Jim, could you start by telling us about your journey to becoming the CEO of Conversica and what drives your passion for the role?

I was asked, by our Private-Equity investors, to take a look at Conversica & provide my perspective, 5 years ago. Who would have known that my strong opinions about the business would result in them offering me the opportunity to turn perspective into action.  

I was looking through three lenses, each fueling my passion for the Company:

Having run Digital Applications at DXC, a large system integrator, we deployed over 1,000 digital transformation projects each year. During this time, it was obvious that all improvements in digital touch resulted in significant internal hurdles for revenue teams, all struggling with the increased digital volume. I was excited by the idea of a world where back office RPA and front office AI agent automation would come together to create an end-to-end intelligent automation solution. Now, we see that AI Agent Frameworks are reaching across ALL business functions, with our focus in the front office for marketing, sales, and customer success, Conversica enjoys boosting revenue (rather than solely reducing costs).

Also, having run a Big Data & Analytics team delivering several hundred advanced analytics projects per year, we were using the latest in machine learning / deep learning technologies. I knew of the transformer breakthroughs (GPT-1, and BERT back in 2019 before I joined). What excited me was the potential to truly disrupt customer experiences with GenAI. We started development the week I joined and then launched our first GenAI solution in March, 2020.

Lastly, I saw an opportunity to solve a really hard problem – namely, addressing the needs of large enterprises (Fortune 500) with AI automation (not the small businesses), carefully deploying the latest in AI technology, but in a way that would guarantee 100% brand safety (a clear requirement for large enterprises). Today we are providing solutions for the largest and most highly regulated companies with AI solutions that are 100% safe to deploy, and at scale.

How have you observed AI transforming the way sales and marketing teams operate, particularly in overcoming seasonal sales slumps?

Marketing is under pressure to deliver high-quality leads to sales with small teams and small budgets. Sales is under pressure to grow revenue, fielding a delicate balance between inbound and outbound pipeline generation. By deploying AI automation, marketing can scale at a fraction of the cost, delivering only “sales-ready” opportunities, which sales teams can now focus on, creating high-quality relationships versus simply blasting target lists. For the first time both teams can come together with a single purpose – weave in AI with existing teams to create a new type of growth workforce. Specifically, we’re seeing 30% lead follow-up turning into 100%; 38% open rates turning into 80%+; click-throughs going from 1%+ to 19%+; a two-way engagement with 24% of those the AI reaches out to; and most importantly 10%+ success in reaching the goal an AI was intended to accomplish. Conversion rates are unbelievable. Oh, by the way, I’m quoting the average across the network, not the best case.

To Know More, Read Full Interview @ https://ai-techpark.com/aitech-interview-with-jim-kaskade/

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