Artificial intelligence has been cast as both hero and villain in sales, with more pessimistic takes framing it as a looming replacement for the sales rep. Recent research paints a more nuanced picture. A 2025 report from Bain & Company found that organizations embedding AI into redesigned sales workflows saw win rates improve by more than 30%, while McKinsey reported that AI’s most significant impact now shows up in marketing and sales acceleration, not cost reduction. Meanwhile, analysis shows that conversational AI enhances early qualification and buyer engagement rather than replacing sales professionals.
Taken together, the data suggests the real story is not displacement but evolution as AI becomes a strategic layer that strengthens revenue systems. “Even great innovation fails without a scalable, efficient go-to-market engine,” says Bradley Swenson, Chief Revenue Officer in the Healthcare SaaS industry. For more than 15 years, Swenson has built and led high-performing commercial teams across healthcare SaaS, diagnostics, and digital health, scaling companies through their most critical inflection points. In his view, conversational AI is the multiplier that finally makes healthcare revenue engines scalable, efficient, and attractive to investors.
At Solv and Cue Health, Swenson helped drive combined revenue growth of more than $130 million, secured enterprise contracts with leading systems such as Mayo Clinic and Optum, and rebuilt commercial teams into outcome-driven organizations. At Aroris Health, which provides SaaS tools that help healthcare providers make smarter and more profitable payer contract decisions, Swenson is again architecting a transformation, guiding the company’s shift from services to a SaaS-first model.
A Buyer Journey That Moves Faster Than Sales Can
Swenson sees the most important shift in healthcare selling as behavioral. Buyers now educate themselves long before engaging with a sales team. “Research from Gartner, Forrester, and Sixth Sense shows buyers complete 60 to 70 percent of their journey before speaking to a rep. In healthcare, it is often higher.”
By the time a provider or payer surfaces in a pipeline, they have already compared vendors, evaluated budgets, and aligned internal priorities. This new rhythm outpaces traditional sales structures, which rely on human-driven discovery and qualification. Conversational AI fills that gap by guiding prospects early and capturing intent signals that would otherwise be lost.
“It’s not about replacing people. It’s about meeting buyers before your competitors even know they exist,” Swenson says.
Capital Efficiency as the New Performance Metric
Investment criteria have also shifted dramatically over the last decade. High headcount once signaled aggressive growth. Now it signals inefficiency. Private equity and growth investors value lean, intelligent systems that scale without ballooning operating costs. Conversational AI automates early interactions, giving sales teams the bandwidth to focus on complex enterprise deals instead of repetitive qualification. This recalibration improves customer acquisition costs, revenue per employee, and EBITDA.
“AI didn’t just help us sell smarter. It made the revenue model leaner and more investable,” says Swenson. Across the companies he has led, those shifts supported faster sales cycles and expanded margins without eroding customer experience. For him, AI is not a tool. It is infrastructure that elevates the entire commercial engine.
Scaling Trust in a Market Built on Human Judgment
Healthcare buyers make decisions shaped by risk, safety, and credibility. Swenson stresses that the goal is not to automate empathy but to enable it at scale. “Trust defines every buying decision,” he says. Conversational AI gives organizations a way to be consistently responsive while maintaining a human-credible voice.
Whether a prospective client engages at midday or midnight, the experience feels informed and aligned with the brand. It smooths the friction that often slows complex healthcare purchasing, especially for early-stage companies that lack large teams. This hybrid model frees human reps to show up where they matter most: navigating workflow integrations, aligning diverse stakeholders, and ultimately building the confidence needed for enterprise adoption.
The Future Revenue Engine Is Both Human and Intelligent
Swenson has reengineered go-to-market systems, created compensation models that drive accountability, and transformed customer success teams into revenue multipliers. Across each role, he has focused on the same principle: sustainable growth demands a commercial engine that blends human expertise with digital adaptability.
“Conversational AI isn’t replacing sales. It is redefining capital efficiency in how we sell,” he said. The companies that win in healthcare SaaS will be those that pair always-on digital engagement with deep human trust, converting industry complexity into predictable expansion.
Connect with Bradley Swenson on LinkedIn or visit his website.
