How can AI assist sales reps in quote generation? What makes sense, and what does not?

Here is how a quote gets built in most distribution businesses today: A request comes in by email, PDF, or spreadsheet. An inside sales rep reads it, matches each line to the right SKU, checks availability, applies that customer’s contract pricing, finds substitutes for anything short, and assembles the quote by hand. It works, but it’s slow, and a quote that sits too long is a quote you can lose.

Put AI in the workflow as an assistant, not a decision maker, and it can look very different. AI can:

1. Extract the line items and customer details from whatever format the request arrived in
2. Match messy descriptions and customer part numbers to your SKUs
3. Check availability and applies the right contract pricing
4. Draft the full quote and flags the lines it is not sure about

Then it stops and hands the work back. The rep reviews anything flagged, approves the substitutions and the final pricing, and sends it. AI handles around 80 percent of the work. The rep handles the 20 percent where experience actually matters.

Where exactly that line sits is the interesting question. Which calls should AI make, which should it always set up for a human, and who in your business gets to decide?

What AI should own, what stays human. TBD. This is on us.