November 23, 2025 | Read online
Everyone bought AI notetakers. They Didn’t Fix the Real Problem
by Kevin 'KD' Dorsey
Revenue still flat. Quota still missed. Something ain’t adding up.
Let’s ask a hard-truth question:
If AI notetakers made us smarter…
Why are GTM teams still missing target?
Over the past 7 years, AI notetakers have delivered:
- More transcripts
- More “insights”
- More auto-summaries
And yet—execution problems inside revenue orgs?
Still look exactly the same.
Feels like we’re stuck on year one of a seven-year plan.
AI notetakers did some things right.
Not anti-notetaker, to be clear.
They helped us:
- Stay more present in calls
- Coach with data (talk ratios, objection handling)
- Surface customer pain trends
If you remember selling before call recordings… You never want to go back.
But increased visibility only solves one type of problem.
Scaling revenue systems? That takes something else.
The Industry Got It Backwards.
Somewhere along the way, we bought into: “More insights = more revenue.”
That’s not strategy. That’s just surveillance.
Because here’s the truth:
Insights don’t update Salesforce.
Insights don’t fix sloppy CS handoffs.
Insights don’t trigger churn alerts.
Insights don’t save reps 20+ hours a month.
We assumed:
“If we see more, we’ll do better.”
But the problem has never been visibility.
The problem is execution—at scale.
Especially once you grow past 20, 50, 100+ employees.
Where AI Notetakers Fall Short
Pattern I see in every org:
AI notetaker records the convo…
But all the follow-through? Still manual.
Reps are still:
- Writing notes + recap emails
- Updating CRM fields (until they don’t)
- Building handoffs from scratch
Managers are still:
- Guessing deal health
- Coaching with incomplete context
- Chasing missing data
CS is still:
- Repeating discovery questions during onboarding
- Digging through notes to figure out what actually happened
And here’s the quiet truth:
Even if your insights are fire… You won’t scale if humans are still doing all the work.
The Cost of Not Fixing This
If manual execution is the backbone of your GTM motion:
- Deals slip
- Reps burn out
- Coaching stays reactive
- Sales cycles crawl
- Handoffs degrade
- Onboarding feels random
- Expansion feels lucky
And as the company grows, so do the cracks.
This isn’t a talent problem. This isn’t a motivation problem.
This is a systems problem.
And revenue outcomes always reflect the quality of the system they run on.
The Next Evolution: Automated Action
High-growth teams eventually realize: You can’t brute-force your way to $100M+.
Manual execution can’t sustain what modern teams are chasing:
- Shorter cycles
- Higher win rates
- Smoother onboarding
- Predictable retention
The fix isn’t better dashboards. It’s not more coaching.
The fix is automating the action layer.
What’s That Look Like?
AskElephant is the tool I wish I had when I ran teams.
It doesn’t just take notes. It takes action.
Here’s the game-changer - AskElephant turns conversations into workflows:
- CRM updates
- Churn alerts
- Sales-to-CS handoffs
- Follow-up sequences
Fully automated. No human lift.
It plugs into your stack: Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Asana. And here’s the kicker—AskElephant’s team builds your AI agents for you.
Not just software. Service.
Discover your next automation wins
Final Thought
Call recording made us smarter.
But smarter ≠ sold.
Visibility was step one. Now it’s time for step two.
Execution wins.
Systems win.
Let’s go win.
KD
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