A Guide for Sales Leaders Navigating Real Value vs. Agent-Washing

AI agents are generating enormous excitement in the enterprise — especially for sales teams seeking scalable automation, intelligent decision support, and better alignment with buyers. But with all the noise, how do you separate signal from hype?

Gartner® warns that the rise of agentic AI is being met with opportunistic positioning: “Many vendors are contributing to the hype by engaging in ‘agent washing,’ rebranding existing products, such as AI assistants, RPA tools and chatbots, to capture buyers’ attention without substantial agentic capabilities.”

This explosion of vendor activity has created what Gartner® calls “a fragmented market landscape that is hard to navigate.” But we feel, for those who understand how to evaluate platforms and align them to meaningful use cases, the opportunity is significant.

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WhatIs an AI Agent — and Why Should You Care?

According to Gartner®, “AI agents are autonomous or semiautonomous software entities that use AI techniques to perceive, make decisions, take actions and achieve goals in their digital or physical environments.”

That’s a big step up from rules-basedworkflows or basic automation. Done right, AI agents can help sales teams:

• Automate follow-ups and forecasting
• Recommend next best actions based on buyer signals
• Generate content or proposals tailored to deal context
• Collaborate with humans as adaptive teammates, not just tools

But the key phrase is “done right.”

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Build it Yourself: Possible, but Painful

Technically, you can develop your own AI agents. Gartner® states: “It is possible to build AI agents from scratch, manually integrating different components like AI models and code libraries. However, this requires a high level of expertise and is both challenging and time-consuming for most organizations.”

For most sales orgs, building internally will mean:

• Hiring specialized AI and engineering talent
• Owning the infrastructure, training, and orchestration
• Struggling with reliability, compliance, and integration across CRM, deal desk, and RevOps systems

This route might make more sense if you're a tech giant with a mature AI team and highly custom needs. But for most revenue organizations, it's more efficient--and strategic--to buy.

Buy: Smarter, If You Vet Carefully

The good news? The market is full of platforms that promise to bring AI agents to life for sales.

The challenge? Many of those platforms aren’t actually agentic.

Gartner® describes the space as “a fragmented market landscape that is hard to navigate.” And while “LLM-basedagents are the most visible part of the market,” they caution that “they are not the only way to build AI agents.”

That means sales leaders must be skeptical and discerning. Ask these questions when evaluating vendors:

• Does the solution act autonomously, or is it a glorified assistant?
• Can the agent make context-aware decisions — or is it just regurgitating text from an LLM?
• Does it integrate deeply into your systems (CRM, enablement, etc.) to take action — or just chat?
• Is the agent trained, personalized, and refined for your sales motion — or generic?

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Start Small, Prove Value

Gartner® recommends a phased, grounded approach: “Minimize uncertainty in proving business value by initially focusing on low-risk pilot use cases that deliver tangible business outcomes before committing to significant investments and organization-wide rollouts.”

In other words - don't get sold on a slick demo alone. Ensure the vendor provides a true agentic solution (with a brain) and start with a targeted use case like:

• Deal qualification and opportunity scoring
• Auto-generated account research and meeting preparation
• Drafting and maintaining stakeholder maps and solution documents using real-time deal data
• Proactively suggesting deal actions

True agents will do meaningful work alongside your sellers, not create extra admin work or mindlessly automate tasks.

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Avoid the Hype Train

Gartner® saw a 750% increase in AI-agent-related inquiries between the second and fourth quarters of 2024, with Agentic AI becoming one of the biggest trends of the year.

But don’t confuse market excitement with maturity. “The current use is mostly experimental, and only a few AI agents are in production that provide significant business value," Gartner® cautions.

For sales leaders, that’s the cue to stay sharp. Focus on vendors that:

• Clearly define what their agent is and does
• Show evidence of outcomes in organizations like yours
• Fit your workflows without excessive lift or risk
• Empower your team to do more, not just automate what you already have

AI agents are coming. Whether they help your team or slow you down depends entirely on the choices you make today.

Source:

Gartner, Innovation Insight for the AI Agent Platform Landscape, Leinar Ramos, Gabriel Rigon, et al. 26 March 2025.

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