Thirty-three states in the US allow citizens to cannabis for medical purposes and ten allow recreational use. If you would have predicted this in the 1980s, during the Reagan’s War on Drugs and the inaugural years of D.A.R.E, people would have thought you were crazy, delusional, and deviant. But the cannabis industry is growing, and so is the technology surrounding it.
Green Entrepreneur reports that cannabis companies are starting to collaborate with artificial intelligence and machine learning teams “speed up processes, reduce errors and significantly reduce their cost of production.” AI is even contributing to increasing sales on cannabis vendors’ sites.
Armen Yemenidjian, the founder and CEO of Essence Vegas, a dispensary out of Nevada, is incorporating AI into customer service methods through chatbots. These chatbots are integrated into the company’s site, inform customers of different cannabis strains and peer-reviewed medical journals, match it with the customer’s symptoms and preferences, and helps them choose the right strain for them.
Making the sale, however, is not always the hard part. More than 40 percent of salespeople say prospecting is the most challenging part of their job, according to HubSpot. AI is helping sales departments track down leads by harvesting data that tells them what prospects will want to buy and which ones are dead ends. This allows salespeople to filter through the cold leads and find relevant clients with ease.
Cannabis vendors also use AI to craft more effective employee training programs. AI’s machine learning and data collection abilities make them able to develop customized learning programs that are right for a particular company’s employees.
Starship Technologies uses AI to turn new clients into loyal customers. Their food delivery robots provide a quality post-sale experience that leaves customers talking about how great their service is.
Marketing, however, is all about appealing to people, the things they like, and the context of their behaviors. AI has yet to get this down pat, so humans are still handing the big picture stuff. AI bots are just helping them sift through the nitty-gritty, detail-oriented tasks that tend to waste time and resources.
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