Why CSOs Need to Increase Their AI Literacy to Stay Competitive
AI is playing an increasingly integrated role in sales, and it comes with its own language. As the technology becomes more embedded and integral to how sales teams win, nurture, and close leads, AI-related jargon and buzzwords are spreading fast.
To earn a meaningful seat at the table in discussions about AI-driven sales tools, sales leaders must strengthen their AI literacy. Without it, they risk ceding influence to IT—teams that may excel technically but often lack insight into what sellers truly need to succeed.
For chief sales officers (CSOs), staying fluent in the language of AI isn’t optional. In fact, failing to build your AI literacy can lead to five major roadblocks that will limit your effectiveness, as well as your career growth.
Without AI Literacy, CSOs Will Struggle with These 5 Problems
To be an effective sales executive today, you can’t rely solely on your past learning and experience. AI has disrupted the sales landscape, and if you’re not ready for and informed about that shift, you compromise your executive job security. Here are five problems that will derail you if your AI literacy is lacking.
1. Falling for Vendor Hype without Achieving Results (H3)
Using AI in your sales team’s process is nonnegotiable. Teams that smartly, efficiently, and effectively integrate AI outpace teams that ignore or underutilize these tools. It’s like using the internet vs. an encyclopedia. You’ll arrive at the answer either way, but one path is faster than the other.
But here’s the challenge.
You know that hitting your revenue metrics depends on these tools. But without solid AI literacy, they risk rushing into tool adoption, fearing they’ll fall behind if they don’t implement one, rather than making a reasoned, informed decision.
As the 10/10 GTM podcast explains, “You might assume an AI SDR [sales development representative] will solve your pipeline problem, so you rush to implement one. But if you haven’t identified why prospecting is broken in the first place—bad targeting? messaging? handoffs?—then AI won’t fix it. It’ll just automate the mess.”
Enhance Your AI Literacy with Gartner’s Expert Insights
To deepen your AI literacy and sharpen your strategic edge, explore Gartner’s complimentary report, A CSO’s Guide to Navigate AI Buzzwords. It’s available for a limited time, so secure your copy now before it’s too late.
Like in any industry, AI vendors use their own language. That includes buzzwords, acronyms, and jargon. During demos or discovery, they might throw around terms such as agentic AI, RAG, composite AI without fully explaining them.
A Harvard Business School article explores this danger: “Many organizations are overly focused on recruiting external AI experts while neglecting to train and upskill their current employees. This gap can create a two-tiered workforce: one that knows and understands how to work with AI and another that lags behind.”
As a CSO, a lack of AI literacy can put you in that workforce that “lags behind.” When you don’t know the exact functionality, capability, and use cases for the AI tool you’re approving, you could end up with a costly tech stack that sounds impressive but fails to deliver measurable sales outcomes.
2. Losing Authority and Credibility without AI Literacy
A recent Gartner report highlights how CEOs perceive CSOs’ AI literacy. According to the findings, 54% of CSOs were viewed by CEOs as lacking or weak in terms of AI readiness. And only 13% of CSOs were viewed as skilled in the necessary knowledge for an AI-transformed world.
Those perceptions have career-impacting consequences.
When conversations around AI involve CIOs, CTOs, and vendors, the dialog can get highly technical and jargon-heavy. If you can’t demonstrate your AI literacy, that perception of weakness can quickly erode CEO confidence in your leadership.
That’s when you begin to lose your voice in key decisions about tech adoption. That limits your ability to lead and support your frontline sellers. It also reduces your influence over the very tools that drive the sales outcomes by which you’re judged.
This isn’t just about learning some new buzzwords. It’s about preserving your influence over the sales process and your organization’s digital transformation.
3. Trouble Translating AI Literacy into Measurable Sales Metrics (H3)
Once you start looking into different tools, you’ll quickly notice that many AI terms are framed in highly technical, industry-specific language. Unless you work closely with AI, you probably won’t understand the nuanced difference between diffusion models and vector databases.
Without investing time and energy to strengthen your AI literacy, these terms and concepts will remain abstract. That makes it difficult to connect the dots and understand how these AI features affect success metrics such as revenue growth, pipeline health, and seller productivity.
Take agentic AI as one example. It’s easy to get excited about its potential. But as revenue leadership stalwart Mark Roberge cautions, “Recognize the transformative potential of AI in GTM, but don’t get caught up in the hype cycle. … Be proactive yet cautious.”
If you don’t understand agentic AI’s capabilities and limitations, you can’t predict how that tool will impact the metrics on which your job performance and bonus structure are based.
4. Overlooking Costly Risks
One complicating factor is that many AI features or concepts sound similar or overlap in functionality. Think AI agents vs. AI assistants, grounding vs. retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and composite AI vs. embedded AI.
Without a solid grasp of these AI terms, you may make decisions and investments based on faulty assumptions. That can lead to costly mistakes, such as:
- Publishing incorrect or fabricated information due to LLM hallucinations. For example, OpenAI “found their o3 model hallucinated 33% of the time during its PersonQA tests … When asked short fact-based questions in the company’s SimpleQA tests, OpenAI said o3 hallucinated 51% of the time.” Failing to account for these pitfalls can be embarrassing, costly, or even disastrous for your organization.
- Exposing your organization to data security risks associated with public GPTs.
- Introducing bias into foundational models or training data sets.
- Falling victim to hidden costs tied to AI tools or feature add-ons.
5. Becoming Dependent on IT and Vendors
Imagine you’re sitting in an executive team meeting. You’re discussing how best to approach the influx of AI-powered tools, each vendor making bold claims about growing your business. These tools directly affect your sales organization, but your CEO doesn’t ask for your input. They look right past you and talk to the CIO instead.
Without strong AI literacy, that scenario quickly becomes reality. If you can’t challenge or question AI tools with authority and confidence, decision-making shifts to those who can:
- Your internal IT team
- Your CTO or CIO
- Vendor reps
Without adequate AI literacy, you’ll depend on others to guide critical discussions. You lose your autonomy and control in tech decision-making.
Improve Your AI Literacy for Job Security Now … and Down the Line
With AI evolving at breakneck speed, you must be well-versed in AI’s foundational language. Having strong AI literacy ensures you can adapt and speak the language as the technology changes.
Building AI literacy keeps you in the loop—now and in the future—about the tools your sales team needs to succeed. Staying uninformed, however, means losing your power in the decision-making process and, eventually, your voice in the overall strategic direction of sales operations.
Frequently Asked Questions About Building AI Literacy for Sales Leaders
What is AI literacy, and why does it matter for CSOs?
Answer: AI literacy refers to understanding how artificial intelligence works, what it can and can’t do, and how to apply it effectively within your organization.
For chief sales officers (CSOs), AI literacy means being able to evaluate tools intelligently, interpret AI-driven data accurately, and make informed decisions that align technology investments with revenue outcomes. Without it, sales leaders risk losing influence to technical departments and making misguided tech choices.
How can improving my AI literacy impact sales performance?
Answer: Stronger AI literacy helps you identify where AI adds real value to your sales process, whether that’s prospecting, forecasting, or coaching. It enables you to separate vendor hype from true innovation, leading to smarter investments, more productive sellers, and more predictable pipeline growth. In short, AI literacy translates directly into more efficient selling and stronger results.
What are the first steps to becoming more AI literate as a sales executive?
Answer: Start by developing a working vocabulary of core AI concepts, such as agentic AI, RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), and composite AI. Next, explore how these technologies fit into your go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Engage your IT counterparts in conversations, not to get technical, but to align on outcomes. Finally, invest in ongoing education through curated reports, thought leadership, or cross-functional workshops focused on AI in sales.
How can I evaluate whether an AI sales tool is truly effective?
Answer: Use your AI literacy to ask three key questions:
- What specific sales challenge does this tool address?
- How does its AI model generate insights or recommendations?
- Can we measure ROI in terms of pipeline growth, conversion rate, or productivity?
If a vendor can’t answer those clearly, the tool may not align with your business needs. AI literacy ensures you approach every investment with informed skepticism and strategic focus.
How can CSOs maintain AI literacy as the technology keeps evolving?
Answer: AI is changing fast, so growing your AI literacy must be continuous. Follow reputable sources such as Gartner, Harvard Business Review, and leading sales enablement firms for updates. Regularly review new AI tools in partnership with IT and data teams, and encourage your frontline sales managers to share insights from daily use. Treat AI literacy not as a one-time skill, but as a core leadership competency that evolves alongside your sales strategy.
Enhance Your AI Literacy with Gartner’s Expert Insights
To deepen your AI literacy and sharpen your strategic edge, explore Gartner’s complimentary report, A CSO’s Guide to Navigate AI Buzzwords. It’s available for a limited time, so secure your copy now before it’s too late.
About the author: Erik Fowler is Chief Revenue and Operating Officer of Allego where he is responsible for the company’s customer acquisition and sales goals. He has 20 years of sales leadership experience, focused on maximizing sales opportunities through strategic planning, streamlined sales processes, and strong marketing and sales alignment.
