Sales, Powered by AI

Students in the C. T. Bauer College of Business Program for Excellence in Selling are learning how artificial intelligence can impact sales by creating their own AI agents.

In the Digital Sales course taught by Associate Professor Johannes Habel, students developed the AI to automate a sales process end to end. Habel said the learning objective of this assignment was twofold.

“One goal is to teach students the technical competencies to build an agent,” Habel said. “We want them to understand what an agent looks like, how to prompt it and how to embed the agent in a workflow. The second objective is to develop a strategic understanding of how agents will transform business, and especially sales processes.”

Earlier in the semester, students practiced conducting various aspects of sales manually, including negotiating prices, sealing the deal and delivering the agreed-upon service. Later, after the students created the agents, they asked AI to do the same tasks and analyzed where it performed well and where it fell short.

“It’s been a very eye-opening experience,” accounting senior Melanie Loredo said. “As students, we’ve used AI, but I don't think I ever took into consideration what goes on behind the scenes. This project has allowed me to see the complexity of creating an AI agent and understanding what goes on in the background when you ask AI to do a simple task.”

By completing the same tasks manually and through AI, students said they have changed their perspective of how selling and AI work together.

“If we didn't have this project, the connection is not something we would think too heavily into,” management information systems senior Claude Charisse Guechou said. “Even though we’ve faced challenges in creating the agents, it’s something that moving forward can be beneficial in any situation.”

More companies are currently moving toward using AI agents to generate leads and find customers, according to Habel.

“Agents in the industry can actually look through databases for customers and reach out to them,” he said. “More and more companies no longer do this manually; an email or call agent might reach out to those prospects and try to book a meeting with them.”

Read other ways the Program for Excellence in Selling has incorporated AI into teaching sales here.