unreliable pipeline data.

By The End of 2025: “AI tools will help organisations get clean data 100% of the time without sales reps ever inputting data,” says Jenkins. “Alongside this, we will automate all the manual busy work and allow great sales reps to execute with 3-4x capacity.”

Companies Shaping This: Glyphic, Gong, Avoma

3. Content Ecosystems Replace Cold Outreach

Today: Traditional outbound remains a primary pipeline generator despite declining returns and growing customer resistance.

By The End of 2025: “Every successful startup will build ‘content-driven ecosystems’ for pipeline creation,” predicts Seth Dehart, Founder of Founder-Led Sales and advisor to Typeform and others. “Companies are shifting toward creating valuable content that nurtures prospects at the top of the funnel. AI’s ability to help individuals and brands rapidly produce high-quality content is accelerating this transition.”

Companies Shaping This: Copy.ai, Jasper.ai

4. From Ad-Hoc AI to AI-Led GTM

Today: Companies experiment with disconnected AI tools, creating a fragmented tech stack with inconsistent adoption and results.

By The End of 2025: “Sales organizations will move beyond random tool adoption to build comprehensive, AI-powered sales intelligence platforms,” says James Baston-Pitt, GM EMEA at Alloy. “The winners will be those who’ve embedded AI deeply into their entire sales process, from prospecting to close.”

Companies Shaping This: Dream, Userled

5. Return to High-Touch Enterprise Sales

Today: Enterprise buyers are becoming increasingly skeptical of single channel engagement, unsure of the humans behind the process.

By The End of 2025: “Enterprise software buyers will expect more strategic in-person discussions and workshops to foster trust and understanding,” predicts Baston-Pitt. “Those who invest in this engagement channel will emerge as the big winners!”

Companies Shaping This: Gong, TableAI

The Human Element Remains Critical

Despite these technological advances, our experts emphasize that human skills become more, not less, important. “Humans will primarily be deal navigators and trust-builders, focusing on relationships and closing,” says Charlie Cowley, Founder at Dream. “AI will handle the heavy lifting - research, outreach, qualification & prioritisation - essentially freeing sales teams to thrive in their target markets.”

The Path Forward

The message from industry leaders is clear: while AI will dramatically change how sales teams operate, success in 2025 will come from strategically combining AI capabilities with enhanced human skills.

For sales leaders, this means:

- Investing in AI-powered research and insight generation

- Building content-driven nurture systems

- Developing comprehensive AI-led GTM strategies

- Upskilling teams in relationship building and strategic thinking

- Creating processes that blend AI efficiency with human touch

As De Hart concludes, “The key differentiator will shift from whether you can personalize to how effectively you can translate AI-driven research and insights into meaningful human connections.”

The race to 2025 is on. The question isn’t whether to adapt to these changes, but how quickly you can implement them while maintaining the human elements that drive successful sales.

About Our Contributors:

Seth De Hart is the Founder of “Founder-Led Sales” and advisor to leading tech companies including Typeform and ultimate.ai. He specializes in helping founders build and scale efficient sales operations.

James Baston-Pitt serves as General Manager of EMEA at Alloy, the identity risk management platform used by over 600 of the world’s top financial institutions. Previously, he held VP Sales positions at Onfido and Sequence, working with industry leaders like Revolut, Wise, HSBC, and Aviva.

Todd Jenkins is VP of Sales at Codility and former co-founder of Stack Overflow’s EMEA Strategic Accounts Team, where he became the all-time top revenue generator contributing to a $1.8 billion acquisition. He recently built Glyphic, an AI co-pilot for sales teams.

Charlie Cowley is the Founder of Dream, where he’s pioneering AI-powered sales solutions for markets traditionally underserved by conventional sales automation tools. He focuses on helping businesses unlock new markets through intelligent outreach.