Artificial Intelligence: Get on board or get left behind.

Microsoft Business Application Summit

Last month I was in Atlanta, attending the Microsoft Business Applications Summit. One of the key themes for the summit was Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI was a topic of discussion everywhere irrespective of the session I went to listen, a workshop I attended to try things out, or conversations I was having with Microsoft or other attendees of the summit. Microsoft had AI as a focal point across the board for Business Applications.

AI is making its presence felt across other offerings such as Virtual Agents, Omni Channel Hub, Power Platform, etc. within the Microsoft Technology stack.

A lot of times I get asked, “why AI”, when Sales and Service as functions are highly focused on human interactions, creating a more personal and intimate experience compared to AI. The answer is to understand that it is not a replacement to human interaction and relationship sales or service, but rather a complementary offering making the customer experience more rich, effective, and efficient.

AI is gaining traction and popularity, and now there is less skepticism and more readiness to embrace AI to aid human decision making. Any help available in a complex sales or service environment is welcome and is appreciated by today’s savvy sales and service organisations.

Sales Insights

AI for Sales aka Sales Insights is to make sure that sales teams are not bogged down with administrative tasks which could be done by AI or help sales teams with insights that make the human interaction more meaningful. AI is meant to help improve the scoring of leads and opportunities, help forecast better, and connect the dots between activities and tasks for an account, contact, or an opportunity. From a sales context, it is all about making the sales cycle more Personal, Proactive and Productive. It is to drive Sales Agility and make CRM a system of intelligence and not a system of data entry.