Editorial: Learning Is the Odyssey That Never Ends, Because Otherwise We Will Be Tears in Rain

The summer of 2026 was very special for me. For the first time, I was able to implement my sales textbook, Integrated Professional Selling in the Age of AI, with my students, together with its online AI lab. I created both with artificial intelligence, and both are free for students. And the results, in a study I am conducting with them, were very positive.

When comparing students’ responses before and after the course, their confidence in using AI responsibly rose from 3.88 to 4.46 on a 1-to-5 scale, and their readiness to use AI responsibly in their academic and professional lives rose from 3.94 to 4.55. The biggest change was in using AI to research a customer without assuming the answer is correct, which went from 3.46 to 4.43. And 86.8% of students agreed or strongly agreed that the AI-supported activities helped them prepare for sales.

That book did not come out of nowhere. It is grounded in the research I conducted during my sabbatical on what to teach in sales in the age of AI, which I share with you in this issue. It was a summer of a lot of learning, and of learning as a team: thanks to the students, the sales managers and the alumni who gave me their time in interviews, and to the professionals who answered the surveys. It reminded me of what the Spanish national team did at the World Cup, another of the articles in this issue: the best results come when everyone plays as a team.

And companies are experiencing the same thing. According to McKinsey’s report on the state of AI, published in August, about 80% of respondents say AI has improved their personal productivity, and about half say it helps them make better decisions and develop new skills. These results hold across every level of the organization, from individual contributors to senior leadership. Companies are also moving from experimentation to scaling AI, and 40% of large companies are already scaling AI agents, compared with 22% of smaller ones (Tinkoff et al., 2026).

For me, conversational programming with AI, known as vibe coding, is the natural next step after learning to write prompts, so we can stay up to date and keep taking advantage of AI’s benefits. I built my sales simulation with vibe coding, which I started learning in December 2025. In September of this year, I had the honor of offering the first vibe coding workshop for faculty at UCF’s faculty development center. I tell you about it in this issue as well.

In academia, the AI challenge is enormous in marketing and sales. Grewal et al. (2025) argue in the Journal of Marketing Education that marketing educators need to rethink how we prepare our students for a new era. That is why it is so important for every educational institution to formalize its AI literacy program. In the study we presented at the Marketing Management Association conference, which was published in its proceedings, all groups feel confident using AI, but they do not necessarily know whether they are using it ethically. In the article, we propose the six areas that the participants themselves gave us.

All of this is an odyssey: the AI challenge for marketers. But as I say in the article, we have to complete the journey, and the journey never ends, because AI keeps improving every week. The present is challenging and the future will be even more so, but it is also exciting to live in this time of great change and to contribute to it, always placing human beings above technology and AI.

More than ever, human beings must win out over mobile technologies, manipulative algorithms and platforms designed to hook us, so that technology does not manipulate the human mind. Peace, respect and kindness for all, because otherwise, as the replicant Roy Batty says at the end of the film Blade Runner (1982), we will be like tears in rain.

Please send me your comments and tell me what you would like to read in our next issue.

References

Grewal, D., Guha, A., Satornino, C. B., & Becker, M. (2025). The future of marketing and marketing education. Journal of Marketing Education, 47(1), 61–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/02734753241269838

Tinkoff, D., Van der Veken, L., Chui, M., & Balakrishnan, T. (2026, August 25). The state of AI in 2026: On the road to ROI. McKinsey & Company.

Valdez, C., Willox, S., & Penn, D. (2026). Confident yet underprepared: The case for AI literacy in business and marketing education. In B. Houran & M. Martin (Eds.), Artificial, living, and human intelligence in marketing education: 2026 Fall Educators Conference Proceedings. Marketing Management Association.

Author: Dr. Carlos Valdez
Date: October 2026
Editorial assistance: Claude.
Image generated with: ChatGPT and Gemini.
Publication: Revista Mercadotecnia y Ventas.
© All rights reserved, Revista Mercadotecnia y Ventas 2026.
Reproduction without the author’s permission is prohibited.