In the past 20 years, artificial intelligence (AI) has jumped from the realm of science fiction right into everyday life. “Hey Alexa...what’s this hack talking about?”
Constantly evolving, AI today is categorized as a “mature technology”...meaning it’s here to stay and change the world along the way. Especially for businesses across the globe.
A recent study in partnership with Harvard, found that 51% of large businesses expect AI to automate and enhance their daily processes (think arduous tasks like data entry) over the next couple of years.
Most will say “um yea, everyone knows AI is going to take over the workplace. Find a new slant.”
Well allow me to narrow the scope: that same survey also found “82% of large companies believe AI can make human work in sales/marketing more meaningful and valuable.”
Judith Donath from Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society suggests that by 2030, we will interact with AI in human-like ways: meetings will be run by bots, and those same skilled bots will help children at home with their homework.
But 2030 is some Jetson’s nonsense -- let’s take a look at how AI is currently changing the companies today.
Automation
While sales is traditionally a “people” business, technology like AI are completely redesigning the sales landscape, reimagining the balance between human and machine.
AI is already automating a vast amount of processes. Surveys found that something as simple as automating the manual CRM data entry leads to a 15% increase in bookings per sales rep.
Machines can automatically enter new contacts, phone calls, and other pertinent information into the CRM; freeing resources by eliminating tedious administrative work.
Better Forecasting
Knowledge is power, but forecasting is more about visualizing. Framing a sales rep’s performance in terms of the answer to the question “Have you talked to the right people?” is commonplace, but it’s always subjective storytelling rather than hard numbers.
Artificial intelligence is changing that.
Raw data is transformed into actionable insights. Sales leaders can rely on algorithms to translate seller engagement data into accurate predictions of their revenues for the next quarter.
Don’t believe it? According to Forbes, 74% of large B2B companies (with $10B in annual sales or more) engage in automated forecasting on a weekly basis.
Conversation Intelligence
A key step in the evolution of AI is the emergence of conversation intelligence (CI).
Which involves technologies that allow the machine to understand and subsequently engage in human interactions – whether written or spoken.
CI brings huge advantages to businesses: it allows them to instantly deliver information or get deeper insights into their customers’ moods or users by recognizing their behavioral patterns in their conversations.
With all the amazing advances in technology happening, It’s unlikely that AI will completely replace humans in the workplace.
What it might do, however, is free up time and resources to focus on more meaningful, valuable work, resulting in higher revenues and engagement across the board.
Who wouldn’t be down for that?
