Otter.ai launches an AI assistant for Sales

I have written a lot lately about the time sales teams spend on non-selling activities. It's a theme that resonates for SDRs, BDRs, and AEs alike. It's frustrating, but it's also why we're seeing more technology emerge to take some of the data entry efforts off sales's hands. That's precisely what Otter.ai is now offering with its OtterPilot AI assistant for Sales.

The numbers don’t lie. A 6sense report found that Sales teams spend 72% of their time on non-selling activities, often switching between up to ten tools to prospect. A Salesforce study found that reps spend only 28% of their week selling.

 

 

 

 

 

Otter.ai has introduced a new AI assistant for Sales to help them streamline the work from their meetings with customers. It doesn't answer all Sales problems with non-selling activities, but it could make a dent. 

Capture the key information from meetings

Otter.ai calls itself a voice-first team collaboration app for meetings and conversations. It joins a meeting and records the conversation, providing both an audio and transcribed copy of the meeting for everyone to read/listen to. But it doesn’t stop there. Otter has been adding new features to its service that leverage AI and chat, making it easier to find important information within these conversations. 

With the OtterPilot for Sales, sales teams get some much-needed support. First, it joins all sales calls and records the discussion. If slides are shown during the call, Otter will capture and show them within the transcription where they were discussed. SDRs and AEs can focus on talking with customers and building relationships instead of writing meeting notes and action items. 

After a conversation is recorded, the Sales reps can listen to or read the conversation. Otter summarizes the call by key topics so the reps can quickly find the information they need. They also get AI-powered insights like BANT information (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline).

The Sales insights and a link to the transcribed conversation are automatically synced to Salesforce, reducing the manual effort typically required to add these notes. Integration with HubSpot is also in the works.

And then there is Otter AI Chat, a generative AI assistant that can do everything from providing a list of tasks identified in the call to finding information quickly without reading the entire transcript to summarizing the customer's sentiment. It can also help write a follow-up email, but you will have to copy it and paste it into your mail program.

Use OtterPilot to train and support sales reps

Another way Sales leaders can use OtterPilot for Sales is for coaching. Team leaders can listen to conversations in real time or later and provide guidance to sales reps on what worked and how to improve. If they listen in real-time, they can use the Otter AI chat to message the sales rep without joining the call. The recorded conversations can also help other sales reps learn from the best calls.

An AI assistant for everyone

We're talking about the OtterPilot for Sales today, but Otter provides the OtterPilot for everyone who uses its platform. I use OtterPilot to help summarize interviews and marketing meetings. And I could also ask the chat to write an email to share meeting notes and to do tasks. The main difference is the integration with Salesforce. Also, OtterPilot for Sales is only available for enterprise customers, whereas the standard OtterPilot is available to everyone, even free accounts.

My take

Otter has come a long way from its start when it simply did call recording and transcription. The addition of the OtterPilot is a great feature for anyone who records many meetings and needs a way to summarize the conversation and quickly identify key takeaways and tasks. However, it's still another tool to work with. In the same way it integrates with Salesforce for Sales calls, Otter should have integrations with productivity software to support team meetings. That's a feature I could really get behind.