Poor customer experiences are the primary cause for low conversion rates, lost leads and customer churn. In fact, a customer who suffered a third-rate experience will tell five times as many people about what happened than if they had a great experience. These bad impressions tend to stick with people and influence their future decisions for months or even years later. As a result, frustrated Sales Managers and Marketers often blame these sour interactions on substandard or poorly deployed software. Similarly, many marketers prefer today to keep things as hands-on as possible.

Everyone has a morning routine. You wake up, get dressed, have breakfast -- and in the days before COVID-19 -- pack up your bag to leave for the office. Day after day, you pack your bag the same way, tossing in your laptop, lunch, and maybe even workout clothes. It's so routine that it becomes automatic. One day you leave the house, and you notice your bag is less bulky than usual.

Artificial intelligence is about to change lead generation and conversion as you know it. In the process, it'll have a transformative impact on companies and careers. AI is a blanket term that covers several different technologies. You might have heard of some of them, like machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. Even if you don't know much about it, though, you probably use AI-powered technology dozens or hundreds of times per day.

The Covid-19 pandemic has clearly placed an extraordinary amount of pressure on businesses in practically every sector. Companies have had to pivot and adjust to a new way of working, with a rapid switch to remote teams and virtual workforces - many in a matter of days. The reality is, as we emerge from the current situation, it is inevitable that there will be a lasting impact from the changes that have had to be made. The landscape for business has been altered for good. We have already seen many businesses forced to cease all discretionary spending, pause recruitment plans indefinitely, cut marketing spend while still demonstrating a strong return on investment, and yet still make decisions on how best to drive and generate pipeline.

When attending trade shows and conferences supporting Conversica, a question I am frequently asked is whether Conversica's Intelligent Virtual Assistant for customer engagement is "a chatbot." And while I can understand the source of the question, I emphatically stress that Conversica is not a chatbot. A more cynical reader might assume that this differentiation is little more than branding. But I can assure you there are very real differences between what the Conversica Sales AI Assistant offers and what chatbot providers deliver. Each technology has its place and purpose, but neither is synonymous with the other.

I believe that artificial intelligence is going to be our partner. If we misuse it, it will be at risk, if we use it right it can be our partner. Go anywhere today; the essence of AI is spreading in every sector. Starting from non-manual cash-registers to high tech security verification at the airports, AI is building a strong niche that is hard to resist. In-fact according to a survey done by Tractica, AI in eCommerce is booming at such a pace that the revenue is expected to reach $36.8 Billion worldwide by 2025.

Despite its role in early 20th-century fiction, AI has been part of the professional conversation for barely 70 years. AI was first studied at a Dartmouth College conference in 1956. The 1960's saw gains in machine translation and analysis. But AI underwent a "winter" from the 1970s through the early '90s. Researchers shelved their work largely because of the problem of "combinatorial explosion." A U.K. professor who first described the AI concept worried that too many variables would make it useless outside of lab settings. In the early '70s, groups like the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency pulled funding. Research failures had become the norm. Interest in AI grew during the 1990s and early 2000's. Processing power and data volumes increased. At the same time, data sets grew massively. Algorithms gained more "meat" on which to train. Advances in game theory and data modeling led to new approaches. Today, best-in-class infrastructures can support 100,000 or more computers. Two-and-a-half quintillion bytes of data are now generated every day. Globally, private firms are spending tens of billions of dollars per year researching and improving AI initiatives. In fact, 2018's investment amount is more than 50 percent larger than last year's alone. Add it all up, and AI seems ready for a leap forward unlike any seen in its history. But, after slow decades followed by speedy discoveries, few outside the field feel they truly understand it. A recent Dell Technologies report found that 67 percent of leaders said their companies were struggling to implement AI. A similar two out of three consumers don't even realize they're using it, according to a HubSpot survey. "By far the greatest danger of artificial intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it."

August 26, 2019 -- Conversica, Inc., the leader in Intelligent Virtual Assistants for business, announced today that is has been named to the Constellation ShortList for Sales Productivity Solutions in Q3 2019. This is the second consecutive time Conversica has appeared on the Constellation ShortList in this category. This award recognizes software and applications that allow sales professionals to maximize their performance and productivity. Constellation Research, a respected technology research and advisory firm based in Silicon Valley, determines its list by inquiries and interviews with the nominees' clients and partners; while also factoring in market share and internal research. "We are honored to be named to Constellation's ShortList for Sales Productivity Solutions for the second time in a row," said Alex Terry, CEO of Conversica.

The new partnership will help marketing and sales teams maximize the ROI on their event marketing spend. With SummitSync's conference and trade show intelligence paired with automated lead engagement through Conversica's AI Assistants, brands will be able to drive higher quality sales meetings and convert more prospects to customers like never before. For event marketers, the joint solution automates many of the time-consuming tasks associated with event execution such as pre-booking meetings at events, coordinating on-site demos with salespeople and capturing follow-up requests for information. It frees event marketers to focus on delivering an outstanding end-to-end experience. "Conversica is an ideal partner for us because we serve a similar customer base and our combined technologies complement each other and increase the value we deliver," said Al Torres, president and co-founder at SummitSync.

AI solutions such as automated emails and predictive analytics can act as a force multiplier for B2B marketing teams. Megan Wharton is an excellent sales assistant. She's been at her job only a few months, but she's easily the best person at qualifying promising leads on her team. Megan has a remarkable knack for chatting with potential customers over email, and knows exactly what to write to get prospects talking with a salesperson. While her counterparts disqualify leads after a few attempts, she keeps pushing.