Over the last eighteen months, we’ve all seen AI shift from novelty to necessity. And not only that: we’ve learned that if there’s one certainty in today’s dynamic world of professional selling, it’s that clinging to what used to work, and avoiding or denying what’s on the horizon that might work better, is a prescription for failure.
What’s coming next isn’t just about better autocomplete or smarter chatbots. It’s something deeper, smarter, and more powerful: agentic AI.
These are systems that don’t just assist you, but act on your behalf. They take AI beyond the realm of tools, and toward the realm of actionable autonomy.
Think about it. Most of the AI tools we’ve seen so far—from ChatGPT to Grammarly to Gong—are glorified advisors. They suggest. They summarize. They surface insights. But they wait for us to pull the trigger.
Agentic AI flips that script. It gives software the power to do.
Tools like Lavender Ora and Ask Elephant are early signals. (You can check out either or both of these resources just by clicking on the relevant hotlink.)
Lavender doesn’t just help you write better cold emails; It watches your prospects, builds your sequences, and tailors your message to send the right message at the right time for each prospect.
Ask Elephant is a sales-focused workflow software with agentic AI capabilities and tools built in. For example, you can set it up to send a daily email with a summary of your meetings and follow-up tasks. Or you can have it send a sales manager a weekly email that includes a summary of the previous week’s meetings by rep -- and the top opportunities to discuss in the weekly one-on-one meeting with each one.
These aren’t just assistive tools. They’re decision-making agents. And that’s a big leap. Why does this matter? Because if you’re running a lean team, agentic AI can be the invisible coordinator. It’s the teammate who never gets tired, never forgets a follow-up, never skips a detail. Agentic AI can trigger workflows, chase down paperwork, route leads, draft contracts, even book meetings based on context and priority.
Here’s the honest part no one wants to say out loud: This stuff is early. And right now, it’s messy.
The promise is real, but the pitfalls are too. Agentic systems rely on deep integration with your internal stack. If your CRM is a mess, the agent’s actions will reflect that mess. If your organization has strict data compliance rules, you’re going to need to put serious governance in place. And let’s not ignore cost—most of these agents, in their team incarnations, are metered by the action or token, and the pricing models can be volatile.
But those are all solvable problems. What’s not solvable is the cost of staying still while this wave rolls in. We’re already seeing cutting-edge sales teams beginning to ride this wave. And that’s the right choice, because this particular wave is going to be massive.
Agentic AI isn’t like past waves of tech, where early adopters just got flashier dashboards. This is structural. Agentic AI will change how roles are defined, how capacity is calculated, and how revenue teams operate day-to-day. So here’s my take, as someone knee-deep in the weeds: Start small. Experiment. Look around. Pick one agent. One workflow. One source of truth. Let it run in parallel with what you’re doing right now. Measure outcomes. Then scale.
Because in just a couple of years, the top sales performers won’t just be good with people. They’ll be good with AI. And those who aren’t will either feel like they’re working with one arm tied behind their back – or they’ll be doing something else for a living.
Back in 1976, the rock band Blue Öyster Cult released a single that has since become a classic—a song about not fearing the reaper. You’ve probably heard it. But that song’s message was one of surrender. Today, it’s time to rewrite that chorus: don’t fear the agent, and don’t flinch from the future. The album that carried that track? Agents of Fortune. That’s a title that once sounded strange—and now sounds like strategy. In our era of AI-driven transformation, fortune favors the brave over the complacent.
Agentic AI is happening now. Make sure you’re happening at the same time it is.
