We still need people in sales. But not for the same things as before.

In the first article of the series, I examined how the B2B buying journey has changed. Now we come to a more interesting question: if customers can research the market, analyse solutions and compare vendors digitally, what do we actually need the human salesperson for?

Imagine a customer about to invest in a new technology platform. The customer has already used AI to compare vendors, researched prices, read documentation, reviewed cases and identified three interesting options.

What should happen when the customer finally talks to a salesperson? Should the salesperson repeat the information on the website? Go through yet another standard presentation? Or perhaps offer something the customer cannot find as easily on their own? In my view, the latter will be decisive for the relevance of the modern sales organisation.

Self-service and human involvement are not opposites

An interesting nuance in recent research is the difference between customers' desire for independence and their need for decision support.

In May 2026, Gartner published a survey in which 69% of the B2B buyers surveyed preferred to validate AI-generated information with a salesperson. Gartner also found that customers were more likely to see human salespeople as helpful in understanding needs, quantifying benefits and building confidence in the decision.

LinkedIn's 2025 study The Trust Advantage, based on around 900 B2B buyers, highlights the same issue from another angle: 86% pointed to the salesperson's expertise as a significant factor in trust.

The overall point is not that people are always better than technology. It is that they can contribute something different.

Information is not the same as being able to decide

There is a big difference between having access to information and being able to make a good decision. A customer may well know the vendors' features, prices and technical specifications without having clarified which solution creates the greatest business value.

And even when the solution has been identified, the customer may need to build agreement among finance, IT, procurement, management and the employees who will actually use it.

Gartner reported in 2025 that 74% of the B2B buying groups studied experienced what the researchers call unhealthy conflict during the decision process. That is interesting. We talk a lot about how the salesperson should convince the customer. But perhaps an increasingly important task is to help the customer build agreement internally.

Where do people create the most value?

I would prioritise human involvement in four situations.

When the problem is unclear

The customer knows the symptoms but needs help understanding the causes and consequences.

When the solution is complex

There is a need for expertise, technical insight and the ability to connect the solution to the customer's business.

When the decision involves several interests

The salesperson must understand the goals of different stakeholders and help the buying group establish a shared basis for the decision.

When the customer faces real risk

Here, selling is about credibility, documentation, responsible advice and confidence that the vendor can also deliver after the contract is signed.

What these situations have in common is that the value does not primarily lie in presenting information. It lies in applying knowledge and judgement to a specific customer situation.

So which people will we need?

This changes the competence requirements of the sales organisation. We will still need people who can open doors to new customers and develop existing relationships. But we will also need stronger commercial curiosity, industry understanding, the ability to facilitate complex decisions and the willingness to challenge the customer's assumptions.

In many companies, this will require closer collaboration between salespeople, technical specialists, solution architects and management. A skilled salesperson does not need to be an expert in everything. But they must be able to bring together the expertise the customer needs and take responsibility for the overall commercial dialogue. That is an important difference.

Human involvement must be a deliberate choice

In its 2026 predictions, Forrester expects human expertise to matter as a counterweight to an increasingly AI-supported buying process. That is a forecast, not a confirmed future. But the direction makes sense. The easier information becomes to produce and distribute, the more important it becomes to demonstrate real insight.

Nor do all deals require extensive human involvement. A routine reorder and a complex transformation project should not have the same sales model.

The salesperson of the future should not compete with AI to deliver information fastest. The salesperson must be worth talking to when information is no longer enough. That requires companies to start organising accordingly.

Next article: Modern GTM is not a campaign. It is the company's commercial architecture. Because skilled people are of little use if the company has not decided which customers it wants to be relevant to, and how it will reach them.

The sources mainly support the discussion of human expertise, trust and internal decision complexity. The four prioritised situations for human involvement are an editorial synthesis, not a single validated model.