When I joined this role, my biggest KPI was the customer’s mood.
I’d park outside the customer’s factory. Windows slightly down. Waiting at security.

Waiting for the Purchase Head to “be in a good mood.” For production not to have a breakdown. For their boss not to have shouted at everyone that morning.
Waiting for fate.

If the stars aligned, I’d enter with my brochure and presentation. If they didn’t, I’d drive back with the same brochure, now with bent edges. That was 2015.

Today is 2035.
I don’t wait outside factories anymore. I wait inside dashboards.
My AI-generated proposal has already entered the customer’s organization. It knows their machine utilization, scrap rates, expansion plans. It drafts the proposal, simulates ROI, adjusts pricing using competitor signals, and pushes a crisp summary into their procurement AI.
Yes. Their AI.
Because the decision maker doesn’t read my proposal first. Their AI does.
It scores it. Benchmarks and stress-tests it. Flags risks. Recommends suppliers.

Somewhere in that algorithmic parliament, I hope my proposal survives.

And when reporting became automatic, presentations built themselves, and my AI avatar started delivering demos in fluent Tamil and German… the workload didn’t reduce.
It multiplied.
Now I design collateral in minutes, approve AI videos, track meeting sentiment, adjust pricing in real time, coach my AI on tone, and supervise agents that supervise other agents. I’m doing the work that once belonged to marketing, pre-sales, MIS, proposal desk, analyst—sometimes HR.
And I’m still behind.

In 2015, I waited outside the gate and blamed circumstances.
In 2035, I whisper to the cloud:
“Dear AI, may your algorithm smile upon my proposal today.”
Some things change. Some things don’t.
We used to wait at the security gates. Now we wait at digital gates.
Same hope.
Faster clock.