Insight

When AI Thinks for You

THE HIDDEN IMPACT OF SKILLS ATROPHY AND COGNITIVE OFFLOADING ON SALES PERFORMANCE

In sales, insight, influence, and trust win deals. AI now underpins the delivery of each part of the equation, for example, by generating new ideas, leveraging behavioral psychology, and quickly sourcing relevant case studies. These use cases are multiplying, and adoption is accelerating.

For sales and enablement leaders, the promise is compelling: sharper insights, faster responses, more efficient workflows, and better sales performance.

But there’s a risk that is increasingly in the spotlight. Over-reliance on AI has been shown to cause skills atrophy and cognitive offloading, resulting in the gradual erosion of the very abilities that make salespeople persuasive, adaptable, and successful.

Research is already being published that validates this, and whilst only indicative at this stage, it is something that every sales leader should be thinking about.

What are skills atrophy and cognitive offloading?

Skills atrophy is the gradual loss of existing abilities due to lack of regular use or practice. This is not a new phenomenon; it’s seen in pilots who rely too heavily on autopilot, writers who depend on autocorrect or musicians who over-use auto-tune.

Now, with AI’s rise in the workplace, AI-induced skill erosion has become a real threat to business performance.

Cognitive offloading happens when we delegate thinking or memory to an external tool, such as AI, and stop engaging our own mental processes. While this may free up mental bandwidth, it is not surprising that researchers have already found that it also leads to a decline in cognitive engagement and skill development (Gerlich, M., 2025).

From a sales perspective, cognitive offloading may take the form of letting AI handle objection responses, call follow-ups, or negotiation prep. Over time, sellers risk losing the ability to recall details, connect information, and think on their feet during live conversations. The short-term gain of convenience comes at the cost of long-term capability, leaving individuals and the organisation less adaptable when it matters most. With 90% of companies having either implemented AI, or planning to this year (Highspot), and efficiency gains such as a 65% reduction in time spent on writing tasks (Usdan, J. et al 2024), cognitive offloading in the workplace is expected to increase.

Several recent studies have been performed that reinforce the negative impact of overreliance on AI:

Endoscopist deskilling risk after exposure to artificial intelligence in colonoscopy:
A Multicentre, observational study’, Budzyń, K. et al. (2025)

This study looked at whether regularly using AI during colonoscopies changes how doctors perform when the AI isn’t used. At four centers in Poland, researchers compared three months before AI was introduced with three months after (1,443 patients). The main measure was how often precancerous polyps (adenomas) were found. The results:

After doctors had been exposed to AI, their detection rate in non-AI exams fell from 28.4% to 22.4% (a 6-point, statistically significant drop).

Adjusted analyses showed AI exposure was linked to lower detection (odds ratio 0.69), while older age (≥60) and male sex were linked to higher detection.

Overall, continuous AI exposure may make doctors less effective at finding adenomas when AI is not in use.

The effects of over-reliance on AI dialogue systems on students’ cognitive abilities:
A systematic review, Zhai, C. et al. (2024)

This report looked at 14 studies (PRISMA-based), to explore what happens to students’ thinking when they routinely rely on AI chatbots for answers. The results:

Habitual reliance on AI is linked to poorer memory for what was learned and less precise analysis of problems.

Students tended to accept AI outputs without checking them, favoring quick “good enough” answers over slower, careful reasoning.

Decision-making, critical thinking, and analytical reasoning weakened, consistent with a shift toward fast shortcuts rather than deeper understanding.

Your Brain on ChatGPT:
Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task, Nataliya Kosmyna, Hauptmann et al. (2025).

In a controlled study of 54 young adults, researchers compared essay writing with three approaches: unaided (“Brain-only”), using a search engine, and using a large language model (LLM). The results:

ChatGPT users showed a 47% drop in neural engagement compared to those working unaided.

80% couldn’t recall what they’d written minutes later.

Even when they switched back to working without AI, their engagement remained low, proof that cognitive offloading lingers.

If left unaddressed, the impact of skills atrophy and cognitive offloading in association with AI use will self-perpetuate. A recent study (Lee, H.-P. et al., 2025) found that high confidence in AI suppresses users’ critical thinking, i.e. users accept the AI’s answers with little scrutiny. Whereas users with high self-confidence in their own skills increase critical thinking. As salespeople rely more on AI, their skills will atrophy. In turn, self-confidence falls, reliance on AI grows, and the cycle repeats. Furthermore, as AI continues to advance, confidence in AI output will only increase.

What is the impact of skills atrophy and cognitive offloading on sales performance?

The implications are serious. Imagine a prospect calling out of the blue to challenge points from a recent email, yet the salesperson can’t recall the objections they raised because AI had crafted the response for them. Or picture a deal in its final stages, when procurement rolls out a “best-of-best pricing” tactic, and the salesperson has no idea how to recognize it or counter effectively.

Without active use, fluency fades.

Over time, sellers become less able to respond in the moment, less creative in problem-solving, and more likely to default to generic outputs. When skills and proficiency in delivering insight, influence, and trust (the foundations of high-value B2B relationships) drop out of the equation, the hit to the bottom line is inevitable.

Using sales-aware AI to enhance and augment, not replace

The good news is that, when used correctly, AI can enhance sales and other skills, rather than cause them to atrophy.

During a recent webinar ‘i-Coach® AI: Personalized, Agentic Sales Enablement for the Enterprise’, Richard Barkey, Founder and CEO of Imparta, said:

I think it’s extremely dangerous for us to delegate our thinking process to AI. I really do, and I think that’s for a couple of reasons. One, that muscle will atrophy, as the endoscopy experiment showed, and two, AI alone doesn’t give you the best answer. But… if we drive human thinking first, then follow with AI to polish, check assumptions, and extend your work… the results are fantastic.

To avoid skills atrophy and cognitive offloading, AI must be used in what we call ‘pull mode’ as well as ‘push mode’. The AI can of course answer questions and provide facts and insights. But this must be balanced with an empowering form of AI: asking great questions, helping the user to structure their thinking, and encouraging independent critical analysis. AI’s role is to expand, challenge, and refine sales approaches, not to replace them.

For sales, this means putting humans first in the workflow, by adopting AI that:

  • Effectively coaches salespeople, working with the seller to achieve their goals and address challenges, while empowering them to think for themselves.
  • Provides reflective feedback, through reviewing calls, emails, or proposals to provide detailed assessments and feedback, in turn, suggesting relevant training and learning pathways to plug gaps, and proactively follow up for long-term development.
  • Enables practice, with lifelike AI roleplays that simulate challenging conversations, adapting in real-time to user inputs, to build agility and confidence.
  • Follows up, sending nudge emails and messages to ensure ongoing skill development and the closing of skill gaps.
  • Understands the intricacies of selling, encouraging sellers to outline their thinking and approach, and to challenge and ask insightful questions based on sales best practice, before adding perspective.

This is where Imparta’s concept of sales-aware AI matters. As outlined in the C-Suite Sales Insights whitepaper, generic AI lacks the nuance of real selling, whereas sales-aware AI is grounded in a proven sales methodology and sales IP. It doesn’t just answer questions; it challenges thinking, surfaces missed opportunities and reinforces best practice.

By integrating into daily workflows, CRM systems, virtual training environments, and live coaching, sales-aware AI keeps skill development continuous and relevant. It turns every interaction into a learning opportunity, rather than a moment of skill erosion.

How does i-Coach® AI prevent skills atrophy and cognitive offloading in sales?

As we have seen, the threat of cognitive offloading and skill atrophy from AI is real, but it’s avoidable. The answer lies in deploying AI that acts as a coach, not a crutch.

i-Coach® AI was built to do exactly that. Built around a proprietary agentic structure, each user has a personalized experience. It remembers their role, goals, previous conversations, and development areas. Like the best human coaches, it offers insight, influence, and trust, following the Imparta i-GROW coaching framework to engage in a two-way dialogue. It guides the user through problem resolution, promoting critical thinking. It challenges their approach and offers insight and guidance based on true sales best practice, drawing on a vast, curated knowledge base, and is available in the flow of work.

With over 20 dedicated AI Agents, i-Coach® AI delivers proactive, context-aware coaching, simulations, insights, and enablement strategies tailored to both individual and organizational objectives. Salespeople need an environment where they are encouraged to think and adapt their approach to ensure long-term skill development and retention.

In a sales environment where adaptability and human connection are decisive, i-Coach® AI ensures your people don’t just keep pace with AI, they stay ahead because of it.

See i-Coach® AI in action

i-Coach® AI transforms revenue enablement with four key advantages:

  • Personalized: Learns each user’s context and goals for tailored coaching and insights.
  • Proactive: Follows up and suggests next steps to drive accountability and results.
  • Powerful: Draws on 1.5 million words of best practice and your data for expert support.
  • Integrated: Seamlessly fits into your tech stack or existing AI ecosystem.

See how i-Coach® AI can elevate your team – watch the video or book a demo today.

Complete this form to schedule an i-Coach® AI demo.

Sources

  • Nataliya Kosmyna, Hauptmann, E., Yuan, Y.T., Situ, J. and Maes, P. (2025). Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task. [online] ResearchGate. doi:https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.08872.
  • Budzyń, K. et al. (2025) ‘Endoscopist deskilling risk after exposure to artificial intelligence in colonoscopy: A Multicentre, observational study’, The Lancet Gastroenterology &; Hepatology, 10(10), pp. 896–903. doi:10.1016/s2468-1253(25)00133-5.
  • Lee, H.-P. et al. (2025) ‘The impact of Generative AI on critical thinking: Self-reported reductions in cognitive effort and confidence effects from a survey of Knowledge Workers’, Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–22. doi:10.1145/3706598.3713778.
  • Zhai, C., Wibowo, S. and Li, L.D. (2024) ‘The effects of over-reliance on AI dialogue systems on students’ cognitive abilities: A systematic review’, Smart Learning Environments, 11(1). doi:10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7.
  • Gerlich, M. (2025) ‘AI tools in society: Impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of Critical Thinking’, Societies, 15(1), p. 6. doi:10.3390/soc15010006.
  • State of sales enablement 2025, Highspot. Available at: https://www.highspot.com/en-gb/state-of-sales-enablement-2025/ (Accessed: 05 September 2025).
  • Usdan, J., Connell Pensky, A. and Chang, H. (2024) Generative AI’s impact on graduate student writing productivity and Quality [Preprint]. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4941022.