AI is flooding B2B sales - but most tools are breaking trust, not building a pipeline.

In this episode of The Chat, Erik Charles (VP at Xactly) shares shocking real-world chatbot failures, exposes the hidden risks of agentic AI, and reveals how sales leaders can deploy AI that actually converts.

The big takeaway? The danger isn’t AI replacing reps - it’s AI misleading them.

If you're leading GTM in B2B, watch this before your next AI rollout.

What to listen for:

03:42 -“AI doesn’t fail because it’s dumb-it fails because we overtrust it.”

Erik explains why misplaced trust in AI chatbots creates blind spots in pipeline execution.

07:19 - “We had a bot that booked 60 meetings. Zero showed up.”

A brutal example of AI chatbot failure in a live B2B sales environment.

09:55 - “Sales reps stopped reading the comp plan-because AI made it too complex.”

The surprising cost of over-automating sales compensation logic.

13:11 - “Buyers talk to 15 people internally before ever reaching out.”

Data-backed insight on where AI needs to operate: upstream in the buying journey.

16:34 - “Agentic AI can make decisions on your behalf-and that’s risky.”

Erik breaks down what agentic AI is and why it needs tight governance.

21:03 - “You need AI to support humans-not replace them.”

The ideal use case for AI and human collaboration in RevOps teams.

24:47 - “Don’t automate bad processes-AI will just scale the damage.”

Why strategy and process alignment matter more than tools.

27:15 - “We built an AI system so smart...no one trusted it.”

A cautionary tale about AI trust issues and why over-engineering backfires.