By Bobby Isaacson, Section CRO

Over the weekend I used AI to build a live dashboard of our sales forecast, which any member of the leadership team can use to query our deal data.

For a few hours I felt really proud of it - and then I started to feel anxious. 

As CRO, one of my main strategic responsibilities is owning the forecast. I’ve spent my career getting good at it, and I like being the ultimate voice on it. It felt weird (and potentially stupid) to hand AI a task that makes me valuable to the business. So yeah - I panicked. 

It’s not just me. I think this exact panic is happening across the enterprise, in every corner of the business. 

Section interviews hundreds of enterprise workers every month to build AI transformation plans for our clients, and almost everyone mentions this unsettling feeling: When AI can do what I do, what am I good for? And how long is it until someone asks, “What would you say you do here?”

Low-value tasks

We tend to talk about AI taking over “low-value tasks” so that employees can focus on more meaningful work. 

But across hundreds of interviews, people kept saying the same thing: A lot of those “low-value tasks” are the ones they find meaningful. 

One interviewee said, “I’m a writer who has now become an editor, and I’m losing who I am.” Another said, “I don’t want to outsource the part of my job that is really interesting to me, and I think I’m uniquely qualified for, and I’ve trained a long time to do.”

We’ve spent years rewarding people for being great at specific things. We promote the best analysts, the best writers, the best engineers. We tell them their expertise makes them valuable. And then AI comes along, and we announce that all those things they’ve mastered are actually “low-value tasks” they should be thrilled to give up.

Take my sales forecasting example. A lot of forecasting is painstaking work - running reports in Salesforce, correcting over-optimistic projections, bugging reps to update the stage of a deal. But I like that work. Being close to the data makes me confident in our projections - and being the “source of truth” makes me feel useful. 

When leaders dismiss this work as low-value, they’re missing something important about why people resist AI. It’s not necessarily that they don’t see the benefits (even the AI enthusiasts we interviewed expressed this feeling). It’s that we’re asking them to give up something they’re good at, without helping them understand what should fill the void. 

You have time for more strategic work. What is that, exactly?

The standard reassurance is that AI will free us up for “more strategic work.”

But one person we interviewed said: “‘Our leaders keep telling us, ‘We’re freeing up your time for more strategic work.’ But what does that actually mean?”

I think most leaders, myself included, have been lazy about answering that question.

Take my own job. My responsibility isn’t to produce a sales forecast. It’s to make sure we hit the number. The forecast is one tool I’ve used to do that - to allocate internal resources, hire the right people, and use our cash more effectively. 

If AI can produce a better forecast, I should spend less time reporting on what will happen and more time influencing what happens. 

That means getting involved in deals earlier, coaching reps through difficult negotiations, understanding why we’re losing business, and making changes before they show up in next quarter’s numbers.

And my expertise hasn’t become irrelevant. Knowing our customers, our reps, and the history behind each deal still matters. AI can assemble the data, but I can challenge its conclusions and decide what we should do about them.

We need to stop defining our value by the work we do, and define it instead by the outcomes we drive. And that means some uncomfortable changes. If I’m still spending hours every week building forecasts when AI can do it in minutes, I’m probably not being a very good CRO. I’m protecting the work I enjoy (or am praised for) instead of doing the work the business needs.

How to help your team make the shift

This isn’t something employees can figure out entirely on their own. Managers need to help people rethink their roles, and give them the freedom to work differently.

1. Redefine what great performance looks like. If AI can do a meaningful portion of someone’s job, don’t just expect them to produce more of the same work. Sit down together and identify what they could accomplish that wasn’t possible before. Set new priorities, give them ownership of something bigger, and change how you evaluate their performance accordingly.

2. Help them identify where their expertise still matters. AI can produce a forecast, but I know which sales reps have “happy ears” and which customers are likely to push a deal into next quarter. Every employee has some version of that knowledge. Help them identify the judgment, relationships, and experience that make their work better than what AI can produce on its own. 

3. Let people become something they weren’t hired to be. One person we interviewed started using AI to develop business cases outside his formal role. Eventually, he became the person colleagues went to for help with them. Another used AI to turn architectural concepts into 3D models without relying on someone else’s technical skills. Both found new sources of professional pride. Encourage people to experiment beyond their job descriptions, and recognize them when they find new ways to contribute.

You don’t have to give up everything you love

Just because AI can do something doesn’t mean you have to stop doing it.

If you’re a writer, maybe AI handles the routine stuff, but you still write the pieces where your voice and ideas matter most. If you love building financial models, save the interesting ones for yourself. 

We don’t have to automate every minute of our working lives. Some things are worth doing because we enjoy them, because they keep our skills sharp, or because they make us feel good at our jobs.

I’m probably still going to poke around in Salesforce and build my own forecasts occasionally. I just don’t need to make that the thing I’m known for.

Have a great week,

Bobby 

Section CRO

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