Even though the concept of Artificial Intelligence has been introduced since the 19th century through works of fiction, nowadays we are experiencing AI technology’s impact on different facets of our everyday lives. Self-driving vehicles and intelligent personal assistants that used to be thought of as science-fiction are currently around us. But how can AI technology contribute to some of our business processes?
Salesforce, a major cloud computing company offering a CRM service, announced Salesforce Einstein, a comprehensive AI that will be integrated within each piece of its CRM platform. According to Salesforce, Einstein will allow “any company to deliver smarter, personalized and more predictive customer experiences”. Through machine learning, deep learning, predictive analytics, natural language processing and smart data discovery, Salesforce’s Einstein will automatically discover relevant insights, predict customer future behaviour, proactively recommend best next actions to sales reps and automate tasks. For example, Einstein will be able to analyze CRM data along with different customer interactions, such as inbound emails of prospective clients, in order to identify buying signals early and provide recommendations on the next course of action. This will facilitate sales representatives in closing a deal.
Most major companies in this industry, such as Microsoft and SAP, are currently developing or have in some form already developed AI projects of their own. This was inevitable as companies need to process an increasingly large amount of data from a variety of different sources, at a small amount of time. Additionally, data has to be integrated within a company’s customer relationship management system in order to be efficiently utilized. An AI that is able to adapt in this setting, continuously learn from increased data sets and facilitate decision making according to best practices will provide immense value to companies.
Of course, sceptics argue that as AI technology continues to evolve and improve in the coming years, this increased level of automation will be killing jobs. For instance, in regard to CRM, a sophisticated AI could be making decisions that were previously part of a sales representative’s responsibilities. On the other hand, supporters claim that a form of human interaction will always be necessary in business processes and new jobs will be created through automation.
What do you think? Would you be threatened if your company introduced an AI that could potentially outperform you or is experience and human intuition irreplaceable?
Sources:
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2016/09/introducing-salesforce-einstein.html
http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/feature/CRM-gets-smart-with-artificial-intelligence-technologies
Hello Lampros, your point of view on AI technology and its application to CRM services is really interesting. Actually I do not believe that this increased level of automation will be killing jobs but I am convinced that it will rather help current sales representative to focus on what they do the best (selling), to make better decisions and to improve their time management. Thanks to these new intelligent CRMs, they are able to spend more time on prospects that are more likely to be closed and to waste less time on “curious” people with no real intention to purchase. Plus, predictive analysis and smart data discovery do not make decisions by themselves but they help humans to make better decisions. The human interaction is still at the core of the activity, the technology is just an enabler. I am very enthusiastic about intelligent CRMs and I can not wait to see their performances.