AI is no longer confined to the back office; it is moving into the heart of sales and customer engagement.
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The future of work may belong to employees who are brave enough to automate themselves out of a job. That is the provocative vision of Amanda Kahlow, serial entrepreneur and founder of the AI company 1mind. She believes companies should reward workers who build AI agents capable of taking over their roles. Far from a dystopian nightmare, she sees this as the path to growth, efficiency, and greater human potential.
“Imagine if our employees replace themselves fully. If you replace yourself by building an agent that does everything you do, and does it better, we will forward vest your equity,” she told me. “Then you can go work on something else and still have your payday at the end with 1mind.”
This flips the traditional fear narrative on its head. Instead of worrying that AI will eliminate jobs, Kahlow suggests giving people an incentive to lead their own replacement. The reward is freedom to innovate, to grow in new directions, and to benefit from the company’s success.
Enter The AI Superhumans
The vision is bold, and it is backed by tangible results. At 1mind, Kahlow and her team have created what they call “go-to-market superhumans.” These are emotionally intelligent AI agents that combine a face, a voice, and a digital sales brain. Unlike conventional chatbots that can only handle basic scripts, these superhumans can qualify leads, pitch products, answer complex technical questions, and even close deals.
“They meet buyers across multiple channels, they can be on the website, they can answer questions, they can qualify,” Kahlow explained. “Think of it as a human-like qualifying chatbot that also gives the pitch and answers the really tough technical questions.”
The results are eye-catching. HubSpot, one of 1mind’s early customers, saw a 25 percent increase in paid conversions from trials after deploying one of these superhumans. That means more prospects moving from interest to revenue without a human salesperson in the loop.
The appeal for companies is obvious. Sales development representatives and junior sales staff often act as gatekeepers before prospects are passed to account executives. The experience is inconsistent, and from a customer’s perspective, it can be frustrating. An AI superhuman can skip these hurdles and go straight to meaningful conversations. As Kahlow put it, “Our goal is to create a better experience. We believe these superhumans provide an exponentially better experience for the buyer, and if we do that, everybody wins.”
The End Of The Old Playbooks
The disruptive potential of AI superhumans raises hard questions for leaders. What happens when machines can do most sales tasks better than people? Kahlow is clear in her view. “Most,” she replied when I asked what sales tasks AI can and should replace today. “Everything from qualifying, pitching, doing true solution selling, negotiating in real time. These are difficult tasks for humans, but we can teach superhumans to do this in a way that is actually more empathetic than a human.”
That last point is striking. We tend to think of empathy as uniquely human, yet AI can be trained to mirror and project empathy in highly effective ways. This allows organizations to deliver the kind of personalized, responsive engagement that even the best salespeople struggle to replicate at scale.
Of course, there is unease. Entire layers of the sales profession risk being automated away. But Kahlow does not shy away from that. “There will be short-term disruption,” she admitted. “The most humane thing we can do is to share what is really coming and not say, oh, it is just going to augment. There will be new skills that you need to learn and new jobs to go into.”
Why Incentivizing Self-Replacement Makes Sense
The boldest part of Kahlow’s vision is not just the technology, but the culture shift she advocates. She wants CEOs to create systems that reward employees for building the AI agents that could replace them. In practice, this could mean vesting stock options earlier, granting additional equity, or moving the employee into a new, higher-value role once their old job has been automated.
“It has to be better,” she said. “Even our superhumans cannot be just as good as the salespeople, because if they are just as good, nobody is going to buy it. It has to be ten times better.” If employees create an AI agent that is ten times better than themselves, why should they be punished by losing their jobs? Why not reward them and unleash their talents on the next challenge?
This kind of thinking challenges some of the deepest assumptions about work. Traditionally, careers have been defined by protecting one’s role and guarding expertise. In an AI-driven world, the most valuable employees may be those who automate their old jobs out of existence.
What Remains Human
So what is left for people to do if AI can sell, pitch, negotiate, and onboard? For Kahlow, the answer lies in the qualities that are hardest to replicate. “The empathy side,” she explained. “I am trying to build that into the superhuman, but they do not actually have it. They just mirror it. I do not think they will ever have the empathy that we have and the feelings that we have in the heart that we have. Humans can go back to being more heart-centered.”
This focus on heart and empathy comes directly from her own journey. After building 6sense into a multibillion-dollar company, Kahlow stepped away to become a mother. She adopted her first child, then had another through a long and difficult IVF process. “Being a mom made me ten times better,” she said. “I am so much more efficient. I am a better leader. I have more compassion for my team and empathy for what they are going through.”
It is a reminder that technology may replace tasks, but the essence of human connection remains vital. If anything, freeing people from repetitive roles may allow them to be more present, more empathetic, and more creative.
A Different Kind Of Leadership
Kahlow also makes no secret of her ambition. She wants to be among the rare women founders who take a company all the way to ringing the bell on a public listing. Her mission is to empower women and girls by showing that it can be done. “Deep in my soul, I know it to be true,” she said. “That is how you manifest things. You have to believe it with positive emotion and positive intention, and that is how we create things in this world.”
Whether one believes in manifesting or not, there is no doubt that conviction matters. In a world where technology is rewriting the rules, leaders need not only vision but also the courage to challenge assumptions. Incentivizing employees to replace themselves with AI may sound unsettling, but it is exactly the kind of radical thinking that prepares businesses for the future.
Rethinking The Future Of Work
AI superhumans are not science fiction. They are already increasing conversion rates, answering technical questions, and closing deals. The companies that embrace them are seeing immediate results. The next step is cultural. Leaders must decide how to reward the employees who harness AI to do their jobs better than ever before, even if that means making themselves redundant.
Instead of fearing AI, the question becomes, how can organizations turn self-replacement into a pathway for growth? If they get the incentives right, employees will not be displaced; they will be liberated to innovate and create new value.
As Kahlow put it, “How fun is it to live in a world where none of the playbooks and the rules apply anymore?” The companies that thrive will be those willing to rewrite the rules, even if it means asking their people to build the AI that replaces them.
