EXPOSED
The paperwork half of this job — lead research, spec sheets, quote configuration, proposal drafting, CRM notes, follow-up sequences, RFP responses — is already being absorbed by AI and sales-automation stacks, and that's a real chunk of the week. What survives is the part buyers actually pay for: standing in a plant or lab, watching how the customer really runs the process, running the demo, negotiating multi-stakeholder deals, and being the person accountable when the equipment underperforms. Reps selling commoditized catalog items are far more exposed than those selling capital equipment or engineered systems with long, consultative cycles.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. An 11 reflects the split week: quote configuration, spec lookup, RFP boilerplate, CRM hygiene and cadence email are automatable today, while diagnosing why a customer's mass-spec throughput is off spec during a plant walkthrough, or reading which of six stakeholders will actually block the PO, has no digital substitute — so roughly half the calendar resists and half does not.
Some physical or field component. A 10 rather than a 4 because the demo and site survey are the job — measuring available floor space and utility drops, hauling a benchtop unit into a customer's QC lab, walking a production line in PPE — but the rep does not install, commission, or repair the equipment, and a large share of prospecting and follow-up runs from a laptop.
No licence, no signature requirement. A 2 is correct: no state licence gates technical sales, and product warranties, performance guarantees, and regulatory claims are underwritten by the manufacturer's entity and its engineers, not by the rep whose name is on the quote — CSP or industry product certifications help you win deals but nothing legally requires a human to hold the account.
The human relationship is the product. A 15 recognizes that on a six- to eighteen-month capital cycle the buyer is betting a production line on your word that the machine will hit spec, and they call you personally when it doesn't — that named-person accountability across repeat orders, plus the plant-floor relationships that make renewals and cross-sells possible, is what the commission actually pays for.
Meaningful discretion. A 12 fits real but bounded discretion — you decide which configuration to propose, what to concede on price and terms within an approval matrix, whether to walk away from an unqualified opportunity, and how to sequence a multi-stakeholder committee — but pricing floors, discount authority, and contract language route through sales management, legal, and applications engineering rather than terminating with you.
Has AI actually changed your work?