What is AI-guided selling?

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere these days and it will forever change how businesses operate. This is especially true for the sales world. Selling in today’s dynamic landscape is difficult — it requires a wealth of knowledge, skills, agility, and perseverance. But by leveraging AI-guided selling, sellers can build more strategic relationships, effectively engage with buyers, and speed up the entire buying process.

In this post, we’ll share the ins and outs of AI-guided selling, how it will affect go-to-market (GTM) activities, AI statistics that show its current impact, and what it means for the future of sales and marketing.

What is AI-guided selling?

AI-guided selling combines human intelligence and machine learning to create more intelligent buyer engagements. Essentially, it combines prescriptive and predictive data to provide guidance to sellers. 

Prescriptive AI for sales helps sellers determine the next best action to take during the sales cycle. Predictive AI analyzes insights to identify indicators for the next best step.

For example, every buyer engagement generates data that gives insight into sales activities. How and when was a specific content asset shared? How did buyers interact with specific content? Did a particular sales play lead to a closed-won opportunity? 

When this data across multiple systems within a go-to-market (GTM) tech stack is aggregated, B2B organizations can create a comprehensive view of sales activities. When contextual data is collected at scale, it becomes more valuable than any data an individual seller can analyze. As a result, sellers can provide targeted guidance and interactions that are tailored to buyers and valued by every stakeholder.

How long has AI existed?

It’s hard to believe that artificial intelligence has been around for more than seven decades. Our modern understanding of AI was created in 1950 when Alan Turing established the “Turing Test”— an exercise to “test a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.”

Now, the recent emergence of generative AI has opened the door to a number of new uses that can further streamline and eliminate manual tasks. In fact, Forrester projects the global AI market size to grow nearly 40% every year from 2023 to 2030. Additionally, annual spend on AI tools will climb to $79 billion. As AI tools continue to evolve, AI-guided selling has the potential to transform sales and help organizations achieve greater efficiency and performance than ever before.

How to use AI in sales enablement

In the era of virtual sales, sellers are busier than ever. It’s a challenge to get the attention of prospective buyers, retain it, and nurture relationships. In an ecosystem rife with generic and irrelevant content, digital-first buyers rely upon personalized content experiences to inform their buying decisions.

As buyers become more educated, they want consistent and tailored content experiences paired with seller expertise. Therefore, sellers need effective enablement that arms them with the knowledge, content, tools, and processes to engage with buyers and close deals.

When it comes to leveraging AI in enablement, Seismic’s State of AI in Enablement 2023 Report found that 50% of organizations already use some type of AI-powered tool in their enablement process. Here are a few examples of how to use AI-powered sales on a daily basis:

• Find knowledge and relevant documents on the fly during a presentation with a buyer
• Effortlessly discover the best follow-up content to send after the meeting concludes
• Create highly-personalized and engaging content for specific buyers
• Gather insights into what content and messaging worked during meetings with buyers

To be clear, AI-guided selling will not replace sales reps. Instead, AI will complement the work sellers do and automate many manual sales tasks. When sellers prepare for buyer engagements, AI can also provide insights-driven recommendations on what content to share or details to keep in mind based on previous experiences and deals.

It’s also important to point out that sellers maintain the authority to approve AI-guided recommendations. When mundane tasks are approved by a seller, AI systems work to fulfill recommendations by compiling personalized content for buyer engagements. As a result, sales will still largely be driven by a seller’s social and relationship-building skills, but in a more targeted and effective manner.

Can AI increase sales revenue and growth?

Organizations adopt AI for a variety of purposes. Not only do these technologies enable greater productivity by assuming and managing routine tasks, they also help identify patterns that lead to more intelligent business decision-making. Both of these business advantages support cost savings and revenue generation.

The organizations that have made an effort to leverage AI have a leg up on their competition and are experiencing positive results. According to McKinsey, 63% of organizations that have already adopted AI report an uptick in revenue. Additionally, Seismic’s State of AI in Enablement 2023 Report found that 83% of the 1,400 respondents believe that the fusion of AI and their GTM strategy will lead to greater revenue growth for their organizations. When they were asked to estimate the rate of that growth over the next five years, the average answer was a substantial 22%. 

How will AI change the future of sales and marketing?

As AI continues to evolve, it has the potential to greatly impact the future of enablement and other GTM operations. Our State of AI Enablement 2023 study found that more than 90% of respondents plan to make further investments in enablement technology due to the advancements of AI. When asked about areas they plan to apply AI, they said: 

• Learning and coaching
• Content distribution
• Content analytics
• Content management
• Content creation and editing

In the world of marketing, AI will revolutionize content analytics, research, and greater campaign strategies. Advanced algorithms and machine learning enable AI to provide unparalleled insights into buyer behavior, allowing marketers to identify trends and behaviors. Content powered by AI will make it easier for teams to create and personalize content, ensuring that content resonates with specific buyers and segments. Additionally, it will provide powerful, real-time intelligence that will enable marketers to update strategies and make informed decisions quickly.

AI-guided selling  will also have a strong impact on the day-to-day activities of salespeople. Digital or AI sales assistants are an omnipresent companion for sellers that leverage analytics to provide proactive advice. For instance, if a seller is preparing an email for a prospect, a digital assistant can offer a content recommendation based on the content a buyer has previously interacted with, or that has performed well with similar buyers. This support allows sellers to eliminate the guesswork from their engagements and to refocus on building stronger relationships with buyers.

Explore Seismic’s AI features and functionality

As the global leader in enablement, Seismic has a rich history of AI innovation that dates back to 2015. Back then, we introduced groundbreaking AI-guided selling innovations with Predictive Content, which surfaces content recommendations based on deal context. Since then, we’ve launched Aura, our artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) engine, that fuels AI for sales and enablement teams with the Seismic Enablement Cloud™. Here’s a quick look at some of Seismic’s products that leverage AI:

• Seismic Aura: Seismic Aura uses AI and ML technology to identify patterns, behaviors, and insights, helping identify new business opportunities and increase seller efficacy.
• Seismic Content: Tagging content is critical to providing sellers what they need. With generative AI, Seismic speeds up content creation and auto-tagging.
• Seismic Knowledge: Give reps access to information right when they need it most. Seismic Knowledge’s generative search provides reps with in-the-moment access to answers no matter where they are.
• Seismic Learning: Generate lessons, questions, and summaries with AI-powered learning for faster development and distribution of just-in-time training content.
• Seismic for Meetings: Prepare, present, and follow up on every meeting to accelerate and win deals. 

If you’d like to learn more, explore our AI-guided selling knowledge hub. Or, if you’re interested in seeing Seismic’s AI capabilities in action, get a demo.