What I didn’t understand about revenue AI until I used it

For 22 years, I had a front-row seat to the meteoric rise of Salesforce. I witnessed the growth of that generational company from the inside as a member of its leadership team. 

About six years ago, I started hearing chatter from my peers outside Salesforce about the ground-breaking power of Gong. They raved about its capabilities, its impact on their teams, and the insights it unlocked. But without hands-on experience, I didn’t share their excitement or truly grasp the importance of its capabilities.

In September of 2024, I became the CRO at Sprout Social, an enterprise Gong user since 2018, and everything clicked. That abstract praise crystallized when I saw what this revenue AI platform could do. The hype gave way, and my approach to our entire revenue organization was transformed. 

Here’s what’s changed:

Leadership decisions have long relied on intuition, experience, and something I’ll call “collective wisdom.” But relying on qualitative data is a legacy approach. Like everyone around me, I’ve done my share of gathering qualitative insights during team meetings, sifting through endless email threads, and trying to piece together a coherent picture using the swirling notes in Slack. 

No more.

What struck me immediately about revenue AI was its ability to seamlessly pair crucial, qualitative inputs with hard, irrefutable data. I no longer rely solely on what someone said happened. Now I can actually see highlights from their customer interactions. I operate with a  “Show me, don’t tell me” mindset.

This powerful combination has allowed me to move away from subjective interpretations, and ground my team’s strategies in concrete evidence that’s easy-to-digest in Deal Boards. Whether I want to pinpoint when a deal stalled due to pricing objections or identify language that resonates with high-value prospects, I have an objective way to get that information. It’s allowed me to make faster, more accurate, and more informed decisions so I can act decisively instead of chasing elusive anecdotes.

I remember one particularly eye-opening moment when I started using revenue AI. 

A few months ago, I was asking the Gong Agent, AI Ask Anything, about a key opportunity in Gong. On a whim, I asked it to identify risks associated with the opportunity, which was supposed to close that month. The insight it delivered floored me: The AE responsible for the deal was scheduled to leave us at the end of the month!

That was a critical piece of information that wouldn’t have surfaced in any standard dashboard or pipeline report. It was a hidden risk, lurking beneath the surface of our CRM data.

This experience underscored the potential of revenue AI — how it surfaced critical insights that have a direct impact on my team’s business outcomes. I realized that technology isn’t just analyzing past performance — it’s anticipating future challenges for us.

Pipeline management and forecast calls are a staple of any revenue organization. In the past, they often required that I pore over static reports that gave me limited context and relied heavily on individual reps’ updates. 

A few months ago, we introduced a new approach by integrating Gong directly into our weekly forecast calls. Was it a perfect, overnight transformation? No. Is it light years better than the static, one-dimensional view we had before? Absolutely — by a factor of 10,000x. 

Revenue AI injects a dynamic element into our forecast conversations. We can now gather signals from recent customer interactions, analyze the language, and gain a richer understanding of the true health and trajectory of each deal.

It’s transformed forecast calls from a reporting exercise into a collaborative, insightful discussion that’s grounded in real customer interactions.

One of the most profound impacts of revenue AI has been the sense of connection it’s bolstered across Sprout Social’s revenue teams and with customers. The customer interaction data powering in Gong’s sales engagement solution, called Gong Engage, gives us a direct line to the voice of the customer and insights we wouldn’t likely spot ourselves. As a leader, that means I can answer questions at the heart of our business, particularly our connections: 

The answers are now readily accessible, thanks to revenue AI. 

This constant and easy access to insights has deepened alignment across our product, marketing, and sales teams. We now have a much tighter feedback loop that’s based on the voice of our customers. With revenue AI, I feel more connected to our team and our customers than I have in my career.

Now when I’m involved in conversations about Gong, I’m the one singing its praises. The Gong Revenue AI Platform has truly changed the way I approach my work as a CRO. It’s armed me with incredible insights and given me a deeper understanding of what’s happening on my team and for the buyers we serve.

You don’t really understand Gong until you experience it. Once you do, you can never go back.