Box CIO Paul Chapman

Box CIO Paul Chapman opens up about the evolution of IT, working with line of business execs and more

By all means, you can try cold-calling Box CIO Paul Chapman or sending him a hopeful e-mail. You can invite him to your event, webinar or roundtable. You could reach out on social media or other channels and see if he’ll download your white paper. None of these standard marketing tactics, however, will work as […]

Testfire Labs Hendrix

Testfire Labs CEO wants to prove AI can take the pointlessness and misery out of office meetings

Testfire Labs is applying artificial intelligence to one of the most challenging aspects of working in an enterprise — no, not finding, converting or retaining customers. Surviving the agony of office meetings. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Testfire Labs’s initial product is bot dubbed Hendrix.ai, that captures and transcribes conversations from business meetings. Beyond acting as a […]

Forrester VP shows how machine learning lets B2B firms treat customers like royalty

Most B2B organizations probably treat their customers as slightly more mature than the recently-born Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, but Forrester VP and principal analyst Mike Gualtieri suggests they should hold just as much of an interest as “Baby Sussex.” Speaking at an event focused on digital decision-making hosted by analytics firm FICO in Toronto on Wednesday, […]

True Influence InsightBase 3.0

True Influence aims beyond ‘raw volume intent signals’ with InsightBase 3.0 to offer contact-level data

True Influence on Thursday will launch an upgraded version of its InsightBase tool that will compete with the likes of Bombora in offering intent data to connect B2B marketers  with the exact prospects who are actively in-market for products or services. Based in Princeton, N.J., True Influence will officially announce InsightBase 3.0 at the Martech […]

Monica Behncke SiriusDecisions AI in B2B

The smartest way to approach AI in B2B, as suggested by SiriusDecisions

Monica Behncke wasn’t necessarily thinking about the potential of AI in B2B when she let her teenage son plan their vacation at an amusement park, but she was quick to recognize the parallels. Speaking at last week’s SiriusDecisions Summit Canada in Toronto, the research firm’s VP and group director noted how amusement parks involve a […]

Conversica Valentine's Day Sales and Marketing Report

Conversica survey suggests AI could spark love between B2B sales and marketing teams

Ninety-three per cent of sales professionals and 87 per cent of marketers believe virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence technologies could improve cross-functional relationships, according to the results of a survey released by Conversica. The Valentine’s Day Sales and Marketing Report is based on responses from approximately 1,000 U.S.-based sales and marketing professionals and explored […]

InsideSales AI B2B sales 2019

90% of B2B sellers tell InsideSales they expect AI to improve their performance in 2019

While the overwhelming majority of B2B sales professionals have high hopes for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help them do their jobs, less than half have actually started to implement such tools, according to the results of a recent survey released by InsideSales. Based on a set of questions fielded to more […]

neural networks customer churn

How to use AI and neural networks to predict customer churn

Customer churn accounts for one of the most expensive business losses. Attracting new customers involves substantial marketing costs, compared to retaining existing ones. Although the churn rate varies significantly by industry, from 5% for SaaS companies up to 38% for telecom organizations, all companies aim to reduce these rates as much as possible by identifying […]

big data analytics AI failures 2019

How B2B firms can avoid big data, analytics and AI failures in 2019

The data-driven insight is clear: if you watch a film starring Nicholas Cage, you face a high risk of falling into a swimming pool and drowning. Andy Pulkstenis was clearly trying for a laugh, and he got one. The director of advanced analytics at State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, Ill, was leading a breakout session […]

INFORMS analytics ethics guidelines

Ethics guidelines from INFORMS focus on analytics and operations research

As more enterprise firms and their customers start to question the use of data in analytics, research and artificial intelligence tools, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is offering an 18-point set of guidelines to ensure ethics in quantitative decision-making. Based in Catonsville, Md., INFORMS was established in 1995 following a […]

Automated Insights Wordsmith

Automated Insights uses natural language generation to prove all that money spent on BI wasn’t wasted

It may have started out as a site offering Moneyball-style analytics for the college basketball crowd, but a firm called Automated Insights could become better known for using natural language generation as a way for enterprises to finally see greater value from business intelligence and data warehouse projects. Founded by a Cisco distinguished engineer and […]

Zoho Zia customer support

Zoho brings Siri-like features to Zia tool as CRM Plus expands to serve customer support teams

Zoho on Thursday expanded its CRM Plus collection of software applications to include tools for customer service teams such as Zia, an intelligent assistant that uses voice recognition features much like Apple’s Siri to address critical questions or complaints. Although Zia (which stands for “Zoho intelligent assistant”) has been available to CRM Plus customers for […]

Showpad Voicefox

Showpad adds ability to transcribe and analyze sales meetings with AI via Voicefox acquisition

Showpad on Wednesday will announce an acquisition that will bring artificial intelligence-based voice recording and transcription analysis to its customer base of sales professionals as a way of boosting their productivity and effectiveness. The Chicago-based firm, whose software offers a range of sales enablement capabilities to B2B firms, said it has purchased Voicefox, a two-year […]

Infogroup CMO

Infogroup CMO argues for a more consumer-oriented approach in B2B marketing

Infogroup CMO Tony Marlow has some advice for his peers: the only way to effectively target B2B audiences is to mirror the seamless, personalized shopping experiences that consumers have grown to crave. A provider of data, analytics and marketing services based in Papillon, Nebraska, Infogroup announced the hiring of Marlow as well as four other […]

AI blockchain

How blockchain can help B2B firms overcome their AI challenges and limitations

PwC estimates that AI will add $15.7 trillion to the world economy by 2030. IBM predicts that blockchain technology’s contribution will have reached $3.1 trillion by then. Clearly, both technologies have the potential to be extremely valuable. Even more intriguing is their convergence. Today, AI is still a limited technology that can be said to […]

Sanctuary AI robotics

Sanctuary AI founder is making robots that are exact human replicas (starting with herself)

Lots of CEOs in the AI space show off examples of robots that look and sound a bit like human beings. Suzanne Gildert, CEO of Sanctuary AI, may be the first to show off one that is designed to look exactly like herself. Speaking at the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) conference in Toronto on Monday, […]