AI, in general, is a hot topic everywhere. This site has discussed the nature of AI before and posted about the hype versus reality of it. Every passing day has made the promise and reality of AI more real, more rewarding and more ominous. The aforementioned AI article listed several vendors who had begun working on inserting artificial intelligence and its brain, machine learning, into sales and its various departments.
A recent quotation by Eric Yuan, chief executive of Zoom, the video conferencing company, was worth attention. He is suggesting that an AI version of us can attend meetings for us in five or six years. The implication is that a digital version of us could act for us and, moreover, would be as diligent, acceptable and effective as the person it represents. Yuan was careful to couch this as an augmentation technology as opposed to a replacement one. The scenario again was the utopian dream of having much more leisure and downtime. Yet, his thoughts, if taken to their logical conclusion, could make a reader imagine being replaced by the said system gradually. Moreover, what is stopping AI from creating multiple copies of us? AI could create dozens of me if it can duplicate me once.
Artisan, a company which bills itself as “Creating Highly Advanced Digital Workers … Using Cutting-Edge AI Technology,” is marketing itself as offering functional AI avatars replacement of salespeople, customer success, BDRs, recruiters, financiers, etc. with names like Ava, Liam, Noah, Olivia and others. Thought prospects are being bombarded by business development and sales now? Wait until a million Avas start getting in touch. In fact, among the features Artisan advertises per its artificial human replacements is “Sends 1000s of emails per month.” Buyers, decision-makers, V and C-levels take cover. Incoming! Pricing? From less than $1,000 (US) down to almost $100 per month. Do I get to talk to AI if I contact their sales department though?
Similarly, there is GoCust, which advertises itself as “Sales Teams Now Have Online Assistants.” It touts itself as a SFA, assistant, mapping and route optimizier, that gains cost and time advantages in order “to minimize the need for sales teams to constantly struggle with messaging, phone and email traffic… develop solutions to increase the rate at which customer conversations are recorded as data… to offer sales managers the opportunity to proactively manage their teams.” And these companies are not alone.
All of this has become possible, in the meantime, because storage and computation costs have fallen drastically and are basically cheap.
In the meantime, according to a study by Zendesk, which itself has jumped wholeheartedly into the AI space ($50/user/month), management believes AI is beneficial and helpful. “Four in five (81%) employee experience leaders now see AI as essential in boosting workers’ ability to tackle complex tasks,” reports Zendesk.
At this point, a forecast of five or six years for these technologies to be operationalized and become part of the mainstream seems frankly… conservative.
Things that need to go away: Efficiency, effectiveness and productivity AI technology that never mentions the potential for creating layoffs and attrition. The discussion around these technologies needs to be brave and candid.
