Brainshark's New AI-Powered Engine Elevates Sales Coaching and Readiness

WALTHAM, Mass., June 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Brainshark, Inc., delivering SaaS-based sales enablement and readiness solutions, today unveiled Machine Analysis, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered engine that improves sales coaching – augmenting coaches' feedback and scoring to help sellers stay on-message and improve performance. Building off Brainshark's award-winning, video-based sales coaching solution, these first-of-their-kind coaching capabilities offer automated, actionable insights that help ensure salespeople master critical messages before they get in front of a buyer.

As AI percolates into the enterprise, sales organizations have distinguished themselves as early adopters – using AI, for example, to improve forecasting and pipeline analytics, and to manage inbound leads. Gartner estimates that by 2020, 30% of all B2B companies will employ AI to augment at least one of their primary sales processes.¹

Yet the technology previously has held untapped potential in the realm of sales readiness – with Brainshark now introducing a solution that creates an engaging practice environment for sellers, and helps managers streamline and prioritize feedback.

"For many companies with large sales forces, it's important for managers to be able to easily identify who needs the most coaching, and on what," said Tracey Abby, director of global sales and channel enablement at Tenable, the cyber exposure company. "With Brainshark's Machine Analysis, we're excited to see AI applied in a way that gives sales managers and coaches an automated 'video screener' – pinpointing which reps need the most guidance, based on their video submissions, and why. Managers can then prioritize their own video reviews and feedback – focusing on reps who need the most help, while also easily identifying standout submissions that can be used as models. These capabilities support greater sales team agility and effectiveness."

Brainshark's Machine Analysis analyzes videos that reps submit through Brainshark's sales coaching solution – often videos of the rep pitching a new product, handling common objections, etc. Machine Analysis transcribes the videos and auto-generates an analysis and score for each submission, factoring in whether sellers adhere to manager-defined parameters, including coverage of key topics, speaking rate, low level of filler words ("um," "uh," etc.) and more. Managers have the option to sort video submissions by the machine score, before providing their own manual reviews and feedback through Brainshark's coaching solution.

Machine Analysis also provides unique, automated insights on rep videos, including:

• Emotion analysis – Every second of the video, Machine Analysis analyzes the seller's facial expression for eight emotions – happiness, surprise, sadness, contempt, etc. – noting their frequency within a submission (e.g., 95% happiness, 2% sadness, 3% contempt, etc.). Managers and reps can replay the video from within Brainshark's platform, viewing the exact moments when emotion changes are noted.
• Personality insights – Measuring the frequency of certain categories of words, the engine detects how often the participant displays traits such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and an emotional range, to show how sellers could be perceived by buyers.

"AI has an important role to play in the future of sales. For organizations to adopt and embrace it, it's critical to show how AI can augment what sales managers and professionals do – making them even more valuable to buyers," said Jim Dickie, research fellow and co-founder of sales research firm CSO Insights. "Technologies like Machine Analysis make sales professionals and their managers even better in their roles – enabling managers to coach and mentor in a more individualized way than ever before. This illustrates the power of dynamic coaching, where technology effectively supplements manager-led coaching to improve win-rates and overall results."

Brainshark CEO Greg Flynn said: "Machine Analysis is the next step for video coaching. With our new technology, sales managers and leaders can create more precise coaching activities and make better, data-driven decisions. Salespeople, in turn, get consistent feedback on important and, sometimes, intangible aspects of their presentations. These are powerful advances in the Brainshark platform, and we remain committed to continuous innovation – helping organizations foster a culture of perpetual sales readiness and greater sales performance."

For more information on Machine Analysis, please see http://www.brainshark.com/solutions/machine-analysis and a data sheet at http://bit.ly/bnsk-machine-analysis. A two-minute video is available at https://app.brainshark.com/brainsharkinc/machine-analysis.

¹ Gartner, "Add AI to Your B2B Sales Organization Now to Improve Revenue," Ilona Hansen, Todd Berkowitz and Tad Travis, July 20, 2017.

About Brainshark 
Brainshark sales readiness software equips businesses with the training, coaching and content needed to prepare salespeople when, where and how they work. With Brainshark, companies can: enable sales teams with on-demand training that accelerates onboarding and keeps reps up-to-speed; validate readiness with sales coaching and practice that ensures reps master your message; and empower sales organizations with rich, dynamic content that can be created quickly, updated easily, and accessed anywhere. Thousands of companies – including more than half of the Fortune 100 – rely on Brainshark to identify and close performance gaps, and get better results from their sales enablement initiatives. Learn more at www.brainshark.com.

Media Contact:
Brendan Cournoyer
Email: [email protected] 
Phone: 781.370.8255

SOURCE Brainshark, Inc.

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