Last week I had one of those moments where I was reminded just how much I love my job! Being at the forefront of technological innovation I got to tap into the knowledge of some of the world’s top experts on the intersection of generative AI and revenue enablement.
During our virtual round table, “Maximizing Revenue Potential: Harnessing the Power of Generative AI,” I had the opportunity to access insights from Forrester Principal Analyst Seth Marrs, Dr. Lisa Palmer, Chief AI Strategist at Dr. Lisa AI, and Mediafly’s Chief Technology Officer, Jason Shah. We covered a range of topics including how revenue teams can use generative AI today; how the technology will transform B2B sales in the future, and what business leaders must do now to put their companies on a path to benefit from the rapidly evolving tech.
If you were able to join us this blog will provide a good recap and if not take a read to learn about the topics and themes we covered.
What is Generative AI?
Whether you’re a technophile or a lay person there is no question that “generative AI” is the buzz topic of the year. What’s interesting though is depending on who you ask you will likely get different explanations. Since November 2022, I’ve heard generative AI described in a variety of ways. To levelset our conversation, I asked Dr. Lisa Palmer, how she defines generative AI for her clients. She said, “it learns from data we’ve given to it and it’s powered by an algorithm to answer questions, and speak as a human.” She provided a simplistic analogue, “it’s like predictive texting on our cell phones.” Earlier this month at Forrester’s recent B2B North America Summit CEO George Colony simply described it as, “a tool that creates something new and fresh from a pile of data”.
While exact wording may vary depending on the expert you ask— the essence of it is that generative AI is a transformational technology that will dramatically change how we live and work.
One important takeaway is just how quickly the technology is being adopted. In terms of market penetration generative AI is already outpacing the Internet. In addition to user adoption, the speed at which the tech is evolving means that chief executives must revisit their business strategies and chief product officers must rework their product roadmaps. According to Dr. Palmer, “if you had a strategy, a business plan, or had taken advice before November 30th, 2022 – you need to take a pause and rethink it.” There’s much to learn from what startups are doing with it as ninety percent of them have plans to or have already launched a feature that captures the power of generative AI.
Act Now: Get Your House in Order
We’re at an inflection point: in order to fully harness the current and future potential of generative AI, organizations must prepare now by focusing on their data. Our panel of experts stressed the importance of having a singular, well-structured data lake, where all relevant information resides from which the generative AI can both pull from to answer prompts and rely on to fine-tune to provide precise answers. Without a unified data repository, the generative AI cannot provide accurate insights. High-quality data is the foundation on which impactful generative AI outcomes are built. As such organizations must clean their data and ensure its recency and accuracy. Dr. Palmer advises companies to use AI everyday. “Focus on specific outcomes and impact you want from clean and re-structured data.”
To make some of these concepts easier to understand Jason talked about email in the corporate world as an appropriate analogue. “At first email wasn’t allowed, and it took mistakes like sending personal data for companies to implement policies. Companies needed to create policies on how to use it and what to share”. Even as you think about and develop new policies for corporate generative AI use, our experts encouraged leaders to allow their teams to experiment. Everyone agreed that the potential value of generative AI outweighs the risks – at least in the world of revenue enablement.
The Current Capabilities: The Tip of the Iceberg
While truly transformational use cases will happen in the future, generative AI’s current capabilities are already helping revenue teams to drive efficient growth. Innovative revenue teams are already using the technology to:
- Summarize buyer/seller calls
- Provide next best action recommendations
- Create marketing content such as blogs, papers, slides, images, and videos
- Improve customer experiences with scalable, hyper-personalized interactions
- Automate time-consuming administrative tasks
According to Seth, “if you’re not using a tool like this when writing to a buyer to make sure your writing is up to par, then you’re behind”. Sellers should use generative AI to help craft and personalize intriguing messages to buyers, and marketers should use it to initiate, enhance and shorten the cycle times when creating blogs, decks, and industry specific content. Gartner estimates that by 2025 30% of all marketing content will be synthetically generated. In terms of personalization, Dr. Palmer told us, “we now have an opportunity through the insights available in these tools to create personalized communications at scale to deliver superior customer experiences.”
While today’s use cases are notable the capabilities currently being developed for the future will be transformative. Jason provided us with a glimpse of what we may see as early as 2024: “Imagine you have a system in your enterprise that takes care of the entire SMB workflow – it acts as a standalone BDR. It chats with leads, emails them, generates order forms and hands them off to the implementation team after they sign”. This may sound like magical thinking today but Jason believes this workflow will be possible in a mere 1-2 years.
The Future: Embrace the Limitless Possibilities
While current applications of generative AI are exciting, we are all excited for the future. Our panelists shared their visions for the future, highlighting the potential for personalization, accelerated content creation, and impactful coaching. Imagine simulated role play, the end of generic pitch decks, and insights at the quantitative level from qualitative data. That’s what’s coming your way.
Many business leaders I speak with are overwhelmed with technology choices. But remember tech is not the panacea for all that ails us. Do the planning and pre-work and make sure you’re managing change while enlisting people and refining processes. While we are likely to see smaller and more nimble sales and marketing teams in the near future, most B2B marketing and sales professionals will interact with tools that harness the power of generative AI to make them exponentially more valuable.
Conclusion:
We are at an inflection point with generative AI – one that is not dissimilar to what we experienced with the commercialization of electricity, the Internet, and mobile phones. In the world of revenue enablement the technology is propelling us into an era of unprecedented possibilities – where hyper-personalization, enhanced customer interactions, insights-driven coaching, and uber accurate forecasting are within reach.
Organizations must prepare now for what lies ahead. Get your data in the right place and in the right structures; embrace a culture where responsible use of generative AI is encouraged, and learn from the mistakes your teams will inevitably make.
I had a handful of prepared themes and the audience had over 30 questions — it’s fair to say this is a hot topic and one where there is both intrigue and hesitation. If you’re a B2B revenue leader and questioning where to start, this roundtable is well worth your time. Check it out here.
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