Dave Tales Edition #23 | How To Choose The Right Generative AI Vendor For Sales & Marketing?

Ever wonder how we got to the era of Generative AI? Let’s take a little stroll down memory lane. The concept has been bubbling around for about 20 years .Back then, the responses generated by early AI were often limited and prone to what we now call "hallucinations."

One of the game-changers in the evolution of Gen AI has been the advancement in GPU technology. These advancements have enabled us to process vast amounts of data and train complex models more efficiently. Despite these improvements, it’s important to remember that Gen AI remains a tool at its core. Its primary function is to take a set of inputs and predict corresponding outputs based on the data it has been trained on. Recent updates, such as better contextual understanding and attention to detail, have enhanced its capabilities, but the essence of the framework remains unchanged.

When considering any tool, enterprises SHOULD weigh its usefulness and cost-effectiveness. If a tool is not cost-effective, most cost centers will hold off on using it until it proves to reduce costs significantly. On the other hand, sales and marketing teams operate differently. They are profit centers, so they focus on how much a tool can boost sales, improve marketing efforts, and expand their reach, rather than just cost optimization.?

Should Gen AI be a long term or a short term strategy?

Short-Term Strategy:?

In-house development is almost unfeasible for most businesses. Companies should partner with leading vendors who specialize in scalable Gen AI solutions. Aligning with key providers and customizing their solutions to fit specific business needs is the practical approach for now.

Long-Term Strategy:?

For the future, businesses should aim to create and own their Gen AI capabilities. This involves exploring open-source models and tools, and investing in building an internal team knowledgeable in these technologies.

In sales and marketing, Gen AI has a significant impact in 3-4 categories!

???Automates sales processes, handling a significant part of customer interactions before human intervention.

?? Gen AI excels at rapidly generating personalized content tailored to individual preferences and past behaviour.

?? Beyond simple product recommendations, it crafts campaigns. This can include leveraging platforms like WhatsApp for direct communication based on predictive analytics

?? Gen AI reduces dependence on external agencies. By automating tasks such as brainstorming campaign ideas, companies cut costs and enable faster ideation and implementation.

??? Modern automation tools enhance campaign evaluation through advanced data interpretation and cost-effective A/B testing, paving way for better ROI analysis.

Gen AI; Just an extended search?

NO! In the realm of enterprise adoption, the use of ChatGPT remains a bit ambiguous for many. While it excels at providing quick summaries akin to an extended Google search, its variability in responses poses a challenge for industries seeking consistency. Enterprises prioritize precise, consistent answers aligned with legal terms and brand guidelines, which Gen AI tools like ChatGPT may not always deliver.?

To address this, DaveAI's recent focus has been on enhancing accuracy and reducing variability in ChatGPT's outputs. Over the past six to eight months, we have conducted pilots primarily with companies in Europe, the Middle East, and India, with some presence in other regions. About 30% of these pilots have successfully transitioned into production, leveraging improvements to augment existing NLP systems.

Our approach has been to integrate Gen AI selectively where it enhances existing capabilities, ensuring that the majority of queries (80-90%) are handled by proven pre-Gen AI technologies. This strategy balances innovation with operational efficiency.?

DaveAI commits to maximize the benefits of Gen AI while mitigating costs and ensuring reliability for enterprises!

What To Consider While Choosing a Gen AI Vendor?

Here's what our Co-founder & CTO, Dr Ananthakrishnan Gopal has to say:

?? Look for vendors with a clear long-term strategy beyond just API integration.?

?? Ensure they have proprietary technology or significant enhancements beyond standard APIs like OpenAI, Azure, AWS, etc.?

?? Select vendors capable of integrating Gen AI solutions into complex enterprise ecosystems. Seek platforms that are agnostic and compatible with various systems beyond specific cloud providers or APIs.?

?? Avoid over-dependence on a single API or cloud service provider.?

?? Choose vendors that offer flexibility to adapt and expand Gen AI capabilities across different areas of the business without being tied to a specific vendor.?

?? Evaluate vendors’ ability to collaborate effectively with major service providers without being overly constrained by their ecosystems.?

?? Seek a balance between independence and leveraging partner strengths to benefit the organization effectively.

Want to dig in further? Tap the link

Have you ever wondered what the success of a business or a company depends upon? It depends on the core values that the company has and works upon. A ‘core-value’ strengthening move is the formula to achieve success in every business endeavour. Built on the core principle of integrity and privacy of data, with a vision to democratize AI, DaveAI’s platform helps enterprises deliver seamless customer experiences in a digital-first world.

DaveAI: The beginning

DaveAI is a platform that uses artificial intelligence to bridge the product discovery gap for consumers while purchasing products, leveraging real-time data. DaveAI started with a focus on enabling medium-sized retailers to leverage the power of AI in the form of an In-Store Sales Companion. Based on the foundation of ‘deep tech’, DaveAI conquers challenges by meeting the business objectives head-on. It was founded in the year 2016 with the sole purpose of improving the process of ‘sales’.

“The thought of venturing into this domain was driven by a mix of founder capabilities and the determination to change the retail experience for customers with the help of AI.”

– Ashok Balasundaram, Co-founder & Domain Lead – DaveAI

Back then AI as a technology lever was not accessible for small and medium enterprises. This was privy only to enterprises with large budgets, resources & data.??DaveAI started moving towards transforming this scenario with the help of a patent-pending online learning AI platform. The product that started off five years ago as an Intelligent Sales Companion with more deployments, data, and a better understanding of the market evolved into DaveAI , the Virtual Sales Avatar.

“Influencing customer conversations and experiences using data available in real-time continues to be our mission. But we have tackled this without losing sight of the long-term vision of democratizing AI. We are making the right strides towards that. Today, our technology helps millions of end-users(who are customers of businesses we work with) to discover products with ease in a personalized & immersive manner irrespective of the channel.”

– Sriram P H, Co-founder & CEO – DaveAI

Landmark Group was one of DaveAI’s first enterprise customers who deployed DaveAI as an In-Store Sales Companion kiosk application with product visualization capabilities. Since 2019, DaveAI’s focus has continued to be in the large enterprise segment in retail and BFSI verticals. Today, DaveAI works with more than 20 large enterprises and operations in 4 regions – India, Middle East, South East Asia, and North America.

Behind the scenes

The products offered range from virtual sales avatars to virtual spaces. DaveAI delivers personalized sales conversations and immersive visual product discovery experiences. An amalgamation of personalization & visualization across channels with a blend of various new-gen technologies is unique. A ‘cold start problem’ which is one of the key barriers for enterprises adopting AI, is not seen with the products offered by DaveAI. Paving the way for the elimination of this problem is the use of genetic algorithms that form the base of applications that are also powered by deep neural networks. These applications learn with new experiences and become more intelligent with time. Enterprises can start with DaveAI sharing minimum data available such as the product catalogue, to begin with. Once they test the power of the engine, the powerful platform can ingest & leverage data at scale.

Real-time 3D Visualization technology, a Conversational AI engine with speech and NLP available in 11+ languages, GDPR compliant facial detection technology, and a multi-dimensional affinity engine are the key technology layers of the platform. DaveAI is making way for an ‘Intelligent future’ with ‘technological ease’. Adaptability, ease of use, convenient coalescing, and security are the fundamentals that lead to the business intelligence quotient to be on an elevation.

“As a technology company with a vision to democratize AI, our effort is to make complex AI use cases ‘easy to deploy‘. We foresee a future where all applications will have data & intelligence at their core, while today we might be using AI in enterprises as a technology layer on top of enterprise applications. Our platform is tuned to enable this future and also an ecosystem around it.“

– Dr.?Ananthakrishnan Gopal, Co-founder & CTO – DaveAI

Towards the future

With the world transforming rapidly towards the digital realm, artificial intelligence ruling the existence of all industries is not far away. Keeping the needs of people and industries and the vision of the company in tune with technology, DaveAI is moving towards democratizing AI. Being able to provide a way for people to build applications without specialized AI skillsets using the platform, with available data irrespective of the size of the dataset is the crux of the long-term goal of DaveAI.

The adoption of AI is accelerating day by day. It has turned out to be a massive game-changer in various business domains where the capability to ‘multiply value’ is seen. Today AI is not just a ‘convenient recommendation’ but an ‘imperative to a business’ technology.

To explore the right gen AI use case for your enterprise,?Drop us a mail at: [email protected]