What an AI-native AE actually does all day | Airspeed
01 · DEEP DIVE
What an AI-native AE actually does all day
There's a lot of talk about what AI means for sales teams, most of it written by people who don't carry a quota. So instead of adding another opinion piece to the pile, we asked one of our own. Alex Slaney is an Account Executive at Airspeed, working multi-stakeholder enterprise deals every week. Here's what changed in his actual Tuesday mornings, not in theory.
The first thing he mentioned wasn't a feature. It was a nagging feeling that disappeared: that Sunday-night background noise of knowing you might have missed something in one of your deals, without knowing what. Now his follow-ups are done two minutes after each call ends, and he trusts his own pipeline. He knows what's in it, why, and what needs to happen next.
His mornings start with a prep report that's already done the triage. This week it flagged a hard blocker on a big enterprise deal, a security sign-off holding up a POV, and that went straight to the top of the list, instead of drifting to easier tasks first.
And on a recent three-stakeholder deal, the MEDDPICC updated automatically after one call and flagged what would have been easy to let slide: the CRO preferred a competitor he'd used before, and the champion had delivered the classic line: nobody gets fired for picking the market leader. It also caught the renewal notice window on the incumbent's contract. Alex armed his champion, got to the CRO early with a strategy rather than a feeling, and won the deal.
“The one thing AI will never do in sales is earn trust from the buyer. What AI did was give me the time and clarity to be fully present in the conversations that built it.”
ALEX SLANEY · ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE, AIRSPEED
That's what AI-native selling looks like from the inside. Not fewer humans in the deal, better prepared ones. The full interview covers inherited accounts, reading the room on a sceptical stakeholder, and why pipeline reviews stop being theatre.
03 · WHAT’S COMING UP
Upcoming Events
15 JUL
GTM Dinner · San Francisco
20 senior GTM leaders, off the record. Candid conversations about what's actually working in B2B revenue in 2026.22 JUL
Webinar: Your Sales Forecast Is Lying to You
Wednesday · Live conversation on why forecasts keep missing and what the fix actually looks like.5 AUG
GTM Dinner · Boston
Off-the-record dinner for 20 GTM leaders. Real conversation about pipeline, AI, and what's next for sales.19 AUG
Pavilion Exec August Drinks · London
A summer evening with Pavilion Exec members on the Lighterman terrace. Bubbles on arrival, burgers later. No agenda, just good people.
04 · REFER & EARN
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05 · IN THE PRESS
POD
Adam on The AI Revolution Show with Alex Theuma Adam Liska on AI-native GTM, vibe coding, and revenue execution: why dashboards create knowledge but rarely drive execution, why reliability beats peak model performance, and why humans will work alongside agents instead of being replaced by them.