OFFICE TECH & AI – The Buyer Has a Machine Now, Too

In the “olden days,” we walked into an account knowing more than the prospect. We knew the speeds and feeds, the lease ex-dates, the service costs, and the components of the monthly payment.

All the buyer knew was that the old device jammed Friday afternoon, the invoice “never matched” the quote, and the office manager had stopped believing the service promise sometime around the third callback.

That conversation has evolved, especially in this new AI/LLM world.

I wonder how many prospects are using AI now, and how much that changes the sale.

A quick look at the research reveals a few interesting points. Our prospects, especially the SMBs, may not have a corporate AI policy, but the data says employees are already adopting and using LLMs.

The Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey showed U.S. business use of AI was modest in early 2024, rising from 3.7% in fall 2023 to 5.4% in February 2024. By spring 2025, The Washington Post reported that 8.7% of U.S. companies used AI to produce products and services between April 21 and May 4, 2025, up from 4.8% a year earlier. That is formal business use, like AI-driven CRMs or line-of-business applications. That is not the “I asked ChatGPT before the meeting” usage.

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