AI is changing the way networks are built, sold and positioned. For sales and marketing teams in telecom and enterprise IT, this means adapting quickly to meet new connectivity demands. But what does that look like in practice?
At PTC 2025, one thing that became clear – AI-driven infrastructure is creating two distinct sales opportunities. To stay ahead, teams must understand where customers fit in this shift and how to tailor their approach.
Two Key Sales Motions in AI Infrastructure
When it comes to AI-driven network growth, sales teams need to navigate two different, but often overlapping, connectivity needs:
- Metro and Hub Connectivity – Businesses still rely on high-speed, reliable connections between major hubs.
- New AI/ML Workload Routes – Emerging secondary markets, particularly those near power-rich locations, are becoming key hubs for AI infrastructure.
What does this mean for sales? It’s no longer just about selling traditional network solutions. Teams must be able to explain how AI shifts connectivity needs and help customers prepare for what’s next.
Coop-etition with Hyperscalers: Partnering Where It Makes Sense
The relationship between network providers and hyperscalers isn’t a simple case of competition – it’s coop-etition. While hyperscalers are major players in infrastructure development, they still rely on regional and metro networks to fill key gaps.
Here’s where the lines are drawn:
- Partnership opportunities – Many providers support hyperscalers by delivering middle-mile transport, secondary routes, and regional connectivity, which hyperscalers don’t invest in directly.
- Competitive overlap – The main area of competition occurs in data center services and colocation, where hyperscalers and traditional providers both target enterprise customers.
For sales teams, the key is knowing when to position as a strategic partner versus when to differentiate in enterprise services. Training and messaging should emphasize how providers complement hyperscaler infrastructure while offering unique value in areas such as service quality, customization and localized expertise.
Sustainability: A Key Factor, But Not the Whole Story
Sustainability is becoming a bigger part of IT and telecom sales conversations, but it’s most effective when positioned as part of a broader value proposition – rather than a standalone differentiator.
Instead of focusing solely on renewable power, the real opportunity is to frame sustainability as a driver of efficiency, reliability and long-term cost savings. Customers care about:
- Energy-efficient data centers – Modern facilities designed to optimize cooling, reduce waste and minimize overall energy consumption.
- Less power-intensive technologies – Advances in optical networking, AI-driven automation and hardware improvements that lower power requirements.
- Better asset utilization – Smarter network planning and automation to reduce stranded capacity, optimize routing and minimize unnecessary infrastructure expansion.
By integrating sustainability into a broader conversation about performance, resilience and operational efficiency, sales teams can make it more relevant to business decision-makers. Instead of leading with green credentials, it’s about showing how sustainable design translates into a stronger, more future-ready network.
The Real Customer Pain Point: IT Infrastructure Management
For many enterprise IT teams, connectivity is just one piece of a much bigger challenge—managing their entire IT infrastructure. As networks become more complex, so do the demands of keeping track of assets, optimizing performance and ensuring everything runs efficiently.
The biggest frustrations include:
- Lack of real-time visibility – IT teams struggle to track network assets, bandwidth utilization, and capacity availability across multiple environments.
- Manual, outdated processes – Legacy inventory management methods slow operations and create inefficiencies.
- The need for automation – Organizations are looking for smarter ways to monitor, optimize and scale their networks without unnecessary complexity.
Sales conversations that go beyond “just connectivity” and focus on solving these operational pain points can help differentiate offerings in a meaningful way. Positioning solutions that enhance IT infrastructure management – through automation, better asset visibility and efficiency improvements – resonates far more than just selling a faster connection.
The Takeaway: Sales and Marketing Must Work Together
AI is reshaping infrastructure, which means sales and marketing teams need to evolve, too. Messaging, sales enablement and go-to-market strategies all need to align with these new connectivity demands.
At Access Marketing Company, we help telecom and IT organizations:
- Refine messaging for AI-driven infrastructure shifts
- Equip sales teams with the right tools and strategies
- Build marketing campaigns that target evolving customer needs
Want to make sure your team is prepared? Let’s talk about how we can help.
