Sales reps save hours of time on manual tasks thanks to AI. TarikVision/Getty Images
Artificial intelligence is saving U.S. sales professionals hours of work every day, a new survey shows.
Sales reps use AI to automate manual tasks like scheduling meetings and taking notes.
According to Hubspot, almost a third of employees use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by an editor.
Artificial intelligence (AI) apparently saves sales employees a lot of time on seemingly insignificant tasks, as a recent study shows. In early 2023, the marketing company surveyed Hubspot 648 sales reps and 303 executives in the US to understand their attitudes towards AI.
It found that sales reps save two hours and 15 minutes a day when they use AI to automate manual tasks like scheduling meetings, taking notes, and entering data.
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Salespeople also reported “tremendous time savings” in areas such as employee onboarding and coaching. Managers reported being able to identify growth areas in their sales teams more quickly. Sales teams, in turn, say they can use the time saved by AI to focus more on the human aspect of their work. For example, “engaging with customers and closing deals,” Hubspot sales manager Kelly Brooks wrote in the study. Hubspot did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s (BI) request for comment.
With AI, people work more productively
Generative AI also plays a role for employees. 31 percent of sales professionals surveyed by Hubspot reportedly use tools like Chat GPT from OpenAI or the text-to-image generator from Dall-e. Also popular is Jasper, an AI assistant that helps write sales content or address potential customers.
But that doesn’t mean Chat GPT is taking over people’s jobs, the study found. It just makes them easier. Nine out of 10 sales professionals who use generative AI say they use AI chatbots as just a starting point. They edit the AI-generated text.
“AI doesn’t replace salespeople – it just takes over the most repetitive aspects of their work,” the study says.
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Hubspot publishes the results at a time when employees in all industries are starting to use generative AI at work to increase productivity. Since Chat GPT launched in November 2022, people have used the AI chatbot – some secretly – to write code, generate real estate listings, create lesson plans and produce marketing materials.
Caution and uncertainty when dealing with AI
But while companies large and small have warmed to the use of AI, there is also uncertainty about the technology‘s privacy impact and accuracy. Apple, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase have already issued bans or restrictions on the use of AI in the workplace this year. The concerns could be why AI is still only a small part of most companies.
“We are still at a stage where most CEOs, if asked if there is someone in their company who can tell them where AI is used, what the risks are and how they are mitigated, would say no “Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, told the Financial Times earlier this month.
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Still, sales professionals don’t see the AI hype going away any time soon, at least according to Blue Bowen, a sales technology research director at enterprise software company G2. “Although generative AI is relatively new compared to predictive AI and other forms, it is gaining momentum quickly and is unlikely to slow down,” Bowen said in the study.
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