Artificial intelligence and machine learning are proving to be very useful in just about every business function in the enterprise, and marketing is no exception. AI is already impacting marketing, and it's going to further shape the future of how business is done and how relationships are forged between companies and their clients. As I wrote recently in MarTechToday, most AI in marketing applications are focused on B2C use cases, many of which we're very familiar with as consumers ourselves. Most of us know that the ads that show up on Facebook, on banners or on Google are targeting individual users directly based on past behavior, demographic data, location information and more -- a process that couldn't be done at scale without the aid of AI. For companies that sell to businesses, communication between salespeople and marketing teams is critical. A day in the life of a salesperson is often chock-full of tasks that could be seen as marketing-related.

Behind the scenes, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is increasingly present in sales and marketing software. And many believe that it is not just going to have an impact but that it is going to dramatically reshape how sales and marketing function in the coming years. While the phone call is an ancient phenomenon to many individuals, companies large and small still conduct a lot of their sales activity over the phone. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, tracking, analyzing and improving the performance of salespeople on phone calls is a much more challenging task than, say, tracking, analyzing and improving the performance of email sales. But a number of companies, including Marketo, AdRoll and Qualtrics, are using "conversation intelligence" company Chorus.ai's

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are proving to be very useful in just about every business function in the enterprise, and marketing is no exception. AI is already impacting marketing, and it's going to further shape the future of how business is done and how relationships are forged between companies and their clients. As I wrote recently in MarTechToday, most AI in marketing applications are focused on B2C use cases, many of which we're very familiar with as consumers ourselves. Most of us know that the ads that show up on Facebook, on banners or on Google are targeting individual users directly based on past behavior, demographic data, location information and more -- a process that couldn't be done at scale without the aid of AI. For companies that sell to businesses, communication between salespeople and marketing teams is critical. A day in the life of a salesperson is often chock-full of tasks that could be seen as marketing-related.

Behind the scenes, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is increasingly present in sales and marketing software. And many believe that it is not just going to have an impact but that it is going to dramatically reshape how sales and marketing function in the coming years. While the phone call is an ancient phenomenon to many individuals, companies large and small still conduct a lot of their sales activity over the phone. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, tracking, analyzing and improving the performance of salespeople on phone calls is a much more challenging task than, say, tracking, analyzing and improving the performance of email sales. But a number of companies, including Marketo, AdRoll and Qualtrics, are using "conversation intelligence" company Chorus.ai's

BERKELEY, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 25, 2017) - LeadGenius today announced that Qin Zhang has joined the company as Vice President of Engineering. LeadGenius provides B2B marketing and sales teams with highly-accurate lead generation data and go-to-market insights through a combination of machine learning and human researchers. Before joining LeadGenius, Zhang was Vice President of Engineering for EverString. With more than 15 years of technology product development experience, Zhang has scaled engineering teams at a range of companies, including firstRain, Primavera Systems, and EverString. "Qin will focus on scaling the LeadGenius engineering team and the core machine learning technology powering the LeadGenius platform," said Prayag Narula, CEO of LeadGenius.

LeadGenius, which uses machine learning to provide a marketing and sales tool for businesses, has raised $4 million in a new round of debt and equity funding. Above: LeadGenius cofounders David Rolnitzky (left), chief product officer, and Prayag Narula, CEO. The Berkeley, Calif.-based company said the investors in the round included SJF Ventures, as well as existing investors Lumia Capital and Javelin Venture Partners. LeadGenius uses a combination of machine learning and real human researchers to power its business-to-business (B2B) service platform. The company will use the money to add multi-channel capabilities to LeadGenius for outbound marketing and sales.