01 the business
B2B software company
45 staff, eight account managers
Account managers run back-to-back calls with customers and prospects. The context they need is split across the CRM, email, the help desk and colleagues' memories. Customers have started saying they are tired of repeating themselves.
02 before
The problem
Reps jump from call to call and prepare in the gap between them, if at all. The useful history is spread across the CRM, old email threads, the support desk and a colleague's memory. Customers notice when they have to explain their situation again.
- Preparation happens in the five minutes between calls, if at all.
- Open support tickets surprise the account manager in the middle of a renewal call.
- Covering for a colleague on holiday means a long handover or an awkward first call.
03 the build
What the AI does
- Step 1: Checks your Google or Outlook calendar each morning for external meetings with prospects and customers.
- Step 2: Pulls the account history from Salesforce or HubSpot, including open deals, last contact and who owns the relationship.
- Step 3: Summarises recent email threads and any open tickets in Zendesk so the rep knows about problems before they come up.
- Step 4: Adds public news about the company, such as a new office, funding or leadership change, with links to sources.
- Step 5: Sends a short brief to the rep in Slack or Teams an hour before the call, with suggested questions to ask.
paused: waiting for a person to approve
How it was put together
- Read external meetings from the calendar each morning and matched attendees to CRM accounts.
- Summarised the last 90 days of email threads, open deals and open tickets for each account.
- Added public company news with a link to each source, so nothing appears without a citation.
- Delivered a short brief in Slack an hour before the call, with three suggested questions.
04 human in the loop
Where a person stays in charge
Briefs are for internal use only and nothing is sent to the customer. Reps can flag a wrong fact in one click, and the sales lead reviews flagged briefs each week to tune what the assistant pulls in.
- Briefs are internal only and never sent to customers.
- Each brief only uses data the account manager already has permission to see.
- A one-click 'this is wrong' button sends the error to the sales lead, who tunes the sources weekly.
05 rollout
From kickoff to live in 3–4 weeks
- Week 1Agree the brief format with three account managers and pick the data sources.
- Weeks 2–3Generate briefs for real meetings and review them with the pilot group.
- Week 4Roll out to the whole team and start the weekly accuracy review.
06 after
What changes
Reps walk into every call knowing the history, so conversations start from where the last one ended. New hires and people covering for a colleague can pick up an account without a long handover.
Assume eight account managers with 15 external calls a week each, and 15 minutes of manual preparation per call.
8 × 15 × 15 minutes = 1,800 minutes, or 30 hours a week of preparation across the team. Reading a brief takes about 3 minutes.
What to measure
- Share of external meetings that had a brief delivered on time.
- Errors flagged per 100 briefs.
- Time account managers say they spend preparing.
- Customer satisfaction after calls, where you already survey it.
07 evidence
What the research says
A survey of 4,050 sales professionals found the average seller spends about 40% of their time actually selling, and 51% of sales leaders using AI say disconnected systems are slowing their AI work.
Salesforce, State of Sales report, 2026 edition (opens in a new tab) · 2026
Knowledge workers spend roughly a fifth of their working week searching for and gathering information.
McKinsey Global Institute, Capturing business value with social technologies (opens in a new tab) · 2012
62% of people said they spend too much time searching for information, 68% lack enough uninterrupted focus time, and 55% said next steps at the end of meetings are unclear.
Microsoft, 2023 Work Trend Index: Will AI fix work? (opens in a new tab) · 2023
08 lessons
Mistakes to avoid
- Making the brief too long. One screen is the limit.
- Including news without links. Every outside fact needs a source.
- Ignoring permissions. The assistant must not show one rep another team's private notes.
09 questions
Common questions
- Does it work with Microsoft 365 instead of Google?
- Yes. It reads Outlook calendars and mail and posts to Teams in the same way.
- What about first meetings with new prospects?
- The brief then leans on public information and any form the prospect filled in, and it says clearly what it could not find.