Hello, this is Matsubara, CRM Evangelist.

"In an era where proposals can be created using ChatGPT, what should sales representatives be doing?"

By 2025, there will be virtually no business owners or sales managers who don't have this question.

In an era where generative AI is said to be transitioning into infrastructure, only a minority of organizations are able to accurately define the boundary between "what AI should handle" and "what humans should do."

This article redefines that boundary from the perspective of CRM 4.0. It then discusses the proposition that "the essence of CRM 4.0 lies in the areas where humans take over after AI has been allowed to handle what it excels at," connecting this to the design philosophy of EMOROCO CRM Lite.

Understanding what generative AI will be able to do in 2025

First, let's face reality. By 2025, generative AI will already be able to handle many tasks in sales, marketing, and customer service "faster, cheaper, and more accurately than humans."

Tasks that have been "completely replaced" by AI

Generative AI excels at tasks with clear rules and recurring occurrences—so-called routine tasks. Because these tasks can be processed with a consistent level of quality even without human intervention, their automation by AI is rapidly progressing.

Tasks where AI "still has limitations"

However, there are also significant limitations.

Generative AI does not possess genuine emotions: While it can replicate human emotions through imitation, it cannot actually "feel" them. For example, it can say "I'm sorry" in a customer support situation, but there is no genuine emotion behind it.

I have difficulty interpreting context-dependent emotions, where the same words can elicit different reactions from different people, and I struggle with empathetic responses and making flexible judgments.

This "emotional limitation of AI" is at the heart of what CRM 4.0 demands from humans.

"What AI will do" and "What humans will do"—the precise division of labor in 2025

In 2025, when generative AI is widespread, we will accurately redraw the division of labor between "what should be left to AI" and "what should be done by humans" from the perspective of CRM 4.0.

The most important insight this division of labor chart reveals is that "the areas handled by AI (quantitative analysis, patterns, alerts, and routine tasks) are merely preparation for the areas handled by humans (resonance, context, and trust)."

"Things Only Humans Can Do" from a CRM 4.0 Perspective—5 Areas

The key factor defined by CRM 4.0, "Emotional Intelligence—AI understanding, resonating with, and responding to emotions, culture, and values," technically indicates the direction AI should aim for. However, as of 2025, this "resonance" can only be achieved through collaboration between human staff and AI.

Let's organize the five areas that only humans can do.

Domain ① "Reading the Silence" - Perceiving changes that are not put into words

AI can detect "signs" of emotion from text, voice, and data. However, nonverbal information such as "their expression was a little gloomy today," "their response was shorter than usual," or "their handshake when handing over their business card was weaker" will remain an area that AI cannot fully process even in 2025.

Being able to sense changes in an employee's facial expressions and attitude, and then responding to them or considering a reassignment, is a management skill unique to humans—and this is equally true in customer relationships.

The intuition a representative feels after a visit, such as "something felt different today," cannot be replicated by AI. However, this intuition can be verbalized in a narrative memo, such as "Today the responses were short, and their expression was cloudy. There may be some internal change," and recorded in the CRM—this is a form of collaboration combining human perception and CRM recording.

Domain ② "Resonating within Context" - Using deeper words than just the correct ones.

AI excels at generating the optimal proposal for a given customer. However, human representatives still have a superior sensitivity to context, such as understanding what words, tone, and approach resonate most with a customer at that specific moment.

These "resonant words" could not be created without the "customer context" recorded in EMOROCO's self-actualization context field, narrative memo, and resonated language frame field. It is a collaborative process where AI organizes the information, and humans "interpret that information as context and resonate with it."

Domain 3: "Overcoming failure on a personal level" - Restoring relationships after trouble.

AI can generate optimal complaint response statements. However, the experience of "humanly repairing a relationship with a customer after making a major mistake" is something only humans can do.

"I am truly sorry. After that incident, I myself had many sleepless nights." — The "human sincerity" contained in these words is on a level that AI cannot replicate. And the moment this sincerity is conveyed, the relationship can actually deepen.

The customer's decision to "still trust that company" after a problem arises from ICX's experience, specifically from the fact that "the person in charge treated us with sincerity as a human being."

Domain ④ "Inheriting the History of Unique Relationships" — Inheriting the "Temperature" of Memory

AI can fully read and summarize CRM data. However, the "temperature of memories from that crisis we overcame together 10 years ago" cannot be recreated by data alone.

When the person in charge changes, the new person in charge can read EMOROCO's narrative memo and learn that "during the difficult period after the Lehman shock three years ago, the previous person in charge visited every week and discussed things together." However, "the atmosphere at that time, the tired look on the president's face, and yet his positive words" are feelings that only someone who experienced it firsthand can truly understand.

This is the true nature of "things that cannot be fully conveyed through handover." That is why leaving "something close to the temperature of memory" in EMOROCO's narrative memo is the most important act required of the human person in charge.

Domain 5: "Supporting customers in their self-actualization" - Resonating with long-term intentions

This is the most human and most CRM 4.0-like area.

"When I work with this company, I feel like the meaning of my own business deepens"—when a customer feels this way, the person in charge has become a "partner in the customer's self-realization journey."

AI can record, analyze, and summarize customers' self-actualization contexts. However, only humans can convey to customers the feeling that "I want to work towards what you're aiming for together with you."

The moment this "resonance of will" is born, the relationship with the customer transforms from a "transaction" to a "co-creation partnership."

"AI analyzes, humans resonate"—Collaborative design realized by EMOROCO CRM Lite

The optimal design for CRM 4.0 in 2025 is "collaboration between AI and humans."

It is important to position AI as a "buddy" that collaborates with humans and utilize it to expand cognitive capabilities. This will enable a "value shift," reallocating personnel to tasks with high intellectual productivity.

In EMOROCO's SoI-PDCA cycle, this collaboration is designed as follows:

In this cycle, EMOROCO's narrative memos, emotional temperature, and ICX capture function as "high-quality data that humans provide to the AI." Human resonance, observation, and perception become data, improving the AI's prediction accuracy. This increased AI accuracy allows humans more time to focus on deeper resonance.

"AI analyzes, and humans resonate"—this is the optimal division of labor for CRM 4.0 in 2025.

The answer to the question, "Will AI take away our jobs?"

To the question, "Will AI take away the jobs of sales representatives?", CRM 4.0 answers as follows:

AI will take on the tasks of "processing information, suggesting optimal solutions, and predicting patterns." This means freeing up the time that traditional sales representatives spent on "travel time, document creation, data aggregation, and report writing."

The goal of using AI-generated text is not simply to reduce work time, but rather to clearly define an "exit strategy" for how to use that saved time.

The exit strategy outlined by CRM 4.0 is clear: use the freed-up time to "resonate with customers."

The "free time" created by shifting "travel time, document creation, and data aggregation" to AI will be used for "listening deeply to customers, observing, feeling, and carefully recording in narrative notes."

This "use of whitespace" is what decisively differentiates a sales representative in the AI ​​era from a sales representative who has simply implemented AI.

"AI cannot resonate"—this remains the fundamental truth.

Finally, I will present the most important proposition.

AI can analyze emotions. AI can mimic emotions. AI can predict changes in emotions.

However, AI cannot "resonate with emotions."

While generative AI can replicate human emotions through imitation, it cannot actually "feel" them.

The approach up to CRM 3.0 aimed to improve customer satisfaction by "analyzing, predicting, and optimizing emotions." The evolution of AI technology will accelerate this approach.

The CRM 4.0 approach is fundamentally different. "Resonating with the customer's emotions, accompanying them in their self-actualization context, and co-creating value"—this "resonance, companionship, and co-creation" can ultimately only be achieved by "human representatives interacting with customers on the front lines," no matter how advanced AI becomes.

**As AI evolves, the value of "resonance that only humans can provide" will increase.** This is because the "human jobs" that remain after all routine tasks have been transferred to AI will become more purely "resonant work."

EMOROCO CRM Lite is a System of Infrastructure (SoI) for designing this "resonant work" as an organizational structure. AI alerts tell you "what action you should take with this customer now," narrative notes tell you "in what context to take action," and the person in charge executes the "resonant contact."

"AI analyzes, humans resonate"—start this collaborative design process today, starting from just ¥1,500 per user per month.
EMOROCO CRM Lite Product Page

Summary – The 2025 Edition of the AI ​​x Human Division of Labor Theory

In 2025, what humans should be doing is not "what AI cannot do," but "a deeper resonance that goes beyond what AI can do." CRM4.0 provides the philosophy and practices for this "deeper resonance."

Related article: [Why CRM and AI are a good match—How SoI, with its combination of quantitative and qualitative data, predicts customer behavior and how EMOROCO CRM Lite can be used]

Related article: [AI Emotional Intelligence and CRM 4.0 - Utilizing EMOROCO CRM Lite in an era where AI understands customer emotions, culture, and values]

Related article: [The philosophical gap between CRM 3.0 and CRM 4.0: A shift from "analyzing customers" to "resonating with customers"]