Last Wednesday morning at the Gong Conference, I had the privilege of catching a talk by Erik Brynjolfsson from Stanford, one of the world's leading thinkers on how technology transforms economies.
His message was deceptively simple, but it reframed everything: AI is a General Purpose Technology (GPT), just like electricity or the internet before it.
And if history is any guide, that means we are not just looking at a new tool. We are looking at a fundamental reimagining of how work gets done.
Brynjolfsson reminded the room of something most people forget: electricity did not transform the world the moment it was invented.
The lightbulb was remarkable. But it was not the lightbulb that changed everything.
It was the reorientation of entire businesses around electricity. Factories that had been built around steam engines and waterwheels had to be redesigned from the ground up. Assembly lines were reconfigured. New roles were created. Old assumptions were thrown out.
The same pattern played out with the internet. The companies that won were not the ones that simply put up a website. They were the ones that rebuilt their operations, their customer experiences, and their business models around what the internet made possible.
AI is no different.
It is not about what AI will do to us. It is about what we will do with AI.
Brynjolfsson outlined three defining characteristics of General Purpose Technologies, and they are worth understanding:
1. They are pervasive. They touch every role, every function, every industry. AI is not just for engineers or data scientists. It is showing up in sales, marketing, operations, customer success, and beyond.
2. They improve over time. Machine learning models keep getting smarter. What feels cutting-edge today will feel table stakes tomorrow. The trajectory is upward, and it is accelerating.
3. They are combinatorial. The real magic happens when these technologies are combined with human creativity, judgment, and expertise. AI does not replace insight. It amplifies it.
That last point is the one that matters most.
The Industrial Revolution bent the curve of history because it did not just make things faster. It made entirely new things possible. AI has the same potential, but only if we are willing to rethink how we work around it.
At WingRep, this is exactly the challenge we are taking on.
We do not believe AI should replace your judgment. We believe it should amplify it.
That is why we are building the copilot for closers, a tool designed to help sales reps and leaders prepare, perform, and follow up like the best in the business through AI-powered coaching.
It is not about automation for the sake of automation. It is about giving reps the coaching they need to show up to every conversation sharper, more confident, and better equipped to create value for their customers.
And we are excited to be doing this work alongside partners like Gong. Their platform has already transformed how teams capture and learn from customer conversations. By integrating with Gong, we are building on that foundation to turn insights into action, helping reps not just understand what happened on a call, but how to prepare better for the next one.
Because in the age of AI, the reps who win will not be the ones who work the hardest. They will be the ones who work the smartest, backed by technology that helps them think, not just execute.
Brynjolfsson closed with a challenge that stuck with me: The real question is not whether AI will change the world. It is whether we will use it to go faster, or to go farther.
Going faster means doing the same things we have always done, just with less friction. Going farther means reimagining what is possible and building something better.
That is the opportunity in front of every sales team right now.
AI is not a trend. It is a General Purpose Technology, and like electricity before it, it will reshape entire industries. The companies that thrive will be the ones that stop asking "How do we add AI?" and start asking "How do we rebuild around it?"
At WingRep, we are committed to helping sales teams do exactly that.
Not just faster. Farther. 🚀
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