Joseph Rayfield, SVP of Sales – Americas and EMEA at ABBYY chats about the changing scope of modern sales cycles as AI influences internal processes in this SalesTech Star interview:
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Hi Joe, what are a few of the best aspects of being in the Sales space for SaaS?
To be honest with you it is the Velocity. You solve real problems and you find out fast whether it worked — no waiting years to see if your bet paid off. That feedback loop keeps everyone honest and obsessed with customer value instead of vanity metrics. It’s also a full-contact sport in the best way: sales, product, engineering, and customer teams all rowing in the same direction. And today we’re living through the moment that AI rewrites how enterprises operate, with SaaS as the delivery truck making it happen. Watching a promising idea turn into measurable results at scale — that never gets old!
For business teams to make better use of AI, cleaning their core data is a first step. What best practices help organizations move toward optimized AI-driven processes?
I often say to organizations that they need to fix your data before you fall in love with a model. Everyone wants to sprint straight to picking an LLM, but here’s the catch: generative AI is only as smart as the mess you feed it, and most of that mess is buried in documents nobody’s looked at twice. My advice — go find where your critical information actually lives, then invest in getting it out and structured properly. Treat document processing like plumbing, not decoration. Pair purpose-built Document AI with generative models so you get accuracy you can actually audit and a cost per page you can predict, not guess at. And bring compliance in early — governance bolted on later is just expensive rework in disguise.
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For sales teams using AI-powered salestech to drive impact: what responsibilities should modern Sales leaders undertake to ensure their teams know how to get the best from it?
Buying the software is the easy part — anyone with a budget can do that. The real job is owning the outcome. Help your team understand what the tech is genuinely great at, and where human judgment still wins. Set clear expectations, weave training into the weekly rhythm, and reward reps who use the tools smartly instead of blindly clicking “accept.” I also tell my leadership team: get in the arena yourself. Use the insights in your own deals, keep your own data clean. You can’t preach trust in AI from the sidelines. And no tool, however brilliant, survives contact with rubbish inputs.
Can you highlight some of the salestech you’ve often used to drive results?
Across Cendyn, OpenText, and before that, the core stack barely changes: a CRM that’s the real single source of truth, conversation intelligence to coach reps, and forecasting tools that keep the pipeline honest. What has changed is how much AI is now humming underneath every layer of that stack. The winners are the tools that kill busywork and surface the right signal at the right moment. But I keep coming back to the same rule: rubbish in, rubbish out. That’s exactly why clean, structured data matters so much — and honestly, it’s a big reason I came back to ABBYY.
How do you feel the role of the typical seller will change as AI-powered tools take over bulk outreach and other mundane sales-ops tasks?
The job gets more human, not less. Let AI handle the grunt work — outreach, research, data entry — and sellers get their time back for what actually closes deals: earning trust, understanding a customer’s business, solving genuinely hard problems. The best sellers start acting like advisors, not task managers. But the bar goes up too. With the routine stuff automated, buyers expect sharper insight and real expertise — no more coasting on volume. Curiosity, relationships, and industry acumen win. It’s a healthy shake-up, and honestly, it just rewards what great salespeople were always good at.
Five B2B sales and salestech leaders you’d like to shout out to in this conversation, and why?
I’ll shout out the traits instead of playing favorites, because the best leaders all share them. The ones who treat data like a strategic asset instead of a chore — they consistently win. The ones who coach relentlessly and build people, not just chase quota. The operators who bridge sales and product so customer feedback actually reshapes the roadmap. The leaders pushing ethical, transparent AI adoption, because trust is the new differentiator. And the mentors who bet on me early and shaped how I lead today. To everyone doing that work well — thank you. You raise the bar for the rest of us.
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About ABBYY
ABBYY helps organizations optimize processes, accelerate decisions, and drive better outcomes with purpose-built Document AI. More than 10,000 enterprises, including many Fortune 500 companies, rely on ABBYY’s 35 years of innovation to turn business data into actionable insights that improve the way we work and live. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, and offices in 13 countries, ABBYY leads the way for smarter agentic automation.
About Joe
Joe Rayfield serves as Senior Vice President (SVP) of Sales for the Americas and EMEA regions at ABBYY.
As SVP of Sales, Joe leads go-to-market strategy and drives revenue growth across two of the company’s most dynamic markets. With extensive experience in enterprise software sales, Joe brings a results-oriented approach to building high-performing teams and cultivating long-term customer relationships. He is committed to helping organizations realize measurable value from ABBYY’s purpose-built AI solutions, working closely with partners and customers to align technology investments with real business outcomes.
