5 Predictions for Sales Leaders in 2026

I've spent the past year talking to hundreds of sales leaders. The hype has cooled. The questions have gotten sharper. And the patience for experimentation without outcomes has run out.

Here's what I see coming.

1. Sales methodologies move from busy work to behind the scenes

MEDDPICC. SPICED. BANT. Every company picks a framework, trains their team, rolls it out and watches adoption fall off a cliff within 90 days. Leadership assumes reps just won't do the work.

We see something different. Most teams have no way to know if anyone's actually following the methodology. When it lives in a spreadsheet or a Salesforce checkbox that nobody verifies, it's just a suggestion.

Sales methodologies are supposed to help reps think about the information they need to take action. But we've made that work so cumbersome that teams focus entirely on getting reps to fill out forms — not on the outcomes those forms are supposed to drive.

AI changes this. An agent that understands MEDDPICC can analyze deal context, look at where the seller is in the process, and help them think about what they need to do next. The methodology works behind the scenes. Sellers get answers and actions. Skip straight to the outcome.

The framework was never the problem. The measurement was.

2. The era of AI experimentation is over

Proof of concepts and "let's see what happens" won't cut it anymore. I see it every day with People.ai customers: sales leaders are now expected to have a clear vision for how AI will improve their organization and be executing on it.

That MIT study everyone cited about AI initiatives failing was misused. The premise was scoring proof-of-concept projects on whether they delivered material P&L impact. Of course they didn't. That's not the point of a pilot. It's not fair to score efforts that are in stage two and three by stage four and five standards.

The proper expectation is knowing what you're trying to achieve with experimentation, how long you spend there, and having a clear path to scale.

We see a lot of customers in stage two and three of the maturity curve. But many more are starting to move into scale and transformation. If you're still "trying things out" without a roadmap, you're already behind.

3. Spoiler: people will still have jobs

There's a lot of noise right now about AI replacing salespeople. I get it. The headlines are scary. But customers are moving past the "wiping out jobs" fear and starting to understand where AI actually fits.

AI is very good at pattern recognition, data processing, and surfacing signals at scale. It can tell you which deals are at risk before you notice. It can auto-populate scorecards. It can summarize 30 calls in 30 seconds.

It can't build relationships. It can't navigate politics. It can't earn trust or close a skeptical buyer.

Think of it this way: humans handle the questions and goals. AI handles the answers, actions, and outcomes. You ask the strategic questions. You set the direction. AI does the fact-finding and automation that gets you there.

Just as technology freed us from typing letters on typewriters, AI is now handling routine reasoning. We're not being replaced. We're being elevated to do what humans do best.

4. Goodbye walled gardens. Hello personal interfaces.

Sales leaders are done logging into CRMs. They want answers, not another system.

ChatGPT and Claude are breaking open the walls that enterprise software spent years building. Companies are tired of lock-in and software bloat. What comes next: every person gets an interface that fits exactly how they work.

Even within your organization, sellers need different things at different points in time. Early stage versus late stage. Big deals versus small deals. All of that should define different interfaces and ways to interact with the system.

If I want a basic account status, I don't want to log into three systems and drill through reports. AI should just go figure it out and give me the answer.

A rep's view will look nothing like a CEO's. Same intelligence. Different lenses.

5. Buyers will penalize you for sameness

It's so easy and so fast to generate content now. Automated emails, AI-written sequences, templated outreach. I experience 20 times as much of it as I used to.

And it's immediately obvious. Those LinkedIn invites that say "it would be great to connect and hear your thoughts on the direction of the industry" — maybe that made sense on its own. But when I get 30 of them, it's off-putting.

The uniqueness of experiences and touchpoints with customers is going to be more important than ever. If your product and messaging are delivered in a framework that looks like everyone else's, you've lost. You're blending.

Personalizing and owning that customer interaction is the most important role of the human now. This is what we believe at People.ai: people work with people, and AI does the rest.

The numbers tell the story. But you need the whole story.

The Work Ahead

Every revenue organization is on its own journey. Some are still building their data foundation. Others are scaling AI across the organization. The most advanced teams are exploring entirely new ways of working.

2026 won't reward teams that dabble. It will reward teams that commit — to better data, smarter automation, and a clear-eyed view of what humans should own versus what AI should handle.

If any of this resonates, I'd love to hear from you. Let's talk about what's ahead.