AI Is Rewriting Vendor Evaluation

What Happens Before Sales Gets Involved

The massive shift that AI is causing for sales.

The AI-influenced Buyer researches, thinks, responds and decides differently.

This is not "marketing's problem."

AI is changing the entire buying journey.

What AI has done for buyers is make painful tasks easy and reduce friction.

Find out anything on a complex topic.

Research options based on extreme personalization.

Start the buying process over if they don't like something.

Get questions they never knew to ask.

Analyze, compare, slice and dice everything.

They will absolutely show up with a definitive shortlist and more ammunition.

AI almost always ends with a clear recommendation and a prompt for more.

  • AI will tell them the top recommendation.
  • They will consider less options.
  • They'll ask what the solution should be.
  • Discovery calls become Validation calls.

Trust is being transferred to AI.

Synthetic expertise, AI ego, the IKEA effect and how AI companies will battle you for trust.

Tip: Even if the AI doesn't have an answer, it will provide a close approximation or false answer.

They will pressure test you harder than they have. Because it's easy.

If you thought you got tough questions before... expect tougher now.

Tip: Start preparing mentally for AI providing real-time call critique and questions for prospects.

Their intolerance for time and effort will absolutely be shrinking.

Humans have already become annoyingly impatient and AI will double that.

Anything generic will feel useless and lazy.

AI personalizes everything to an extreme. If you don't also personalize, they will go back to the source that does.

Everything you provide will be analyzed with a fine tooth comb.

E-mails, sales sheets, proposals, transcripts will all go into AI and AI will dice and slice it up.

OK, this all sounds like either bullshit or scary as hell. So, what do we do?

The ADAPT Framework

Anticipate the AI-Assisted Buyer

Before every meaningful call, use AI to predict what the buyer already believes, what they are comparing & what questions they are likely to ask.

“Act like this prospect has already used AI to evaluate energy suppliers. What assumptions, questions, risks, and objections are they likely bringing into the conversation?”

Defend Against the Shortlist

Use outreach and follow-up to make sure Sprague is part of the buyer’s consideration set before AI narrows their options.

“What message would make Sprague worth including in this buyer’s shortlist, based on their business, risks, and likely decision criteria?”

Analyze Yourself First

Before sending anything, have AI review your message the way a skeptical buyer would.

“Review this email like a skeptical buyer. What sounds generic, unclear, risky, exaggerated, or easy to challenge?”

Personalize Deeply

Build messages around the buyer’s business reality, not surface-level personalization.

“Rewrite this for a [persona] at a [company type] who likely cares about [risk, budget certainty, volatility, procurement pressure, operations, renewal timing].”

Tighten Every Touchpoint

Make every email, recap, and next step easier to understand, act on, and forward internally.

“Turn this into a clear, concise follow-up with the key takeaways, open questions, recommended next step, and a simple action for the buyer.”

AI is a skill, not a tool. And your ability to use it will be a non-negotiable.

Right now, hiring someone that doesn't know how to use a computer is almost ridiculous.

The tools will change. The features will change.

The reps who win will be the ones who know how to think with AI.

Don’t memorize tools.
Learn the pattern.

Every AI platform still rewards the same core skill: clear context, clear direction, clear judgment.

Treat AI like a collaborator,
not software.

The best results come from conversation, correction, coaching, and iteration — not one perfect prompt.

Your human judgment
is the advantage.

AI can draft, summarize, compare, and suggest. But you decide what is true, useful, appropriate, and worth sending.

Final Thought

AI is moving so fast that even the top people in the industry are struggling to keep up.

Stay focused on skill building rather than a particular tool capability.