Category: Innovation

People are obsessed with their personal AI assistants; we walk around with them in our pockets and set them on our kitchen counters. There are so many AI assistants out there already that Ovum believes they will soon outnumber the population of the planet.

Why do we love our AI assistants so much? Because they make our lives easier and are fun to use. But AI isn’t just fun and games. AI is on track to be your new favorite co-worker. AI can bring that same ease and joy that it brings to your personal life into your work life. In a matter of 10 years, we believe all information workers will be using an AI assistant at their job.

Cutting Corners with AI

Finding shortcuts is part of human evolution. We look for the path of least resistance in order to get things done quickly and effectively, dating back to the invention of the first stone tools. AI assistants are the latest and greatest innovations on our evolutionary tract.

We can’t be bothered to open up our phones, find the weather app, and read it. We’d rather say “Hey Siri, what’s the weather?” and have it tell us. Less work, same outcome. This mindset does not (and should not) stop at our personal lives. We’ll soon see these technologies bleed into our professional lives too.

AI in the Workplace

There are tasks that come with every job that we simply don’t like doing. They’re typically the administrative tasks that are super repetitive, labor-intensive, or just plain boring. Business AI assistants can reduce the number of dreadful tasks we have to do and be the shortcut we need at work.

Business AI tools can handle a huge range of tasks like data entry, research, analytics and security monitoring (just to name a few). When these tedious tasks are taken care of, employees have more time for satisfying parts of their job, leading to higher employee satisfaction.

AI Right Here and Now

Eighty-five percent of executives believe AI will transform their company and give them a competitive edge. A case study by The Harvard Business Review says that those who’ve already implemented AI are seeing revenue increases to both their top and bottom line. While AI is still in its early adoption stages for business, many corporations are excited and eager to see it boost productivity and revenue.

Many people are concerned that business AI will replace human workers, however, there is nothing to fear. When ATMs were first implemented, many bank tellers were concerned that their jobs would become obsolete, but the opposite became true. Since the machines were handling simple tasks like deposits and withdraws, lines moved quicker, tellers were handling more challenging tasks and most importantly, tellers could better tend to their customers.

There are so many tasks we can automate to make our lives easier, more productive and improve how we feel about our jobs. Lawyers can analyze more court documents with an AI assistant, salespeople can close more deals when their AI handles their administrative work and doctors can diagnose patients earlier and with better accuracy when AI helps them analyze test results. Within the next 10 years, every information worker will have a business AI assistant and those assistants will help us focus on what really matters in our professions.

By Jessica Munday

What if you could have that “I just closed a deal!” feeling more, and have to do less busy work? With sales AI, you can.

You spend weeks, sometimes months, working an account. You’ve seen them through every step of your pipeline. You sent dozens of emails, called your contact more times than you can count, and logged every encounter with them into your CRM. All that busy work just for the slight chance that it turns into a deal.

More than 70 percent of sales reps say they spend too much time on boring, repetitive tasks. Whether it’s pesky data entry duties, the back and forth email chain to set up a single meeting, or calling and logging leads that may (or may not) turn into a sale.

With sales AI you can get that 70 percent back to do more of what you do best.

The world of AI is already making huge strides across multiple industries. Not only is it already being used to test the waters of self-driving cars and robotic healthcare, but you’re already using it in your home and on your phone with Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google Assistant.

There are also areas where AI is not so visible. Like sales.

Sales AI can make your job easier by streamlining how you do business. This is called augmented intelligence – the idea that artificial intelligence can play the role of your assistant with the goal of enhancing human intelligence rather than replacing it.

Sales AI as your new assistant

While you’re hard at work aiming to meet your sales quota goals, you likely have to perform tasks that bog you down – like CRM data entry, prospecting, and researching and updating all of your missing account information.

There are AI tools that can simplify those tasks; clearing up your day to sell. Meaning you’ll be meeting your sales quota easier and take home a bigger paycheck without having to work any harder.

Here are some things AI can do to help automate sales tasks you find yourself drowning in each day:

• Monitor your email and calendar then log emails and events to their respective accounts in Salesforce
• Add new contacts to their respective primary accounts
• Predict new close date of opportunities that may appear outdated
• Update incomplete or inaccurate records with quality data
• Recommend similar companies to those you do business with

How it helps you hit your sales quota

Seems too good to be true? The power is all in the algorithm.

New technology and innovative work by engineers have made computers capable of some pretty remarkable things. They’re able to analyze data, learn from that data, and then make a determination or prediction about what will happen next.

The computer’s data analytics skills paired with the information already online gives them tons of data that they can put to work for you.

To put it simply, there’s technology out there that can automate the repetitive tasks that waste your time. On top of that, these tools can learn from you in order to personalize your experience.

Can you really trust a computer with all that data

There’s a big buzz surrounding sales AI, simply because so little is known about it (after all, it only become widespread relatively recently). Security and privacy are major issues, and many companies in the AI field feel the same way. And, in the wake of the recent breaches that have been splashed across the news, they’re doing everything they can to keep your information safe.

However, that doesn’t mean you should trust any and every company.

If you’re looking into a new technology tool, it’s important to read and review the privacy statement of the company before you start using their product. You’ll find that most use unique encryption keys that prohibit anyone within or outside of the company to have access to any of your data.

Time to get ahead on your sales quota

Don’t get stuck doing data entry while others are out making deals.

Only 33 percent of a sales rep’s time is spent actively selling. If you gave those repetitive tasks to an AI tool, you’d find yourself with much more time on your hands.

The time that could be spent making calls and talking to qualified leads, giving yourself an edge over your competition and putting more leads into your sales funnel.

The future of automation isn’t replacing people, but rather letting them focus on the human element of sales.

Automation Hero offers the industry’s first personal sales AI assistant for automation that dramatically improves sales efficiency by automating tedious tasks.

By Jessica Munday