Artificial Intelligence and Sales: Trends for 2020

Technology has changed rapidly over the past decade, and nearly six months into a new decade there is one buzzword that is shifting nearly every industry: Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, allows businesses to create new opportunities and reach new customers. For the sales industry specifically, the effect of AI is sure to be immense.

Greater insights into daily sales activities will allow managers to make more informed decisions for their teams, and reps will become more productive as AI enhances human capabilities and improves time management. Not convinced yet? Here are our predictions:

Artificial intelligence will not replace humans, but rather will augment their abilities.

“AI and humans will collaborate. AI will not “replace humans,” it will collaborate with humans and enhance how we do things. People will be able to provide higher level work and service, powered by AI,” stated Marianna Tessel, CTO at Intuit.

Implementing an AI tool at your organization has the potential to simplify tasks and automate tedious busywork like manual data entry. As a result, this will allow your reps to spend more time on revenue-generating activities like making calls and following up with leads.

Additionally, information normally logged by reps will become more accurate with AI, as these tools serve to eliminate human error and provide data in real-time. 

Artificial intelligence will allow sales teams to make data-driven decisions that see greater outcomes.  

Every individual leaves behind information via their online clicks – as does each rep via their daily sales activities. Unfortunately, many companies either fail to capture this data or mismanage it, putting their sales team at a disadvantage from the get-go. To properly take advantage of this information and form effective sales insights, this myriad of data needs an efficient AI system that can organize and process it.

AI-driven Sales Acceleration tools can tell sales reps what time of day they should call prospects, how many call attempts they should make for the best optimal outcome, and more. AI will never replace reps or a human-to-human phone call, but it will enable reps to engage better and sell smarter. It can even drive an invigorated sense of friendly competition across your team.  

Further, with AI teams will be able to better predict customers and improve lead generation, enabling managers to make decisions for their organizations based on data, not just intuition. In fact, a Harvard Business Review Study found that companies which use AI for sales were able to increase their leads by 50%.

Artificial Intelligence will enhance the sales process. 

Artificial intelligence does not necessarily imply robots and human-replacing technology. Implementing AI at your organization can be as simple as using a tool to capture and analyze sales call activity and generate predictive insights.

Humans aren’t going anywhere. Rather, AI serves to enhance human behaviors to drive optimal outcomes in the workplace. After all, a more efficient and targeted output of human effort will result in better results for your sales team.

Learn how a sales tool can optimize the daily activities of your sales team.