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The self-described “buyer-first” intelligence company wants to help sellers crack the buyer code, and with McKinsey and Amazon Web Services already signed up, IT services is Humantic AI’s next big target
4 Sep 2025 / 11 min read
Abhirami writes about how the rise of AI is affecting society in varied and unexpected ways.
Earlier in 2025, when a senior salesperson at a major IT-services company was preparing to pitch a US client, she had a couple of choices. The old way: spend hours combing through Linkedin profiles, industry podcasts, and stray Youtube clips, hoping to glean a sense of the decision-maker across the table. Or she could use the modern way. Feed those links into Microsoft Copilot and get a quick summary of what the client had been saying in public.
But there was also a third option. One that the IT firm had been experimenting with.
Instead of relying on a general-purpose chatbot, she could open Humantic AI. She did. And within minutes, the tool produced a one-page report suggesting how the client liked to be approached:
“Get straight to the numbers.”
“Avoid casual small talk.”
“Expect a technically detailed pitch.”
It also offered draft lines for a personalised email follow-up.
That is Humantic’s niche. Buyer-specific AI. And it is a useful story to tell right now, because generative AI already started writing the sales playbook in IT services a while back. Outreach can now be personalised at scale, proposals drafted instantly, and reps coached in real-time.
This matters because the industry badly needs a boost: growth crawled to 1.2% in FY24 and 3% in FY25 as clients reallocated budgets to AI. There was a small rebound in early FY26—Wipro
So into this mix comes Humantic. Founded in 2021 by Amarpreet Kalkat, a three-time AI entrepreneur, the four-year-old startup describes itself as a “buyer-first intelligence” company. Its backers include Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, former Google vice president Bradley Horowitz, and Sharath Narayana of speech-understanding platform Sanas AI.
Credits
Written by Abhirami G
Edited by Sumit Chakraborty
Lede illustration by Sakshi Modi
AI broke IT sales. A 24-person startup says psychology can fix it
Abhirami G
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AI broke IT sales. A 24-person startup says psychology can fix it
Abhirami G
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