The Future of Sales: How AI Assisted Sales is Transforming the Business Landscape
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into sales processes is reshaping how businesses interact with customers and manage operations. AI-assisted sales tools are becoming increasingly sophisticated, offering unprecedented capabilities increasing customer engagement and streamlining sales cycles. This blog post gives a brief overview of the multifaceted role of AI in sales.
Ville Miettinen
• Industry Insights • Reading time: 4 minutes
Revolutionized Written Customer Interaction with AI
The advent of Large Language Models such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini have dramatically changed the way how sales representatives can communicate with their clients and prospects. No longer does a sales representative need to be a great writer or communicator to effectively respond to a client or prospect. All the sales rep needs to do is instruct the AI on the key selling points of the service or product, and the AI will forge at a minimum a great starting point for a sales outreach. Alternatively, the salesperson can let the AI know what the customer wrote and then ask for a great response. This will make intelligent, great text something anyone can do. Even people who are dyslexic, do not enjoy writing, or do sales in some other language than their mother-tongue, can write very convincing and well-written emails, with the help of AI, in a matter of minutes.
(Note: never let ChatGPT or similar tools know your personal or client's information, since this might be used as training data for the AI model. For a secure AI experience based on company’s own documentation, consider TekstiAI's services)
Streamlining Sales Processes with AI Assisted Sales Tools
Tools such as AI Google Assistant can be used to automatically screen incoming calls which might make cold calling more difficult for salespeople. However, wide adoption of tools like this can also lead to salespeople having to be more accurate in their prospecting and approach, since they need to be sure the receiving end will want to take the call once they know what it is about.
Besides tools that help contacting prospects and clients, AI technologies are also transforming sales strategies through automation and predictive analytics. For example, Gong helps both sales representatives and their managers to make better judgements of calls and to retrieve more data and information of all sales calls.
Although this is currently limited, soon AI will start to make more calls on its own without any human supervision. Already tools such as air.ai claim to have an AI sales tool that can 10–40-minute calls independently and take actions based on the discussions it has.
Enhancing Search Capabilities with AI
A key component of AI integration in sales, is the improvement of search functionalities. AI search engines, AI domain search, and AI image search technologies are refining the way businesses and customers find relevant information. These tools are designed to provide more accurate results by understanding the context of user queries, learning from interactions, and delivering personalized search experiences.
- AI Search Engine: By employing natural language processing and machine learning, AI search engines such as Bing Copilot or Perplexity deliver more relevant search results, helping customers find the exact products they seek swiftly and efficiently.
- AI Domain Search: For businesses, AI domain search tools streamline the process of finding relevant online spaces, aiding in branding, and marketing efforts.
- AI Image Search: Tools such as Same.Energy or Search.Anything allow customers to find products just by uploading images or describing what they want to find. This makes the search process more intuitive and aligned with user preferences.
AI in Job Search and Recruitment
The influence of AI is not limited to direct customer sales; it also extends to internal business processes like (sales) recruitment. AI-based job search tools and AI in job search platforms are revolutionizing how businesses find and recruit talent. These tools automate the screening of applications and can predict candidate success, reducing the workload on HR departments and increasing the efficiency of the recruitment process. Additionally: when candidates can ask AI to write their cover letter and the recruiter can just summarize the same letter when it arrives, it is a valid question to ask whether cover letters are needed at all in a world where AI does most of writing and interpreting.
Conclusion
As AI technology continues to evolve, its impact on the sales industry is expected to grow exponentially. The automation and intelligence that AI brings to various aspects of sales—from customer interaction to search optimization and recruitment—suggests a future where AI is integral to all facets of business operations. In a best-case scenario, the wide adaptation and development of these tools will lead to increased efficiency around different industries and better results for those sales organisations, that know how to best utilize AI in their operations. However, with these advancements come challenges such as ensuring privacy, managing job displacement, and maintaining human oversight.