SalesTechStar Interview with Ram Menon, Founder and CEO at Avaamo

Ram Menon, Founder and CEO at Avaamo comments on how virtual agents are enabling online customer interactions and driving the overall B2B sales and marketing experience in today’s digital realm:

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Welcome to this SalesTech Series chat, Ram, tell us about yourself and what inspired Avaamo? What makes Avaamo unique?

Before starting Avaamo, I was President of Social Computing at TIBCO Software, where I founded the division from scratch and built TIBCO into a leader in social business software with 9 million paid users in just two years. During my time at TIBCO, I also held the roles of Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. I co-founded Avaamo with my CTO Sriram Chakravarthy because I felt there was a lack of AI solutions that met the needs of the customers, employees and partners who interact with the enterprise. With Avaamo, our mission is to empower users with AI that can learn, perform, and execute human-level judgment and intensive tasks to provide the best customer and employee experience. Avaamo is unique in that it is a cloud platform that leverages advanced technologies such as neural networks, speech synthesis, and deep learning to automate conversational AI lifecycles. Our platform offers pre-built enterprise connectors, conversation analytics, and conversational validators, facilitating design-to-deployment lifecycles in just weeks.

How is the conversational AI market set to shape up in 2024 – What top trends will dominate the space?

Conversational AI centers on the fundamental activity of allowing users to get their work done by using simple text or voice as the mode of interaction rather than learning clunky applications or search interfaces. Conversational AI enables humans to interact, communicate, conduct transactions, and carry out business processes seamlessly with systems and workflows – all without the need for human intervention. Conversational AI is essentially the modern user interface.

Virtual agents will become a key catalyst for generative AI adoption in the enterprise. Adoption of LLMs and generative AI in the enterprise is lacking as most LLMs are not aware of enterprise data or enterprise-user workflows and policies. We expect to see more evolved virtual agents developed on advanced conversational AI platforms that have leveraged LLMs to create highly personalized, secure, and compliant digital assistants. These virtual agents can anticipate user needs, offer tailored recommendations, and mimic preferred communication styles — making technology interactions more human-like and intuitive.

Take us through some of the most exciting conversational AI use cases that have got your attention off late?

We are excited about the adoption of technology across the globe in solving some complex use cases. One example is the automation of the patient experience — which can automate scheduling requests while adhering to HIPAA.

I am also looking forward to the growth of AI-powered Open Enrollment. At the end of last year, one of our enterprise customers with more than 200,000 employees used our AI solution to automate all Open Enrollment-related communications and activities. With a combination of personalized actionable notifications to their MS Teams/Slack account, they were able to reduce incomplete enrollment errors by 95%.

Lastly, the way people interact with airlines has already improved through the use of conversational AI. One of our Asia-based airline customers is using our AI-powered assistant for both voice and text, and they can resolve more than 40% of their customer service issues – from finding scheduling information to handling refunds, and baggage claims – all without human involvement.

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Can you talk about the impact of AI on the whole on modern B2B sales and how it’s changing the game for sellers today?

Much has been said and promised about AI’s role in B2B sales, from enhancing marketing strategies via personalization to automating tasks and providing predictive insights. There are already various forms of CoPilots that can help launch personalized marketing campaigns and execute stronger targeting. Contrary to popular belief, I believe that AI is not going to take over salespeople anytime soon. What we have seen in practice is that the biggest gain that AI can provide is improving the overall productivity of the sales team and providing instant access to information when onboarding new sales staff.

Also Catch, Episode 184 of The SalesStar Podcast: Al and Its Influence on Marketing: with Adri Gil Miner, CMO of Iterable

What are some of the top trends that will drive the B2B tech and SaaS market in 2024 according to you?

There are a few trends that I believe will drive the B2B tech and SaaS market in 2024, especially as it pertains to AI. We are in the midst of a tech revolution, and SaaS business applications will need to embrace and leverage generative AI to create a simpler experience for both employees and customers. I believe that all the key SaaS vendors will be releasing a version of their product with some support from generative AI  for either content augmentation, creation, or simplifying the user experience.

Similar to B2C, the new norm will be personalized experiences that are uniquely tailored to an individual’s needs and preferences. SaaS providers who spend more time in their product design and development cycles prioritizing the customer experiences will see better conversion and retention.

Lastly, the adoption of AI has made security and compliance even more critical for SaaS applications. It is critical to safeguard user and company content, as well as to ensure brand protection.

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If you had to share a few AI trends that will lead the salestech-martech space in 2024 and beyond, what would you talk about?  

Contrary to popular belief, I believe that AI is not going to take over salespeople in the near future. In the world of sales, where relationships and human connection play critical roles, the human touch remains valuable. While AI has revolutionized many industries, tech sales, and sales in general, require a level of emotional intelligence that machines struggle to replicate. We are not yet in a spot where AI can emulate how to build rapport with a potential customer or navigate complex negotiations. AI can certainly enhance the overall sales cycle, but it will not replace the intuitive decision-maker that is human anytime soon.