Understanding AI-enabled transformations in sales processes: A socio-technical perspective on the generative mechanisms underlying tensions

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into business-to-business (B2B) sales processes reshapes sales tasks and the governance of sales work. While existing sales research provides a thorough understanding of task-level outcomes and the performance benefits of AI in sales, less is known about the broader organizational dynamics of AI-enabled transformations in sales processes. Drawing on socio-technical systems (STS) theory, this study presents a process-oriented understanding of AI-enabled transformations in sales by examining how AI reshapes sales task execution and managerial governance within B2B sales processes. Based on 31 expert interviews with B2B sales practitioners and sales academics, we identify six interrelated socio-technical tensions that unfold across the pre-sales, sales, and post-sales phases of the sales process. Moving beyond a descriptive categorization of tensions, we theorize six socio-technical mechanisms: data institutionalization, recursive sensemaking, standardization of customer interactions, sensemaking asymmetries, role reclassification, and legitimation of expertise that explain how these tensions emerge and reshape sales tasks and governance.