Sigstr Pulse, a relationship marketing platform, is designed to use AI to analyze employee email and calendar patterns to provide insights into the quality of relationships and engagement within target accounts, locations or segments.

As buyers become more sophisticated and able to navigate their own buying journeys, the role of sales is drastically evolving to align with their needs. Combine that with technological innovation and sales teams face a number of challenges to cater to expectations. Unfortunately, new research from Salesforce has revealed that a majority of sales teams are lagging in terms of meeting these expectations. According to the third edition of the company’s State of Sales report, more than half of sales reps (57%) expect to miss their quotas in 2018.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the “80/20 rule,” is familiar throughout the business world. In sales, the formula is this: 20% of sales reps drive 80% of sales. The 80/20 rule applies across industries and national boundaries. It has persisted for generations, even though sales managers and business leaders try to move the needle on productivity using a variety of techniques.

There continues to be room for growth and education in the artificial intelligence (AI) space, according to new research from EverString and Heinz Marketing. The study, which surveyed roughly 300 marketing and sales professionals across multiple industries, shows that only 12% of respondents are “very confident” in their AI knowledge, while 55% said they are “somewhat confident.”

Conversica aims to help businesses discover their most interested prospects to drive revenue opportunities. Its AI-powered assistants are positioned to initiate contact, intelligently interpret replies and craft tailored responses to engage prospects until they are ready to speak to a representative.

Acrolinx is an content creation platform driven by artificial intelligence (AI). The latest release of the platform, Acrolinx version 5.4, includes refinements and new features designed to streamline content creation and examine performance data to help marketers improve content creation and drive business results.

Despite the buzz around artificial intelligence (AI), many B2B organizations have been slow to adopt and deploy AI-powered applications due to a limited understanding of the technology and how it can impact all areas of the revenue engine.

During its Summit in Las Vegas this week, SiriusDecisions debuted a new matrix framework to help companies better understand the four categories of AI, as well as use case examples and guidance for advancing their AI journey.

InsideView, a sales and marketing intelligence software, has launched InsideView Apex, a go-to-market decision engine that aims to turn the timely, manual process of market analysis into an automatic, daily routine.

Mintigo, an AI-based sales and marketing platform, has announced that Sales Coach 360, its AI-powered predictive sales platform, can now be integrated with Oracle Profiler, a sales productivity application from the Oracle Marketing Cloud. Through the integration, Mintigo aims to help sales and marketing professionals learn, discover and engage prospective buyers with personalized communication throughout the buyer journey.

Oracle has updated its Customer Experience (CX) Cloud Suite with AI-powered features designed to help marketing and sales professionals improve the customer experience and boost business results through real-time behavioral insights, ad optimization and AI marketing management. The Cloud also includes enhanced campaign development and personalized loyalty programs for the entire buyer journey.