The AI Revolution in Sales: Instantly.ai’s Liam Collins on Why GTM Engineering Is the Future

Exclusive: Head of Performance reveals how AI agents and automation are transforming outbound sales, predicting smaller teams and the rise of a new discipline.

The sales industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation, driven by artificial intelligence and automation tools that are eliminating the research bottleneck that has plagued sales teams for decades.

At the forefront of this revolution is Instantly.ai’s, a platform that’s reimagining how sales teams identify prospects, conduct research, and launch outbound campaigns.

In an exclusive interview, Liam Collins, Head of Performance at Instantly.ai’s, shared his insights on the seismic changes happening in the sales landscape and why traditional sales teams as we know them are about to change dramatically.

The 70% Problem: Research Is Killing Sales Productivity

According to Collins, one of the biggest challenges facing sales organizations today is the time spent on activities that aren’t actually selling.

“Roughly 70% of a sales admin role is pure research or administrative work,” Collins revealed. “Think about that - three-quarters of someone’s job is gathering information, verifying data, building lists, updating CRMs. Only a quarter is actual selling. That’s a massive inefficiency that the industry has just accepted as ‘the way things are.’”

The problem, Collins explains, begins even before campaigns launch. “One of the biggest challenges we’re seeing - and this is consistent across industries - is selecting the right target accounts and identifying the correct buyer personas,” he said. “Teams are spending an enormous amount of time, weeks sometimes, just doing the groundwork. And that’s time they’re not actually selling.”

Before launching any outbound campaign, sales teams have traditionally invested significant resources into research: scouring LinkedIn profiles, cross-referencing company data, building lists manually, and verifying contact information. By the time the research is complete, opportunities have often already passed.

Automation Meets Intelligence: A New Paradigm

The solution, according to Collins, lies in automating these research tasks using platforms like Instantly.ai and Clay.

“We’re at an inflection point where we can actually automate these research tasks,” Collins explained. “This isn’t just about making things a little faster - it’s about fundamentally reimagining the workflow. Sales teams can now build the right lists with the right contacts in a fraction of the time.”

What sets Instantly.ai apart is its conversational interface, which allows users to interact with the platform using natural language, similar to ChatGPT.

“At Instantly, we’ve built the platform so users can literally speak with the tool,” Collins said. “You can ask questions, request specific prospect lists, refine your targeting criteria, and the tool helps automate the entire research process. It understands context and learns from your feedback.”

He added: “Nobody wants to navigate through seventeen dropdown menus to build a prospect list. They want to say, ‘Show me CMOs at B2B SaaS companies in the healthcare space who raised Series B funding in the last six months.’ Natural language is intuitive.”

AI Agents and the Rise of GTM Engineering

Perhaps the most significant development Collins highlighted is the integration of AI agents into sales workflows, enabled by platforms like n8n.

“Instantly is built from the ground up so that AI agents can be integrated seamlessly,” Collins explained. “Now with platforms like n8n, teams can basically do all their campaign planning, and AI agents handle the automation. Instantly integrates directly with n8n, which allows teams to create sophisticated automation for prospecting.”

Collins described autonomous systems where AI agents monitor trigger events, research companies and contacts, build personalized sequences, and optimize send times based on engagement data - all without human intervention.

This capability has given rise to what Collins calls “GTM Engineering” - a new discipline that’s transforming sales operations.

“GTM Engineering is essentially the practice of creating wireframes for campaigns and mapping out entire industries with an engineering mindset,” he said. “A GTM Engineer designs the blueprint - which industries to target, what the ideal customer profile looks like, what the buyer journey is, how different touchpoints connect. Then AI agents and automation execute that blueprint at scale.”

Collins describes this as “a new discipline that sits at the intersection of sales strategy, data science, and marketing automation.”

The Uncomfortable Truth: Smaller Sales Teams Are Coming

Collins didn’t shy away from addressing the implications of this transformation: sales teams are going to get smaller.

“The role of the seller is fundamentally changing, and we need to be honest about it,” he stated. “Sales teams are going to become smaller. When 70% of sales admin work is research or administrative tasks, and those tasks can now be done with AI and automation, the math is pretty straightforward.”

He continued: “AI agents will be able to perform all these tasks more accurately and more efficiently than humans. So yes, we’re going to start seeing smaller sales teams. That makes some people uncomfortable, but it’s the reality.”

However, Collins is quick to emphasize that this doesn’t diminish the importance of human salespeople.

“I still firmly believe that people buy from people,” he insisted. “AI can handle research, qualification, even initial outreach. But it can’t build genuine relationships. It can’t read the room on a discovery call. It can’t navigate complex organizational politics or pick up on subtle objections that aren’t being stated directly.”

The difference, Collins argues, is in how salespeople spend their time. “Instead of spending 70% of their time on admin work, they’ll spend 100% of their time actually selling. The teams will be smaller, but they’ll be more effective. And honestly, the job becomes more rewarding when you’re doing what you’re actually good at - connecting with people and solving problems.”

No-Code Platforms: The Great Equalizer

Collins is particularly bullish on the democratization happening through no-code platforms, which he sees as opening new career opportunities.

“I genuinely believe no-code platforms are the future,” he said. “Traditional engineering platforms - where you need to know Python or JavaScript to build automation - that era is coming to an end for most business applications.”

He highlighted the career implications: “The average employee who is looking to change their career now has an incredible opportunity. No-code gives them the ability to build sophisticated systems without a computer science degree.

You don’t need to spend four years learning to code. You need curiosity, strategic thinking, and a willingness to experiment.”

For companies, Collins sees no-code tools as force multipliers. “A marketing person can build powerful campaigns. A sales ops person can create custom automation workflows.

An account executive can personalize their outreach at scale,” he explained. “That’s a massive competitive advantage, especially for small and mid-sized companies that can’t afford large tech teams.”

Collins believes the winners in this space will be determined by ecosystem integration. “The platforms that will emerge strongest will be the ones with the best integrations. It’s not about being a walled garden - it’s about playing well with the entire ecosystem of tools that businesses use.”

Building for the Future: The Instantly.ai Approach

When asked about Instantly’s strategic positioning, Collins emphasized adaptability and user-centricity.

“We’re building to become the most adaptable platform in the space,” he said. “One key thing that sets us apart is that we’re scaling globally while keeping our roots firmly planted in user feedback. We’re not building features in a vacuum based on what we think the market needs. We’re having conversations every single day with the teams using our platform, and that directly informs our roadmap.”

Collins also revealed plans for the Instantly Academy, set to launch soon. “It’s going to be an open-source GTM content hub where sellers and organizations can access resources to improve their own outbound campaigns without the need for a GTM engineer,” he explained. “We’re not gatekeeping knowledge - we’re democratizing it. The more successful our users are, the more successful we are.”

The company has also prioritized partnerships with no-code platforms. “We’ve intentionally partnered with no-code platforms like n8n for deep integrations,” Collins said. “This isn’t just API connections - this is architectural integration that allows genuinely new workflows.”

Standing Out in a Competitive Landscape

When discussing competitors like Apollo and High Level, Collins was direct about Instantly’s differentiation.

“High Level is quite limited when it comes to outbound at scale,” he stated. “The quality that Instantly delivers, particularly with our auto-verification system, combined with our mission to enable anyone, anywhere in the world to sell, puts us ahead in the specific domain of cold outbound.”

He noted that Instantly recently introduced features for outbound on multiple channels, expanding beyond email into a comprehensive multi-channel prospecting system.

Regarding Apollo, Collins acknowledged them as a close competitor but highlighted key differences. “Where we differentiate is in the quality of our contact data and the sophistication of our automation,” he said. “We’ve invested heavily in outreach infrastructure and data accuracy because all the automation in the world is worthless if you’re reaching out to invalid email addresses or the wrong people.”

The Path Forward

As the interview concluded, Collins offered his vision for the future of sales.

“We’re at the beginning of a transformation, not the end,” he said. “The sales professionals who recognize this moment for what it is - an opportunity to evolve, to leverage AI as an amplifier rather than fear it as a replacement - will define the next era of go-to-market excellence.”

He summarized his vision: “GTM Engineering is the future. Sales teams augmented by AI agents, powered by no-code automation, and focused on the high-value human interactions that actually close deals - this is the competitive advantage of tomorrow.”

For Collins and Instantly.ai’s, the transformation is already underway. “At Instantly, we’re building the infrastructure for that future,” he concluded. “And I’ve never been more excited about what’s possible.”