## Sentiment on AI Sales Role-Play / AI Customer Avatar Tools The quote you gave is the **exact opening post** of a Reddit thread in r/sales titled ["Has anyone tried an AI role-playing simulator for selling?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/17kkjze/has_anyone_tried_an_ai_roleplaying_simulator_for/) (posted by u/DARROW221, Oct 31, 2023; ~11 votes, 24 comments). Here's the sentiment I found across that thread and a closely related one. ### Thread 1 — "Has anyone tried an AI role-playing simulator for selling?" Overall tone: **curious but skeptical / lighthearted**. Nobody in the visible comments reported actually using such a tool — most just wanted to know which tool it was. - **Skeptical / dismissive:** u/hi-drnick — *"So I can be turned down by an AI? Nah I'm good"* — captures the "why would I want more rejection" pushback. - **Curious, wants the tool name:** *"Well.. spill it, what's the AI called?"* and *"I would like to know as well"* — the OP never named the tool, which frustrated the thread. - **Playful / comparing it to a game:** u/SnooChickens9574 — *"Might sound like fun, there's an update for this game where you talk to people and you're supposed to make friends or something."* - **"Big vendor should build this":** u/2timeBiscuits — *"Gong should hop on this"* (i.e., the market leader in sales-call analytics should add it). ### Thread 2 — "Realistic Roleplays for Cold/Discovery Calls with AI" A related r/sales thread where someone building such a tool asked for feedback. Sentiment here is **more constructive/positive about the concept, but with clear caveats**: - **Inevitable market:** u/astillero — *"It is inevitable that a product like this is going to come to the market at some stage."* - **Feedback is the make-or-break feature:** *"Management will not buy a tool like this on its own — they see **feedback** as being the most important element. So this element needs to be incorporated into the product from the get-go."* - **Resistance risk:** *"for some salespeople being subjected to speak to a robot is going to offend them... I've heard some salespeople say they would leave a company if they were subjected to compulsory role-play exercises."* He suggests a "designed by salespeople for salespeople" framing. - **Realism matters:** the builder (u/CommandShrimp14) emphasized lifelike voice, low latency, customizable buyer persona (voice, age, attitude), and metrics like talk-to-listen ratio and filler-word usage. ### Bottom line Sentiment is **mixed-to-cautiously-positive**: reps are intrigued by the idea of practicing without burning real prospects, but the dominant reactions are (1) skepticism about practicing against a robot ("turned down by an AI"), (2) a demand for *real feedback/coaching* rather than just a chatbot, and (3) concern that forced role-play can feel insulting to experienced reps. No commenter in the visible thread reported a strong hands-on success story. **Sources opened:** - [r/sales — "Has anyone tried an AI role-playing simulator for selling?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/17kkjze/has_anyone_tried_an_ai_roleplaying_simulator_for/) (via its RSS feed, since the HTML page was bot-blocked) - [r/sales — "Realistic Roleplays for Cold/Discovery Calls with AI"](https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/1bfeu7i/realistic_roleplays_for_colddiscovery_calls_with/) (via RSS feed) *Note: Reddit's HTML and JSON endpoints were blocked by anti-bot protection, so I retrieved the thread text through Reddit's public Atom/RSS feeds. The RSS feed returned the top comments but truncated the full comment list, so a few of the 24 comments on the first thread may not be reflected above.*