I don’t think Jeannie and the company should deploy the sales bot now. I agree with Jeannie in that failing to adopt generative AI could leave the company behind competitors. However, there are clearly more risks to deploying the sales bot now than falling behind competitors. As Linda and Mark pointed out, chatbots were known to exhibit hallucinations, and although they have long-term potential, they currently lack the capabilities of current salespeople. In addition, converting to chatbots could affect the company’s reputation and brand, as Jeannie saw with Orion, which stated they would opt out because they value deep, personal relationships. Converting to chatbots could erode trust both internally and externally, as PulsePoint would have to rely on an external vendor to provide models (meaning they also don’t know much about the chatbot), which might raise concerns among more traditional companies like Orion, which value privacy.
When key companies like Orion pose concerns about adopting AI, I think it’s a sign that the core value PulsePoint offers (deep, personal relationships and customized content) isn’t currently compatible with AI, and it’s too risky to pivot all toward AI. However, I think Jeannie could adopt a hybrid model in eventually adopting chatbots. Clearly, there’s a lot of internal concern about the adoption of chatbots, so deploying one internally to test chatbot capabilities and see how it could augment, rather than replace, salespeople, would be a good first step. If this is successful, PulsePoint could start deploying chatbots externally and leverage customer segmentation to maintain relationships with more traditional companies and deploy chatbots to companies that are more willing to try out the offering.
