Forbes Insights: How Intel Uses AI To Anticipate Customer Needs

To compete, sales agents need a deep understanding of their customers -- staffing changes, corporate strategy, conference schedules, where their competitors are selling and more -- meaning there are thousands of pages on company websites to read, each containing potentially useful clues; tweets from company executives and industry publications to scan; and executive speeches and press releases to monitor. Who has time to cross reference a customer's retail inventory against all of Intel's existing product lines? Who can keep track of it all? A sophisticated advanced analytics program, SalesAssist uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to study publicly available customer data and proprietary sales records. Then it goes beyond summaries and trends, arriving at key -- and most importantly, actionable -- insights about customer goals and needs that Intel's salespeople can use to close deals.