CRM software often plays a vital role in helping companies manage and monitor customer interactions, but as the software category ages, so too do the principles and methods it’s built on.
Atto, the company behind a unique AI CRM, views aging CRM software as an opportunity to showcase how and why software can evolve. To do so, they created an AI-native platform from scratch, thereby developing a model suitable for founders, startups, and operators looking to make the most of the coming AI swing.
Shortcomings of AI Use in Traditional CRMs
Traditional CRMs often require people to enter data for the systems to pull from manually, but as businesses have scaled up, creating entire datasets has become increasingly difficult. While this approach worked well enough during the early years of CRM, advances in AI have largely rendered manual data entry obsolete.
Some companies have attempted to patch this issue by simply attaching AI features to traditional CRMs, but this approach ignores the core issue, which is a lack of data. AI can certainly attempt to make use of the information available to it, but if it still has to rely on manual data entry, it cannot achieve its full potential.
Software Built With AI in Mind
Recognizing the gaps still present in these attempts to improve CRM software, Attio developed its own CRM model from the ground up, providing the space it needed to build a unique AI-native platform. This platform is powered by Universal Context, an improved version of Attio’s foundational data model that runs across the entire platform.
Its understanding of semantic knowledge and full-text search enables the data model to provide agent-friendly interfaces to the data while maintaining scalability and transactional consistency.
Much of Attio’s effectiveness also stems from its ability to automatically pull customer interactions from existing tools, such as email, calendars, and video conferencing, into one place. In doing so, records can stay current without manual data entry.
Additionally, when new contacts enter the system, details such as company and role are automatically entered, and duplicate records are merged as needed.
Convenience and Comprehensibility
A few of these features would be useful if they weren’t presented in an accessible manner that allows for quick comprehension. Fortunately, Attio addresses this issue with Ask Attio, the platform’s conversational AI layer that relays customer data to users in plain English. By presenting its functions through conversation, users can simply tell the program to search for information, create and update records, or trigger workflows and automations, all while the system incorporates context into its responses.
Attio’s AI also transcribes these conversations and makes them searchable for future use. If a team member were to ask the program what a customer said about pricing, for example, Attio would pull the relevant records in only a few seconds. This functionality enables call context across sales, customer success, and product teams without the need for manual note-taking, which might otherwise disrupt important interactions.
Making AI Useful
CRM software remains an important tool for organizations seeking to record, retrieve, and use customer data quickly and conveniently. Still, as technology like AI progresses, traditional CRMs get left further and further behind. Attio and its AI CRM showcase why the solution to this problem isn’t to add features to old systems, but instead to create new systems entirely.
As an AI-native platform, Attio can automate many of the functions people used to have to perform manually and then some, thereby creating an ecosystem that can both collect data and draw from it later on while retaining relevant context. Whether this structure will become the new standard for CRM software in the near future remains to be seen. Still, Attio’s capabilities suggest it may, at the very least, be a possibility.
