“Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her to solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service,” vaunted sales expert Brian Tracy once said. Unfortunately, many sales experiences feel like a one-way street—favoring the salesperson rather than the customer.
This was the frustrating scenario I found myself in over the weekend. My son’s birthday is coming up. Since my nine-year-old loves to make little videos starring his friends or our Bernie doodle—or both—I thought it would be fun to rent out one of the local theatre’s screens. We would show my son’s 10-minute creations, then let him and his friends play video games.
Simple, right? Not exactly. When I went to the theatre’s site, I couldn’t find any phone number to call to make my request with a real person. There was only a fillable form that would undoubtedly dump my request into some black hole.
To ensure I actually talked to someone at the company sooner rather than later, I stopped by in person to ask to speak to the theatre manager. To be clear, I wasn’t complaining about bad service. The whole reason I was there was to buy something.
This transaction would benefit both the theatre and me—exactly why businesses exist in the first place. Yet, the sales associate I spoke to didn’t see it that way. She viewed my presence as an obstacle to her other more important activities, like selling popcorn and sodas.
“You have to submit your request to the website,” she told me, annoyed.
“Isn’t there a manager I could talk with to handle this now?” I asked. “I’m here. I’m ready to pay. I just have a few questions I need answered first.”
She shrugged. “Sorry. Doesn’t work that way.”
Talk about blowing up a sale! Reflecting on what happened, I have to think the owner of this theatre would be shocked to learn this is how associates treat prospects that could earn them revenue.
Unfortunately, frustrating instances like this occur all the time, costing businesses major revenue. Pete McChrystal, writing for Accent Technologies, describes the problem. “Bad reps cost sales teams a ton. Hard-dollar replacement costs, lost productivity costs, and intangible costs add up quickly. For one bad rep that hits only 25 percent of a $1M quota the cost is over a million dollars a year. Multiply that times the number of reps in the bottom 20 percent of a 100–person sales team and we’re talking $20M in lost revenue.”
Now, imagine an AI sales associate actively guiding a customer through the sales process. Here’s an example. It’s close to midnight and a mom can’t sleep. Her own nine-year-old son just performed poorly in his league baseball game, dropping the fly ball and costing his team the win.
Scrolling on Facebook, she sees an ad for a clinic in her area. “Sign up with one of our many coaches to give your child the edge they need this baseball season.”
Our mom likes what she reads. But, like me, she has questions she needs answered before she buys. The old way of doing things would be to list a FAQ on your website. Or to use a generic bot to answer prospects’ questions.
What if instead, you had a sales order taker—powered by AI?”
This is the promise behind his company, Rezolve AI. It offers brainpowa, “The first foundational LLM built for commerce.” As Dan Wagner, its chairman/CEO told me in an interview, “You can think of it as a sales catalyst. Historically, the best salespeople possessed three things: knowledge, empathy, and the ability to close. What makes brainpowa so effective is that it mimics the best human salespeople, closing the gap between digital and in-store experiences to produce more revenue for today’s companies.”
The disparity between these two modalities is revealing. Razorpay reports: “As of February 6, 2025, the average e-commerce cart abandonment rate is about 70%, according to Baymard Institute. This means 70% of online shoppers abandon their carts, and only 30% complete a purchase.” Conversely, only 30% in-store shoppers abandon a sale when browsing in person.
There’s a critical reason for the difference. Many sales associates are not like the unhelpful woman I encountered at the movie theatre. They do know about a product, possess empathy, and can close. Also, customers often visit smaller stores where the owner is directly involved in sales. In that case, there’s a higher chance they will catalyze the deal.
Now, back to the mom scrolling late at night—she doesn’t want to send her questions into a digital void. She also doesn’t want to interact with some bot trained to give generic, unhelpful answers. Busy as she is, she wants to get her questions answered then buy a product if she’s been convinced of its value.
This is the strength of an LLM sales model—not one that simply regurgitates information, but one that persuades, reassures, and guides customers like a top-tier salesperson. “Imagine visiting a site to book flights. Instead of scrolling through lists, you just say, ‘I need a business-class flight to New York, aisle seat, direct flight, preferred airline: British Airways,’” says Wagner. “brainpowa handles the rest. Especially as it understands 95 languages.”
Clearly, the future of AI commerce won’t be won through building more generic sales bots serving as order takers, no matter how polished they sound in 1-1 chats. Rather, Wagner explains, the winning companies will be AI-tailored for specific industries and applications. Personalized AI commerce systems are already impacting verticals, greasing the skids for more sales.
This makes sense. After all, the best closers don’t rattle off generic facts to close prospects in a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, they seek to offer personalized value based on matching nuanced consumer behavior with the most appropriate product solution.
Bottom line: there is intelligence at play here, one that reads the room.
Returning to the lackluster movie theatre sales associate I encountered, it’s not that she didn’t know the product. She failed to convert me because she lacked empathy and the same pragmatic desire I had to solve my problem. If AIs can be trained with LLMs to think like prospects—anticipating their needs and catering to them—we’re entering an exciting new era for the future of sales.
To flip things on their head, consider the fact AIs like brainpowa are trained on the behaviors of top salespeople. What if we paid that forward? What if all those bad sales associates out there upped their game by learning from AI? That would redefine the customer experience altogether.
And make a lot of frustrated humans much happier.
