While artificial intelligence (AI) is changing many aspects of our personal lives, leaders have also seen a large, unavoidable impact across business roles.

For example, many early adopters of AI transformation include sales functions, from call centers to direct sales personnel. This AI impact is being felt both in its agentic replacement of customer support functions and, more importantly, in the way it transforms what’s possible for onboarding sales talent and support. Learning and development (L&D) leaders who embrace AI as a catalyst for learning and development have been able to change the sales enablement game with just-in-time coaching and added value throughout the sales process.

This shows that when it comes to L&D planning, the enhancements offered by AI learning should be top of the list — not an afterthought or a “nice to have.” Sales enablement learners greatly benefit from these new practice and coaching opportunities, especially when it comes to soft skills, product skills and learning distribution in a more innovative, impactful and scalable fashion.

Even more, leaders can apply AI-driven assessments that align sales skills to their company’s broader skill-based taxonomies. Let’s look at the strategic role of sales enablement in L&D, as well as use cases for implementation and pilots that other organizations are using today to get ahead of tomorrow’s competition.

The Strategic Role of Sales Enablement in L&D

Sales enablement learning is a strategic imperative for businesses (and especially for leaders beginning to plan their L&D for next year) because it accomplishes four things:

• Drives business agility and relevance: Customers have high expectations. As businesses push to keep up with the fast-paced markets of today, they must continuously adapt their products, services and messaging to effectively (and persuasively) communicate unique value that stands apart and delivers on those customer expectations.
• Enhances talent development and management: Sales enablement learning is more than product knowledge. It’s about talent management and salesperson support, from their first day on. It helps sales professionals envision their growth in a tangible journey, with key upskilling opportunities and milestones based on their individual performance goals.
• Aligns learning with strategic business outcomes: Sales enablement learning is most effective when tied to measurable business goals (like revenue growth, customer satisfaction or market competitiveness). It can help salespeople navigate complex sales environments, deliver value and drive impact for the business and customers.
• Supports a culture of continuous improvement: Effective learning and soft skills development fosters a mindset of ongoing learning, adaptability and resilience even in the face of change. It inspires salespeople to uncover customers’ needs — and how services can meet those needs — using empathy and human-centered sales principles.

So how does AI enable this transformation? Here’s an example.

Conversational AI is a new method of bringing personalization to L&D (and to sales enablement). Many of these tools have been tested and ethically trained to understand what users are saying, respond to them meaningfully and authentically, and continuously learn from each input to improve the way they interact with users and simulate realistic customer conversations. Some examples of these include:

• Chatbots
• Virtual assistants
• Real-time coaching agents
• AI-powered role-play
• FAQ assistants trained on product knowledge

By interacting with human-like AI systems in simulated sales conversations, salespeople can build soft skills as they practice delivering pitches, handling objections, refining negotiation skills and more. The AI will give them personalized feedback based on how the conversation went, including areas where the salesperson did well and where they may have missed an opportunity to provide better, more tailored service to the customer.

AI can also be a key component of your talent management guide, with routine AI coaching and roleplay freeing up manager time so they can focus on higher-priority development items while scaling training, tracking performance and supporting individualized career progression. It can also include personalized development planners and peer-to-peer learning opportunities where salespeople are encouraged to build their networks, learn how others have overcome customer hesitations and how to close the sale even as the markets shift.

Common Roadblocks to AI Adoption in Sales Enablement

Successful sales enablement training leverages a strategic blend of product knowledge, soft skills training, coaching and more to help sales professionals understand and articulate product value and build consultative relationships with customers. Effective enablement also trains sales personnel to adapt to changing market conditions and align their performance with business goals.

However, many businesses deal with common roadblocks that hinder their sales enablement approach, such as:

• A narrow focus on products: Sales enablement training is not only about the products — it’s about customers’ needs and building skills for effective, meaningful sales conversations.
• Weak AI governance: An effective AI governance structure protects the business, the learners and the customers while enabling high performance and enhanced productivity through the ethical use of AI tools.
• Unclear benchmarks and objectives: A clear vision in alignment with both organizational and learner goals is necessary to strategically guide L&D and sales team efforts.
• Limited measurement practices: Without thorough measurement capabilities, teams are unable to check progress, prove return on investment (ROI) and pivot as needed.
• Increasing demands: Sales teams are already juggling a lot ­— being asked to do more, do better and work faster — often leading to burnout.
• Resistance to change: Organizations commit to legacy platforms and work processes even when a new approach may yield better results.

These roadblocks may cause the business to neglect opportunities to incorporate AI or enhance internal practices to set teams up for sales success. This is a missed opportunity.

For instance, most customers don’t want to buy a product or a service unless they understand why that product or service benefits them. If a salesperson can’t articulate that value, then they’re going to miss the sale. Or the salesperson may spend so much time on the behind-the-scenes work needed to finalize a sale, they miss opportunities to connect and build a deeper relationship with the potential customer.

AI-driven sales enablement learning can help teams overcome some of these roadblocks by incorporating personalization (for salespeople AND customers) from the start, and developing the soft skills needed to actually uncover what matters most to the customer. An AI-enabled strategy could also streamline busywork to free up sales teams for what matters most.

An AI-driven strategy also promotes cross-team collaboration between sales, human resources (HR), IT and other teams that can benefit from learning more about products and services — and even enhancing them with creative brainstorming or strategic thought work that makes the most of current market needs and tech capabilities.

Moreover, leaders who actively participate in the AI governance process can help define how their organization will use AI to improve this collaboration in order to meet business goals and generate better ROI than old processes.

How to Improve Your AI Adoption Strategy

AllenComm has found through recent award-winning projects that successful AI adoption is reliant on a few key change management strategies:

• AI adoption must come from all levels, with visible, actionable support from senior leadership and within teams to help inspire and encourage others to buy into the value.
• Governance must always be part of the conversation.
• AI is not an overnight experience — it’s an incremental adoption process that makes the most of your existing technology, or demonstrates the value of investing in new technology, with a support strategy that helps team members understand how to use it, when to use it and why it should matter to them personally.
• An L&D or AI advisory partner eases the transition and builds the case for buy in early, while reducing the work leaders need to do to turn their AI vision into a sales enablement reality.

As your organization begins to reach a higher stage of AI adoption, you will see the value in the way sales professionals continuously refine their approach to interacting with customers, building relationships, finalizing the deal and staying ahead of market trends. AI adoption can also help salespeople working in hybrid or remote settings, which often requires a unique sales approach, as they become part of a connected community of sales support.

Prioritize AI in Your Sales Enablement and L&D Planning

Sales enablement learning is one of the most important resources a salesperson can have to help set them up for success in empathy-driven, human-centered sales conversations with customers.

If you haven’t considered ways to improve your sales enablement training in the upcoming year, it may be time to rethink your L&D planning approach to identify areas in which your business can benefit from renewed sales training or an AI approach. Conversational AI capabilities are growing all the time, and the markets continue to evolve from day to day, making these new tools a benefit to your business when used with the right governance strategy.

And remember: you don’t have to go it alone. Your HR, sales and IT teams can all play a key role in deciding the path forward for your sales enablement training based on what’s possible in your tech infrastructure today. This time is now to explore how you can do more with less in the year ahead to keep costs low, increase engagement to an all-time high and achieve your upcoming business goals.