A.I. vs. Authenticity

I think that I was probably raised on the importance of being authentic. Being “authentic” is kind of interchangeable with being “honest”. Yes? When social media arrived, one of the first things that I was told was that you needed to be perceived as being both transparent and authentic.

As a salesperson, I have read countless articles on the subject with many stressing that authenticity may be perhaps the most important sales characteristic. If you don’t believe me … go here.

My inbox as well as my direct message boxes on social platforms all overflow with automated messages. It strikes me that these senders must perceive that their actions are not authentic in any way, shape, or form? Perhaps they don’t care? Perhaps they work on some level? I think that I just answered my own questions.

Now along comes A.I.. I spend most of my time socially on LinkedIn and, by and large, business professionals including salespeople are wetting their collective pants at the mere prospect of sending more inauthentic messaging to more unsuspecting people. Me.

Every day a new platform announces their A.I. integration and the responses from the unwashed thousands are close to 100% pure bliss. Soon a machine will personalize my crapmail to make it even more appealing to me. I can’t wait. Hell, I’m wetting myself in gleeful anticipation!

I just read an article on LinkedIn, about LinkedIn. As I understand it, they will be rolling out AI to job seekers so that it can write cover letters to recruiters based on what it can discover from that recruiter’s profile, the job posting, and the company information. Yes, LinkedIn is soooooo concerned about member privacy?

I’m struggling with how to handle A.I.. Right now I prefer to ignore it but there will come a time when I may need to address it. I know for a fact that the CRM that I represent, Nimble, is keenly evaluating these possibilities. This means that people will want me to show them how to use something that, right now, is counter to my belief system. It also scares the hell out of me.

There certainly will be areas where deploying A.I. will be valuable without compromising my guiding principles. However, I also see the potential of a slippery slope scenario. Well, that worked great. Maybe we can push it a little bit more … The only good news is that I am, as they say, a little long in the tooth. In other words, this will soon become a moot point.

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!