
In this interview, Zig AI founder and CEO Steve Ancheta shares how his 16-year sales career inspired the creation of an AI-powered sales execution platform. He discusses sales productivity, AI agents, leadership, hiring top sales talent, and why companies should focus on reducing complexity rather than adding more tools to their sales organizations.
Steve Ancheta is the Founder and CEO of Zig AI, an AI-powered sales execution platform designed to help sales professionals automate non-revenue-generating work. With over 16 years of experience in sales leadership and engineering, he built Zig AI to give every salesperson access to a team of AI executive assistants.
June 15, 2026

Zig came from my 16 years in sales. I started in door-to-door sales, became a sales leader, and later worked as a sales engineer. Throughout my career, I saw how much time salespeople spend on tasks that don't generate revenue. I wanted to build something that would remove those burdens and allow them to focus on selling.

Salespeople have too much on their plate. They need to generate leads, prepare for meetings, conduct research, manage follow-ups, and maintain customer relationships. Zig gives every salesperson a team of AI executive assistants that can handle those tasks, freeing them to focus on building relationships and closing deals.

Salespeople have too much on their plate. They need to generate leads, prepare for meetings, conduct research, manage follow-ups, and maintain customer relationships. Zig gives every salesperson a team of AI executive assistants that can handle those tasks, freeing them to focus on building relationships and closing deals.

Most sales organizations spend a lot of human capital on repetitive work. Zig replaces much of that effort with AI agents that can analyze data, generate leads, prepare for meetings, follow up with customers, and execute workflows automatically. This dramatically increases speed while allowing employees to focus on higher-value activities.

We see the strongest results with full-cycle account executives. They are responsible for both generating new business and maintaining customer relationships. Because they balance so many responsibilities at once, they experience immediate value from having AI agents supporting their daily activities.

Zig is not a software company that simply added AI features. We are an AI company that happens to look like software. Traditional tools require users to operate them. Zig uses AI agents that can reason, make decisions, take action, and continuously adapt to user behavior. That creates a completely different experience.

The first is education. Many companies still don't fully understand AI and its capabilities. The second is comparison. Some people assume Zig is just another sales tool. We spend time helping customers understand that we're not replacing one piece of software with another. We're introducing AI agents that actively work on behalf of the user.
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