Is Your Organization Ready to Address the AI Elephant in the Room?
As FY 2025 approaches, one question looms large—and it’s the AI elephant in the room. Just like the proverbial elephant, AI is massive, unavoidable, and, if ignored, could upend your revenue organization. Will your sales kickoff position AI as the future of revenue growth, or leave your team questioning leadership’s readiness?
Gone are the days when a passing mention of AI’s potential was enough. Sales teams are no longer content with vague assurances or flashy features. They’re asking deeper questions about how AI will impact their work and whether leadership has a plan to integrate it meaningfully into the revenue-generating ecosystem.
What Your Team is Thinking (But Not Saying)
When CROs sidestep AI or fail to provide a comprehensive vision, they leave room for doubt. Teams are asking themselves:
- Sales Reps: “Will AI just be another tool to learn and add more distractions to my day – or will it enhance my ability to predictably hit my number?”
- Solution Engineers: “How will AI help me provide deeper insights and faster solutions to our prospects?”
- Marketing Teams: “Will AI change how we engage customers or reduce our relevance?”
- Sales Ops: “Can AI finally solve the forecasting and enablement challenges we’ve battled for years, or will it just add more work and complexity to our plate?”
Another unspoken worry is universal: “What does AI mean for me, and will AI replace me?”
Without leadership connecting the dots, these concerns grow, eroding confidence and slowing adoption.
What CROs Should Be Communicating
A successful AI message needs to address three key questions:
- Vision: How will AI serve as a competitive differentiator in our GTM strategy, not just in achieving revenue goals, but in outperforming competitors?
- Roles: How will AI empower each role to operate at its highest potential, from reps closing deals faster to marketing delivering hyper-personalized campaigns?
- Execution: What will we do first? What milestones will mark our progress, and how will we measure AI’s tangible impact on revenue performance?
Imagine a Kickoff Where the CRO Delivers This Vision for the Future:
“This year, we’re leaving traditional sales methodologies behind. Instead of rigid processes and static opportunity stages, our sales ecosystem will operate in real-time, guided by our AI ‘Big Brain’. Each sales rep will start their day with a personalized portal that not only delivers actionable intelligence but also prioritizes what matters most, based on a constant flow of real-time insights from across the business ecosystem.
The ‘Big Brain’ goes beyond presenting data—it identifies the next best step for every opportunity, drawing on a deep reservoir of organizational intelligence that grows smarter with every deal. This intelligence includes what’s working for others, surfacing strategies and approaches proven to drive success in similar contexts. It dynamically adjusts guidance as situations evolve, ensuring reps stay one step ahead of the competition.
As reps execute, the ‘Big Brain’ proactively supports them—coaching during client interactions, automating follow-ups, and monitoring progress. For leaders, it offers unparalleled visibility into deal progression and team performance, turning sales management into a proactive exercise rather than a reactive one. The result? A sales organization that operates at peak efficiency and adaptability, achieving extraordinary outcomes in today’s fast-changing markets.
This isn’t about enhancing the current model—it’s a complete reimagination of how we sell, empowering teams to thrive with AI as their strategic partner.”
When teams see how AI will directly impact their ability to hit—and exceed—their quotas, they will be much more likely to rally behind the vision with excitement and confidence versus looking for ways to maintain the status-quo.
The Problem with the Current AI Narrative
In many organizations, AI is treated as a patchwork solution—an afterthought bolted onto existing systems in the form of flashy features or isolated tools. This piecemeal approach often leads to a fragmented user experience, overwhelming teams with complexity rather than empowering them with clarity. The result? Eroded trust in AI’s capabilities, underutilization of its potential, and a missed opportunity to transform how revenue organizations operate.
To unlock AI’s transformative power, organizations must move beyond surface-level implementations and embrace an AI-centric architecture approach—what we call the Big Brain. This architecture integrates AI seamlessly into every facet of the revenue ecosystem, from identifying high-propensity leads to guiding deal closure with precision. By embedding intelligence into the fabric of go-to-market (GTM) strategies, an AI-centric approach unifies teams, improves decision-making, and ensures consistent, high-performing execution.
So What IS the Right Approach?
The right approach begins with a clear, actionable plan that aligns teams on AI’s role in driving revenue. Leading organizations use a Strategic Visual Blueprint™ as a foundation to translate AI’s potential into a shared vision. These blueprints distill complex strategies into clear, visual roadmaps that simplify decision-making, spark excitement, and make AI’s value tangible for everyone in the organization.
By starting with a Strategic Visual Blueprint™, CROs can bridge the gap between ambition and execution, ensuring alignment across marketing, sales, and operations. This approach helps organizations articulate a clear, future-focused vision for how AI will transform their revenue-generating functions, creating a shared understanding and commitment across key stakeholders.
Once a vision for the future is on paper, then what? Some feel the next best step is to focus on cleaning up enterprise data and performing a set of pilots and proof-of-concepts. The challenge with this approach is that not many people get excited by a data clean up exercise – even though it’s important, and pilots often lead to sub-optimal outcomes since they are usually focused on just one aspect of the opportunity space versus the full ecosystem.
A better approach for a first ‘public’ step is to inspire excitement and buy-in by focusing on the end-user experience. Organizations should prioritize building a user-friendly interface, like the personalized portals envisioned in the broader strategy. https://revenuegrowthassociates.com/the-power-and-clarity-of-abstraction-in-ai/ These portals offer a practical glimpse into the future of work, shielding users from technical complexity while delivering immediate value in their day-to-day activities. As functionality is added over time, these interfaces become the foundation for a seamless, AI-driven experience.
Involving key stakeholders in designing this future is essential. By actively engaging sales reps, managers, and other team members, organizations ensure the system reflects the real-world needs and workflows of its users, fostering trust and enthusiasm. Demonstrating early success through tangible improvements—such as improved win rates, better deal visibility and guidance, increased productivity, faster decision-making, or streamlined workflows—reinforces the value of AI as a transformative force.
This isn’t about temporary wins or isolated experiments; it’s about creating a scalable, unified vision that evolves with the organization. By focusing on end-user experience and aligning every step with the broader strategy, CROs can build momentum and lay the groundwork for sustained success in an AI-driven world.
Will You Lead or Follow?
AI is here, and its impact on sales and GTM functions will only grow. As a CRO, the question isn’t whether to lead the conversation but how soon you’ll take the reins. Your team is counting on you for clarity and direction. CROs who fail to act risk falling behind competitors already leveraging AI to enhance their GTM functions. The cost of waiting? Lost deals, missed opportunities, and reduced market relevance.
When your team looks back at FY 2025, will they see this year as the turning point when AI unlocked their full potential—or as a missed opportunity? The choice is yours. At Revenue Growth Associates we have forward looking AI-centric operating model playbooks for the GTM function that can help you start building the future of your revenue organization today.
Let’s discuss how your organization can lead the charge and transform your GTM strategy with an AI-centric GTM strategy. Our proven operating model playbooks are designed to help you unlock growth, streamline operations, and empower your team to succeed in FY 2025 and beyond.