Will AI replace Sales Engineers?
AI reaches a large part of this job’s work.
55/100
High exposure
More exposed to AI than 86% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 27% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 77% of the work
What the job involves
Sell business goods or services, the selling of which requires a technical background equivalent to a baccalaureate degree in engineering.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(6)
- Develop, present, or respond to proposals for specific customer requirements, including request for proposal responses and industry-specific solutions.
- Collaborate with sales teams to understand customer requirements, to promote the sale of company products, and to provide sales support.
- Confer with customers and engineers to assess equipment needs and to determine system requirements.
- Research and identify potential customers for products or services.
- Document account activities, generate reports, and keep records of business transactions with customers and suppliers.
and 1 more
Within reach(13)
- Keep informed on industry news and trends, products, services, competitors, relevant information about legacy, existing, and emerging technologies, and the latest product-line developments.
- Create sales or service contracts for products or services.
- Prepare and deliver technical presentations that explain products or services to customers and prospective customers.
- Plan and modify product configurations to meet customer needs.
- Maintain sales forecasting reports.
and 8 more
Out of reach(6)
- Visit prospective buyers at commercial, industrial, or other establishments to show samples or catalogs, and to inform them about product pricing, availability, and advantages.
- Attend trade shows and seminars to promote products or to learn about industry developments.
- Attend company training seminars to become familiar with product lines.
- Sell products requiring extensive technical expertise and support for installation and use, such as material handling equipment, numerical-control machinery, or computer systems.
- Arrange for demonstrations or trial installations of equipment.
and 1 more
Also called
Business Development Engineer · Inside Sales Engineer · Sales Applications Engineer · Sales Engineer · Technical Marketing Engineer · Nuclear Equipment Sales Engineer · Product Sales Engineer · Technical Sales Engineer
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What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics