The Future of Selling in the Age of AI

November 10, 2026
Iampona Frota

Victor, let’s start with your story. What brought you into sales?

I grew up in Chicago, the youngest of seven. My parents came from Puerto Rico and spoke very little English, and our family relied on food stamps. A teacher told me engineers made money, so I got a degree in electrical engineering. In one of my first jobs out of college, I designed wireless systems.

We beat Motorola on a big deal. Ken, the salesperson, got a $50,000 commission. I got a $50 lunch. That was the moment I realized I was helping create value and wanted a role where I could capture more of it. I moved into sales and went on to grow a division from $14 million to $98 million.

What shaped your sales philosophy before you became an author and speaker?

Books and tapes were part of my sales education from the beginning. I learned from Earl Nightingale, Brian Tracy’s The Psychology of Selling, and Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism also helped shape the principle I call “value for value.”

When I sell something, I’m providing value to a company. That company can then use what I sold it to create value for its own customers. At its simplest, selling is an exchange of value. Both sides should benefit.

As AI becomes more common in sales, which human skills become more valuable?

My first exposure to AI came while working on rules-based expert systems at Honeywell. Years later, I wrote Sales Ex Machina about how AI was changing sales, and I wrote The Future of Selling with AI agents in mind.

I think of sales as a spectrum. At one end, you have simple transactions that AI can increasingly handle. As you move toward more complex deals, buyers still need someone who understands the subject and can communicate persuasively. Knowing the product is only part of the job. You have to help the customer feel confident enough to make a decision.

What’s changing about how buyers research and make decisions?

The psychology of buying is familiar. What’s changing is how much buyers can do on their own. AI can help them make a straightforward purchase or narrow down the options for a more complex one. Even with all that information, a buyer may still need someone to help them take the final step. That’s the role of what I call the “last mile seller.”

The same shift will affect outreach. Buyers’ agents will increasingly screen emails and social messages before a person sees them. I also expect company websites to become places those agents go to gather and compare information.

Do you expect AI to make sales teams smaller?

Yes. As AI becomes capable of handling more of the work along that spectrum, I expect sales teams to get smaller. Roles centered on simple tasks or a narrow set of responsibilities will be the first to feel it.

What are the new rules of prospecting in 2026?

I expect direct human contact to matter more again. That means picking up the phone, visiting customers, and making time for trade shows. Email and social outreach will still be part of the mix, but they’ll have another layer between the seller and the buyer as agents start opening messages and responding on people’s behalf.

After 25 years in sales leadership, what still excites you most about selling?

It comes back to value for value. When you sell something that genuinely helps a company grow, the customer gets a better outcome and the seller benefits from creating it. That’s the part of sales that still excites me.

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