AI, 'Magic Wand' Expectations and the Search for ROI

AI was expected to work miracles. Instead, for many companies, it’s delivering a frustrating loop of buyer’s remorse, invisible ROI, and solutions that churn faster than they deliver.

Arjun Pillai—former Chief Data Officer at ZoomInfo and now Co-Founder & CEO of AI sales engineer platform Docket—offers a reality check.

• AI abracadabra: "Everyone wants AI to be a magic wand, especially in sales. Vendors will tell you they can just plug into your Salesforce and miracles will happen," says Pillai. But the AI agent on top isn’t where the value really begins. "It's in building a curated sales knowledge lake from the ground up," he explains. "Without that, you're just layering intelligence on top of chaos."
• Shiny object syndrome: High churn rates in AI sales tools don’t surprise Pillai. "Most people are spending on AI SDRs, and it's presented as this magical thing." The result? A brief spike, then brand damage. "It’ll spam everybody initially, you’ll get a few meetings, and very quickly realize it’s hurting your brand and reputation," says Pillai. "I wish it was that easy."
• Inflated expectations. "Buyers expect AI to do everything, and when it doesn't, churn happens." Another trap is shiny object syndrome. "In AI, trends move so quickly," explains Pillai. "If you go for the new shiny thing based on the trend rather than your problem statements, then you will churn." His advice: "Start from a problem statement, identify success metrics, then go look for the AI that can get you there."‍

"Internally, we practice what we preach, striving to be an AI-native team," Pillai says. "Any task that I get, the first question has to be, ‘How can AI help me with this?’ Even on my iPhone, the action button is configured to ChatGPT voice."