Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Enhanced Sales Account Coverage

Executive Summary

With the business landscape constantly evolving, companies are under increasing pressure to effectively cover their accounts whilst also swiftly responding to shifting customer needs. Intel faced similar challenges during its expansion into new markets, which led to the development of Sales AI – an AI platform that has significantly augmented Intel’s sales activity.

By interpreting customer and ecosystem data, Sales AI delivers actionable insights that drive decision-making. The platform powers two applications: Sales Assist and Autonomous Sales, both of which have delivered immense business value, contributing over USD 168 million in 2020 alone.

Technical Background

The Sales AI developed by Intel IT harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to scale the company’s sales activity. As a platform, it gathers and interprets data from customers and the ecosystem, translating it to meaningful insights that can be acted upon. In this process, AI plays a pivotal role by enabling more effective and efficient sales processes.

System Architecture

The Sales AI platform includes various modules such as Sense, Reason, Interact, and Learn, each designed to optimize different aspects of the sales process. With this design, the AI platform can fully cover all partner accounts regardless of whether they are directly handled by an Intel sales team.

Implementation Details

The Sales AI platform powers two applications: Sales Assist and Autonomous Sales. Sales Assist provides actionable insights to account managers, thereby broadening their opportunities to interact effectively with customers and efficiently cover more accounts. On the other hand, Autonomous Sales automates sales motions, learning from the actions or inactions of customers to understand their needs and interests better. These applications operate daily and autonomously, contributing significantly to Intel’s revenue.

Code Examples

While the specifics of the source code behind Sales AI cannot be shared due to proprietary reasons, the platform is built on machine learning and data analytics models. These models process large volumes of data, extract meaningful patterns, and generate valuable insights to drive sales activities.

Performance Analysis

The efficiency of Sales AI is evident in the significant business value it has generated. Sales Assist alone has contributed to an estimated opportunity pipeline greater than USD 100 million per year. Furthermore, Autonomous Sales has helped create USD 30 million in new sales annually. In 2020, these applications together delivered over USD 168 million, surpassing expectations.

Security Considerations

While implementing Sales AI, Intel ensured that customer data privacy and security were maintained at all times. All data processed by the AI platform is anonymized and encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.

Troubleshooting

Intel has put in place robust troubleshooting mechanisms to resolve any issues encountered during the operation of Sales AI. These mechanisms ensure that the platform performs optimally, delivering valuable insights to drive sales.

Conclusion

Intel’s Sales AI demonstrates the transformative power of artificial intelligence in sales and marketing. By leveraging AI, Intel has managed not only to cover more accounts efficiently but also to understand customer needs better and respond effectively. Moving forward, Intel plans to continue enhancing and evolving Sales AI to meet the changing needs of its market and customers.