The Tools Are Ready. Most Sales Reps Aren’t
AI adoption among B2B sales professionals nearly doubled in a single year, jumping from 24% in 2023 to 43% in 2024. Over that same period, 73% of B2B buyers reported actively avoiding suppliers that send irrelevant outreach.
These two trends are not contradictory. They are cause and effect. The same tools promising to make manufacturer reps more productive are flooding inboxes with messages engineers delete without reading. AI is moving fast. Judgment is not keeping up.
AI tools help manufacturer reps work faster: faster research, faster cross-referencing, faster outreach. But speed applied without judgment means bad outreach arrives at higher volume. The reps who use AI well apply it to the analytical work, part selection, data review, research. They protect the human element where it matters most: relationships, follow-through, and knowing what a customer actually needs.
The Inbox Has Never Been More Crowded
The rep role in electronics and distribution has not changed in its fundamentals. Reps still win by building trust with engineers, understanding the design cycle, and knowing when to show up and when to stay out of the way. What has changed is everything around it.
Engineers are harder to reach. Hybrid schedules mean many are only in the office two or three days a week. Front doors that used to be open are now locked. The walk-in visit that worked ten years ago is increasingly a dead end. And the inbox that used to be a reasonable channel is now so saturated with automated sequences that only 16.5% of cold outreach emails get opened. Personalized, relevant messages get opened at nearly three times that rate.
Meanwhile, 60% of an engineer’s buying process happens online before they ever engage with a rep. By the time they respond to an outreach, they have usually already formed a view. Reps who reach out with generic messaging are not just being ignored. They are actively confirming the engineer’s decision to look elsewhere.
More Automation Isn’t the Answer
The appeal of automation in a rep firm is real. Territories are large. Line cards are deep. There are more part numbers, more customers, and more manufacturers to support than any one rep can track manually. AI tools that handle cross-referencing, research, and outreach drafting save hours every week. The problem is not using those tools. The problem is using them as a substitute for knowing the customer.
Hunter Starr, President of Performance Technical Sales, described his firm’s approach to AI for part cross-referencing: using ChatGPT with isolated manufacturer data to get 75 to 90 percent of the way toward the right answer, then applying human review before anything goes to the customer. That is a deliberate, structured use of AI for the analytical phase, with the rep still accountable for the quality of what the customer sees.
Most firms are not doing this. They are using AI to generate more touchpoints faster and calling that a strategy. The result is higher volume with lower signal. Engineers who are already filtering aggressively are making faster decisions to unsubscribe, block, and disengage. Roughly three-quarters of recipients delete or ignore outreach emails without reading a word. More automation means more of your messages go straight to that pile.
“”If you’re bringing value, that’s where you open the email, that’s where you open the door, that’s where you’re like, let’s talk on this phone.”
What the Best Reps Are Actually Doing
The reps who are using AI effectively are applying it to the parts of the job that do not require a relationship. Research. Data review. Generating a first draft of a cross-reference recommendation. That frees up time and mental bandwidth for the work that actually moves opportunities: the conversation, the follow-through, the moment where a rep says “I don’t have the answer right now, but I’ll get it to you by tomorrow.”
That kind of follow-through is what builds the trust that makes the next call get answered. It is also what AI cannot replicate.
“When I see an email that is clearly auto-generated, doesn’t have that human touch, I delete it just about as quickly as it comes in.”
The reps who win over the next decade will not be the ones who automate the most. They will be the ones who use AI to go deeper on the analytical work and stay human in the moments that close business.
Listen to the full conversation with Hunter Starr on the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast.
AI does not create value. Reps do. The tools that support faster research and smarter outreach have real utility, but only in the hands of someone who already knows what good looks like. The rep who automates everything will lose to the one who uses AI to think faster and still shows up as a person.
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Sannah Vinding
Sannah Vinding
Engineer | GTM, Growth & Product Marketing Leader, Podcast Host
Sannah Vinding is an engineer and go-to-market leader known for bridging technical depth with business clarity across electronics and manufacturing.
Her work sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and commercial teams, translating complex technology, data, and customer insight into clear positioning, strong go-to-market execution, and measurable business impact.
She created Leadership in Manufacturing as an applied leadership platform to explore how leaders actually think, communicate, and make decisions when complexity is high and expectations are rising.
Through candid conversations with executives across manufacturing, distribution, and supply chain, Sannah brings together voices from across the electronics value chain to share lessons that help leaders grow with clarity and confidence.
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