The AI Era is bringing so much rapid change to the business world that at times it can feel daunting.
In less than two years, we have watched every aspect of work–our technology, our insights, and our processes–shift right before our eyes.
But rapid technology innovation is nothing new. To understand how we got here, we must look back at the different tech revolutions that have shaped the industry.
Major eras in technology that have shaped the business world as we know it. The AI Workforce is part of the larger AI era.
As each era arrived, jobs were disrupted.
For instance, in the Social Era, we saw the journalism profession radically shift. At the start, it might have felt like journalists would be irrelevant due to social media’s ability to allow almost anyone to disseminate “news.”
But now, we know the role didn’t disappear, it evolved. We have journalists from massive news outlets releasing quick updates on TikTok or Instagram Live. Not only did the journalism role evolve, social media gave birth to entirely new career paths: Influencers and Creators.
Something similar happened in the Internet of Things Era, but this time with drivers. Consumer apps like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash flooded the market, forever evolving the roles of cab and delivery drivers.
So, here we are in the AI Era, and we keep hearing, “AI will take jobs.”
And the truth is, it will.
Its existence will make some roles redundant. But, just like with every other era, it will also birth new roles we can’t yet fathom and evolve current roles into something much bigger.
In 2022, ChatGPT kicked off the AI Era with a bang, quickly becoming the fastest-growing consumer application in history.
Everyone was asking ChatGPT questions and we were enthralled with how easily ChatGPT “talked back.” It became the go-to for learning a new recipe, discovering how to build a bike, or writing a song.
But rather quickly, party tricks with ChatGPT questions weren't enough.
We all started to ask ourselves, “How can I use this technology to help me in my professional life?”
Across the entire technology industry, every single company scrambled to bring the power of ChatGPT and AI into their products. ChatGPT and LLMs had some really valuable use cases for every corner of the business:
…just to name a few.
As companies brought AI to life in their products to help with these use cases, we started to see the term AI Copilots come into the lexicon.
These AI Copilots serve as assistants to business people and ride shotgun with humans to help them be faster and more efficient. They can quickly guide humans, make suggestions, glean insights, and fetch answers.
And in the blink of an eye, we are now in a world where AI Copilots are commonplace and AI can run completely autonomously. We call this the AI Worker.
AI Workers operate independently and are capable of completing tasks all on their own, without human intervention. Look around you. If you do not yet have an AI Coworker, it’s only a matter of time until you do.
A year ago, AI Workers might have sounded more like a fairytale than reality… but that is no longer the case.
The AI Workforce is here, and it is yet again transforming B2B SaaS as we know it. We are going to see AI Workers tackling roles that are ripe for automation and are bogged down with repetitive tasks.
And what will they bring to the table?
AI Workers are incredibly fast and accurate
AI Workers can curate tailored experiences
AI Workers can handle hundreds of thousands of interactions at once
AI Workers operate 24x7, around the clock
AI Workers can replace existing or future headcount
And as software begins to run itself, it opens the doors to the multi-trillion dollar labor market.
So with the rise of the AI Workforce, what does your future team look like?
We know AI Workers will excel in roles with automation and repetitive tasks. Where we’ll see the biggest impact is frontline workers.
Once you identify the frontline areas on your team that have potential for automation, it is time to determine when to bring on an AI Worker.
When you’re ready to hire AI Workers, follow this framework:
No human can work 24x7, nor should they. You can bring on AI Workers to help cover off-hours, weekends, and holidays so you can keep productivity high while giving your team a chance to refuel and recharge.
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Frontline roles are always high turnover: people are quickly promoted into better roles, they move into different departments, or they switch companies. When you are left with an open headcount, that is a perfect opportunity to bring on an AI Worker.
If you are given net new headcount budget to bring on a frontline worker and you know the role has potential to be successfully automated, reallocate that headcount budget to bring on an AI Worker.
No area of the business is as ripe for AI Workers as the GTM function, specifically the Business Development Rep (BDR) and Sales Development (SDR) roles.
Given one of the main use cases of AI is content generation, it is no surprise we have seen many AI BDRs emerge on the market.
The SDR role is critical to the business, interacting with high intent inbound leads and producing the highest-quality pipeline for an organization. At the same time, the role is highly repetitive. Day in and day out, SDRs perform the same tasks.
Piper converts inbound website traffic into pipeline, automatically. She works around the clock, handles multiple conversations at once, and always stays on message. The AI SDR you’ve been waiting for, Piper is open to work and ready to generate pipeline today.
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