Are we right to expect the same superpowers and natural dialogue that J.A.R.V.I.S., the AI assistant, brings to Iron Man as what generative AI (genAI) will bring to CRM? As the possibilities become more within reach, we use this comparison to manage expectations on how genAI for CRM will extend the capabilities of marketers, sellers, and customer service agents to create superherolike outcomes.

Today, genAI can digest and learn from all your customer interactions — phone conversations, emails, meeting transcripts, etc. You’ll soon be able to talk to or chat with your CRM. And you’ll get insights about your customers, summaries of past conversations, and tasks that you should act on. And just like J.A.R.V.I.S. didn’t become or take over Tony Stark, genAI won’t take over or make CRM obsolete. Instead, genAI will actually increase CRM’s strategic importance. How? It will make CRM data more complete and processes more accessible and useful to the front office.

J.A.R.V.I.S. made Tony Stark a better superhero. In the same way, genAI will make your front office real superheroes for your customers. It will take on the job of the superpowered administrator and collaborator. It will let your front office deliver great customer experience (CX) that drives profitable customer relationships.

The Impact Of GenAI In CRM

GenAI for CRM will allow your front office to:

• Reach new levels of productivity. GenAI will offload administrative overhead by helping write emails, answer RFPs, create notes and content, and update CRM records. As a result, companies will see productivity gains and step function changes in teams taking on more creative and strategic work. Additionally, genAI will also prepare you for changes in workforce demographics by making front-office work more attractive. By 2025, more than 27% of the workforce will be Gen Zers. This generation wants to make an impact on customers and do work that matters, not spend time on rote administrative work.
• Deliver differentiated CX. Even with full knowledge of who your customers are and where they are on their journey, the front office struggles to deliver value-added CX. GenAI will help the front office extract key information about opportunities, customers, and cases and enrich all this with real-time, contextual news feeds. It will help users prepare for meetings, surface key talking points, and recommend follow-on actions, increasing customer intimacy and trust.
• Affect company revenue. GenAI allows the front office to extract useful information from CRM records and surface relevant insights in the flow of their work, in real time, without relying on IT. It will prompt users on how to better explore data and what additional data to write back to the CRM. This will improve overall CRM data quality and allow greater flexibility in how data can be queried and by whom. It will help drive broader adoption of CRM as a trusted data source at companies that have been reluctant to use it.

It’s a journey to get your genAI strategy in order. You have to pick the right use cases to invest in and cleanse your data. You have to establish governance that satisfies trust, privacy and security, and ethical guidelines. And you have to get buy-in from your employees. Read How Generative AI Will Transform CRM for some practical guidance, and connect with me to share your thoughts, learnings, and experiences — I’d love to learn from you!