While the cloud technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) keeps winning the business world, our CRM consultants give a closer look at what changes it can bring to the CRM market. But first, here's what the numbers tell about the AI use in CRM today. As cloud-based CRM is growing in popularity (with 62% of CRM software predicted to move to cloud by 2018, Forbes), machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies keep entering sales people's daily routines with products like Einstein or Dynamics 365. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit report, 75% of the executives surveyed plan to introduce AI in their companies till 2020. Application of AI in CRM is supposed to keep growing with the advancement of tools offered by incumbents. Already in 2015, 25% of leaders in customer service relied on the best-next-action functionality of a kind, and 74% of marketers used predictive intelligence to craft content for a better customer experience (Salesforce).

The most immediate benefit of artificial intelligence (AI) for business is increasingly clear: it's a huge opportunity for increased productivity. Gartner recently calculated that In 2021, AI augmentation will create €2.6 trillion of business value and save 6.2 billion man-hours globally and a survey by McKinsey has estimated that AI analytics could add around $13trn, or 16%, to annual global GDP by 2030. The easiest and fastest way to implement business AI is to add machine learning to existing business processes. Automation brings the most value when it's applied to narrow, repetitive business decisions that are made thousands of times a day, replacing the more boring aspects of knowledge work. For example, machine learning has proved successful at automating repetitive finance tasks such as the automatic matching of invoices and payments, increasing rates from 70% to 94% in just a few weeks--resulting in massive savings in time and effort.

Life has been tough for sales people raised on face to face meetings and networking. Yet while some have railed against the lack of personal contact over the past 18 months, digitally empowered individuals have gone from strength to strength, tapping into deep online data and fast video access to prospects to transform the sales process. Digital tools, including AI and cobots, have changed the nature of sales for good. They are supporting sales people by identifying the most likely deals with more accuracy, reducing wasted time and improving conversion. They are defining the most successful approach for each prospect engagement, allowing individuals to move away from a standard, restrictive, sales methodology.

Lockdowns are lifting but customers aren't rushing back to their offices in a hurry. The Covid era fast-tracked sales professionals into a world of digital selling whether they were ready for it or not. Grounded sales teams have quickly had to learn how to network and engage digitally. Before Covid, the average sales person spent 36% of their time in contact/meeting customers. During Covid, 77% of sales professionals said they're holding more virtual meetings.

Most organizations today are struggling with how to advance in their use of data (see our recent article on Why Your AI Project is Going to Fail). The good news is that it's straightforward (and doesn't require huge investments in tech and lots of new tech hires) to use data to grow your team's capabilities and deliver more value to your employees. The first step is to recognize where you stand today in your journey to AI maturity and that's exactly what this first tool in the Data to AI Playbookshows you. Let's look at the five stages of the Data to AI Maturity journey. We consistently hear stories from sales management about their frustrations with manual data processing.

The most immediate benefit of artificial intelligence (AI) for business is increasingly clear: it's a huge opportunity for increased productivity. Gartner recently calculated that In 2021, AI augmentation will create €2.6 trillion of business value and save 6.2 billion man-hours globally and a survey by McKinsey has estimated that AI analytics could add around $13trn, or 16%, to annual global GDP by 2030. The easiest and fastest way to implement business AI is to add machine learning to existing business processes. Automation brings the most value when it's applied to narrow, repetitive business decisions that are made thousands of times a day, replacing the more boring aspects of knowledge work. For example, machine learning has proved successful at automating repetitive finance tasks such as the automatic matching of invoices and payments, increasing rates from 70% to 94% in just a few weeks--resulting in massive savings in time and effort.

The first is Vymo, which is a smartphone app that tracks your sales people wherever they are and then, using a "variety of machine learning approaches" makes suggestions for other prospects to call based on the sales person's location and other factors. Vymo literally learns from the best performers in an organization and, according to the company, abstracts the best behaviors to coach the rest. It helps to predict "next best actions" in the moment so sales people can close more deals. I'm not sure how thrilled my sales people will be to have a Vymo watching their every move but far be it from me to get in the way of anything - and I mean anything - that will help them generate more revenue for my company.

I just came back from the Venture Beat Transform 2019 conference here in San Francisco, and I have to say, for the first time in many years, I'm starting to feel like the industry is finally starting to get it. What am I talking about specifically? Well, I'm traditionally always right about stuff, and this time, I've been incredibly right about the challenges the market may have had in adopting machine learning. It really felt like everyone at this conference had read these posts and was reporting everything they learned to the audience. That, of course, is exactly what didn't happen.

An article published by Hackernoon months ago was able to bring some sense to the hype about AI replacing all of our jobs. The article made the compelling argument that technological advances throughout the course of history have never resulted in massive unemployment rates. From the Industrial Revolution, to the Internet, technology actually has been responsible for creating new and better jobs for us. From steam machines liberating millions of children from working in the garment industry, to the service economy bringing about more humane jobs, innovation has been on the side of humanity all along. The article claims that the present AI revolution is not an exception.

Hands up if you still think Artificial Intelligence or AI is a Spielberg film, and has something to do with Robotics? Until quite recently, it really didn't occur to me that AI Artificial Intelligence had anything at all to do with selling. So should we be using AI in Sales? But first I will explain why I might take this view. You see when I started selling ET had just been released on the big screen, and the Space shuttle had not long started its missions into the final frontier.