Will AI Replace Sales Jobs in Italy? Here’s What to Do in 2025

Salespeople in Italy need a clear playbook: this article answers whether AI will replace sales jobs in 2025, which roles are most exposed, and the concrete skills and employer moves that preserve value.

Italy's AI wave is already real - 63% of large firms have adopted or plan to adopt AI, a shift Minsait links to a potential €115 billion productivity uplift (Minsait AI adoption in Italy 2025 report) - and the domestic AI market is projected to double toward roughly €1.8 billion by 2027.

Consultants urge a measured, use-case-first approach because AI boosts efficiency but raises governance and skills gaps (see the AlixPartners AI adoption playbook for Italy).

Expect automation of routine admin and lead scoring, while relationship-building, local VAT/support knowledge and compliance stay human strengths; later sections show precise tools, role-by-role risk, and fast reskilling routes - including Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp: practical AI skills for business to learn prompts, workflows and practical AI across business functions.

Attribute	Details
Program	AI Essentials for Work
Length	15 Weeks
Courses	AI at Work: Foundations; Writing AI Prompts; Job Based Practical AI Skills
Cost	$3,582 (early bird) / $3,942 (afterwards); paid in 18 monthly payments
Syllabus	AI Essentials for Work syllabus
Register	AI Essentials for Work registration

“GenAI is definitely one of our clients' top technological priorities,” says Davide Antonazzo, highlighting both the efficiency gains and the need to manage risks and skills as adoption scales.

Short answer: AI will not wholesale replace sales jobs in Italy in 2025, but it will reshape them - automating routine admin, lead scoring and parts of outreach while amplifying the value of human judgement, relationships and local know‑how.

Large firms are already moving fast (Minsait finds 63% of large companies have adopted or plan to adopt AI), the domestic market is scaling quickly (from €909M in 2024 toward about €1.8B by 2027) and B2B evidence shows augmentation rather than replacement of agents, with tools freeing time for negotiation and trust‑building rather than taking over complex deals.

For IT‑minded sales teams the practical imperative is clear: get fluent with AI workflows and governance so tools handle the grind and people pour the right cup for each customer - that combination decides who becomes obsolete and who becomes indispensable.

Read the full Minsait analysis and the market projection for context, and see how B2B agents are using AI without being replaced.

Metric	Source / Value
Large companies adopting or planning AI	63% - Minsait (2025)
AI market size (2024 → 2027)	€909M → €1.802B - Anitec‑Assinform via Rinnovabili
Organisations using AI in ≥1 function	78% (McKinsey cited by IUCAB)
AI adoption: large enterprises vs SMEs	24.1% vs 7.7% - Rinnovabili

"Our goal is to amplify the voice of ICT companies that face market challenges daily. Their perspectives on frontier digital technologies, supported by data and empirical evidence, are a valuable asset for the entire country. To accelerate AI development, we need a strategy that integrates three key elements: fostering digital skills in education, enhancing advanced computing infrastructure, and strengthening public-private partnerships."

In Italian IT and B2B sales teams, AI is already rewiring workflows: personalization engines power dynamic websites and real‑time product recommendations while ML and NLP drive sentiment-aware chatbots that triage tickets and surface the most promising opportunities, and predictive analytics and automated lead lists compress hours of manual research into minutes.

The market scale makes this concrete - the Italy AI‑based personalization market was about $13.87B in 2024 and is forecast to grow toward $24.34B by 2035 - and high‑visibility pilots show the payoff: Ferrari's AWS‑backed configurator uses LLMs and recommendation services to let customers explore “millions of possible configurations,” cut configuration times by roughly 20%, and free salespeople to focus on negotiation and complex customization rather than form‑filling.

On the front lines, AI tools are being used for multichannel campaign orchestration, real‑time agent assist, and computer‑vision quality checks in automotive supply chains, while guides for AI‑driven lead building show how to combine data enrichment, scoring and multichannel outreach to lift conversion rates.

For Italian IT sales teams the practical pattern is clear: automate repeatable signals, keep humans on judgement and compliance, and deploy AI where scale and data create measurable gains (see the Italy personalization market report, Ferrari case study, and an AI lead‑building guide for steps to implement).

Metric	Value / Source
Italy AI personalization market (2024)	$13.87B - MarketResearchFuture
Forecast (2035)	$24.34B - MarketResearchFuture
Ferrari: reduced configuration time	~20% - AWS / Ferrari case study
Ferrari: faster simulations	Simulations run ~60% faster - AWS / Ferrari case study

“We can use generative AI to increase our productivity and make it simpler for our fans, dealers, and employees to have the best digital experiences with Ferrari.” - Silvia Gabrielli, Chief Digital and Data Officer, Ferrari

In Italy's IT sales landscape the most exposed roles are those built around repeatable, transactional work - junior inside sales, SDRs and quota-driven account managers whose daily grind is lead qualification, multichannel outreach and CRM updates - because those tasks map cleanly to AI-driven automation and campaign tools (see a practical list of AI multichannel sales automation tools for Italy (2025)).

By contrast, sales that wrap deep product engineering, field‑device integration or long pre‑sales cycles in industrial controls and factory automation stay more insulated: Italy's factory automation and ICS market is growing and dominated by specialist vendors whose deals demand technical credibility and bespoke solutions (examples of local players are collected in a directory of top automation companies in Italy).

The practical takeaway for IT sales teams: automate the routine, protect and invest in domain expertise for complex, technical deals where human judgement and on‑site knowledge still win.

Metric	Value (Source)
Italy Factory Automation & ICS Market (2025 est.)	USD 3.65 billion - Mordor Intelligence report: Italy factory automation & ICS market
Projected (2030)	USD 5.21 billion - Mordor Intelligence report: Italy factory automation & ICS market

“Some experts argue that A.I. is most likely to affect novice workers, whose tasks are generally simplest and therefore easiest to automate.”

AI can tidy up inboxes, score leads and surface patterns, but in Italy's IT sales the human edge still wins where emotions, trust and complex problem‑solving matter: targeted emotional‑intelligence training raised a national insurer's effective agents from 13% to a 61% peak and lifted sales 28% - a crisp reminder that empathy translates directly into revenue (Six Seconds emotional intelligence insurance case study).

Emotional AI and sentiment tools help contact centres triage and summarize, yet they struggle with the subtle cues and adaptive judgement needed for high‑stakes technical deals and sensitive escalation handling, and they raise data‑privacy and fallback concerns that require human oversight (NovelVox analysis of emotional AI reforming customer interactions).

Italian buyers reward trust and tailored listening - 67% say trust matters before buying - so IT sales teams that mix AI for scale with practiced empathy, active listening and local compliance know‑how will outperform purely automated outreach (Zoe Talent Solutions report on emotional intelligence and customer loyalty).

Finding	Metric / Source
Sales increase after EQ training	+28% - Six Seconds case study
Agents meeting “effective” benchmark	13% → peak 61% (avg 40%) - Six Seconds case study
Consumers who require brand trust before buying	67% - Zoe Talent Solutions
Emotional AI limits	Struggles with complex problem‑solving & privacy risks - NovelVox

“We looked at multiple providers who all deliver specific sales training, but were more focused on the technical aspects of the sales conversation. The program delivered by CareerLink helped address that cultural aspect of sales at the individual and team level. The value was getting people to look at their own approach and see how it would fit in the “new world” of sales.” - National Sales Manager

Italian IT sales teams should focus on practical AI skills that turn busywork into customer time: learn prompt engineering and shot-based prompting (zero/one/few‑shot) to craft tailored outreach and product‑comparison emails in minutes, master LLM integration and APIs so copilots sit inside CRMs, and get comfortable with embeddings and retrieval tools for fast, localized prospect research; courses that teach these modules - prompt techniques, model evaluation, fine‑tuning and deployment - are now standard (see a hands‑on AgileFever LLM training courses roundup).

Pair those foundations with sales‑specific prompt templates (SEO, ad copy, FAQs and competitor analysis prompts recommended by Scoutos) and the few‑shot patterns from LearnPrompting few-shot prompting guide to produce reliable, structured outputs for proposals and discovery notes.

The practical payoff is simple: instead of manual list‑building, a well‑crafted prompt + retrieval chain can generate region‑aware, compliant first drafts that let reps spend more time closing rather than editing.

Skill	Why it matters / Tools
Prompt engineering & shot techniques	More accurate, repeatable outputs (zero/one/few‑shot) - LearnPrompting few-shot prompting guide
LLM integration & APIs	Embed copilots in workflows - OpenAI, Hugging Face, LangChain
Embeddings & retrieval	Fast, localized prospect research - Pinecone, Weaviate
Fine‑tuning & customization	Adapt models to product and compliance needs - LoRA, PEFT
Model evaluation & governance	Measure accuracy, toxicity, hallucinations for safe sales use - overview at AgileFever LLM training courses roundup
Sales prompt libraries	Replicable templates for SEO, ad copy, FAQs and outreach - see Scoutos prompts

Italian IT sales teams should adopt a layered playbook: a full‑funnel sales engagement platform for execution, a set of AI research agents for pipeline signals, and specialist prospecting tools to keep data compliant and targeted.

Practically, deploy Outreach's Sales AI for deal health, Smart Email Assist and live call summaries so reps spend less time on admin and more on high‑value calls (Outreach reports an 81% deal‑close prediction accuracy and industry‑grade privacy controls), pair that with Origami's top research workflows - start with funding‑round alerts, job‑change tracking and tech‑stack monitoring to surface warm, timely opportunities (funding alerts can lift reply rates 3–5x) - and use Cognism‑style intent and verified contact data to turn signals into meetings across EMEA while respecting GDPR. Run 2–3 pilots (one account‑assist + one research chain + one prospecting tool), measure time saved and conversion lift, then scale the chains that show clear ROI; the vivid payoff is simple - what used to take days of research becomes a personalised, compliant first draft in minutes, freeing reps to close.

For templates and Italy‑focused prompts, link these systems to local playbooks that call out VAT, support and data‑residency advantages so messaging resonates with Italian buyers.

Tool / Workflow	Primary purpose	Evidence / impact
Outreach Sales AI platform for deal health and smart email	Full‑funnel AI workflows: deal health, smart email, call summaries	Deal close prediction ~81%; privacy & governance controls - Outreach
Origami AI research workflows for sales teams	Funding alerts, job‑change, tech‑stack monitoring to surface timely prospects	Funding alerts → 3–5x reply rates; quick 1–2 week pilots - Origami
Cognism AI prospecting and GDPR-compliant contact data	Intent‑led, compliant lead data and enrichment	Faster, GDPR‑aware prospecting with international coverage - Cognism

“Now that our people are using Outreach, they're contributing even more data to our system. This helps further optimize our sales workflows, which helps win more deals, which makes them want to use Outreach more, and so on.” - Gemma Currier, Senior Vice President of Retail Sales Operations

Short case examples from Milan show how Italy's IT sales ecosystem sees AI moving from lab to live: AI WEEK in Milan is Europe's biggest AI showcase (250+ exhibitors, 700+ speakers and 25,000+ attendees in its 2026 edition) and doubles as a hands‑on market for demos and pilot deals - see the full AI WEEK program for stages, prompt battles and live AI tools; Reply used the 2025 edition (booths 53–54) to demo multi‑agent CRM solutions like “Sally,” AI‑driven websites and data steward assistants that map directly to pre‑sales workflows; and INGO's May 2025 talk, “Agentic AI and Human Capital,” highlighted practical CX use cases where agents augment omnichannel teams rather than replace them.

For Italian IT sales leaders the practical win is tangible: attend demos, catalogue the exact agentic workflows that cut research time, and trial the ones that preserve human trust and compliance while automating the grind.

Case	Detail / Source
AI WEEK (Milan)	250+ exhibitors, 700+ speakers, 25,000+ attendees (AI WEEK) - AI WEEK Milan official program and event details
Reply at AI Week 2025	Booths 53–54; demos: multi-agent CRM, ticketing, AI websites - Reply AI Week 2025 showcase: multi-agent CRM and AI website demos
INGO talk	“Agentic AI and Human Capital” - Martino Carrera & Diego Gosmar (INGO) - INGO recap: “Agentic AI and Human Capital” at AI Week 2025

“We were very pleased to participate in such a high-profile event as AI Week. It was a tremendous opportunity to engage with other experts in the field and present INGO's vision of how artificial intelligence is transforming the contemporary business landscape.”

Italian IT employers and managers should treat AI as a change program, not a toy: start by defining a tight set of gen‑AI KPIs (model quality, system reliability, adoption and business value) and attach them to concrete sales outcomes so every pilot can be judged in euros and hours saved; Google Cloud's guide on KPIs for gen AI is a practical starting point for which metrics to track.

Run 2–3 focused pilots - an account‑assist copilot, a research chain and a prospecting workflow - each with dashboards that show adoption rate, frequency of use, latency and a clear productivity or ROAI line; small wins justify scale.

Create a cross‑functional steering group (sales ops + IT + legal) and a named data steward for monitoring drift, safety and GDPR compliance, then use rapid managed pilots where appropriate (Infor's Augmented Intelligence Service highlights 90‑day managed paths to production) to avoid Frankenstein stacks.

Measure both technical scores (precision/recall, latency, uptime) and human signals (thumbs up/down, session length), translate those into hiring and training decisions, and tie incentives to measured outcomes - the vivid payoff: a single “time‑saved” gauge on a dashboard that converts days of grunt work into minutes of selling time and proves AI is amplifying people, not replacing them.

KPI category	What to track	Example metrics
Model quality	Output accuracy, safety and groundedness	Precision / Recall / F1, safety score - Google Cloud
System quality	Operational reliability and responsiveness	Uptime, model & retrieval latency, throughput - Google Cloud
Adoption & business value	User uptake and financial impact	Adoption rate, frequency of use, ROAI, productivity value (time saved) - Google Cloud / Neontri

“AI adoption doesn't happen overnight. That's why tracking usage metrics is crucial for understanding how real humans are interacting with the model over time.”

Rework and reposition: Italian IT sales careers now flow through short, practical reskilling sprints - many providers in Milan and Rome run one‑week, intensive programs that blend consultative selling, objection handling and role‑play with modern tools, and some even deliver printed materials plus a flash drive of templates from hotel‑based classrooms (Scandinavian Academy Sales Professional course in Milan).

The quickest path is a two‑step upgrade: secure a recognised sales certificate (for example, the Certified Sales Professional week in Milan) and layer an AI‑focused week such as “Artificial Intelligence Essentials” so reps can turn research and outreach into repeatable prompt templates (Euro-Training Certified Sales Professional & AI Essentials courses in Milan).

Pair classroom fundamentals with hands‑on prompt libraries and Italy‑aware templates - see concise, sales‑ready prompts for VAT/support messaging and product comparisons - to make AI a productivity multiplier rather than a threat (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work - Italy-focused sales AI prompts and templates).

The career move that sticks: shift from transaction volume to domain expertise supported by fast, practical AI workflows so a single week of training converts into immediate Monday‑ready outputs that win meetings, not just approvals.

Program	Location	Duration	Why it helps
Scandinavian Academy Sales Professional course (Milan)	Milan	One week	Consultative selling, role‑play, hotel‑based materials & templates
Euro-Training Certified Sales Professional & AI Essentials courses (Milan)	Milan	One week	Sales certification plus an AI Essentials option to combine craft and tooling
AZTech Sales & Marketing courses (Rome)	Rome	One week / online	Practical, instructor‑led modules for communication and key account skills
Nucamp AI Essentials for Work - sales prompts and templates (online)	Online	Self‑study / templates	Region‑aware prompts for compliant, VAT‑aware outreach and product comparisons

Conclusion: the headline is clear for salespeople in Italy's IT sector - AI is reshaping work, not erasing it: with 63% of large firms adopting AI and a projected national market jump toward about €1.8B by 2027, the prize is real, but so is the risk to purely transactional roles; think of AI as a productivity turbo that can free days of research into minutes while leaving negotiation, trust and technical integration to people.

Quick action checklist for IT sales teams in Italy:

1. Audit your data and toolchain for GDPR and data‑sovereignty gaps (Aidia on‑prem data‑sovereignty case study).
2. Run 2–3 focused pilots (account‑assist copilot, research chain, prospecting) and measure time‑saved and ROAI.
3. Learn practical AI skills - prompt engineering, retrieval and LLM integration - via hands‑on courses like the 15‑week Nucamp AI Essentials for Work 15‑week syllabus.
4. Shift toward domain expertise and compliance‑first messaging (VAT, support, data residency) so AI scales conversations without eroding trust.
5. Choose vendors or architectures that support measurable ROI and data control, not black‑box shortcuts.

“Every AI project teaches us something new about the needs of Italian companies… artificial intelligence and technology in general, have value only when they solve concrete problems and generate measurable results for businesses.”

Treat wins as proof points, stitch them into your playbook, and keep human judgement in the loop so AI amplifies value rather than replaces it - the numbers show the opportunity; the strategy determines who captures it (Minsait AI adoption report for Italy 2025, Aidia on‑prem data‑sovereignty case study).