Should AI recording tools be used in first time new business meetings? 

With the ever-increasing range of AI tools entering the market, the temptation for Sales and New Business Managers to utilise these as a way of streamlining their jobs is understandably pretty high.
Some might see it as having your own virtual PA on call 24/7 to attend every meeting with you – with no introductions necessary, no pre or post-meeting briefings required and certainly no need to pay them.
The most obvious benefits to using one of these tools for your new business meetings include:

• Boosted Productivity – you’re going to spend less (if any) time taking notes in the meeting and writing them up after.

• Accuracy – you will have full and detailed documentation with a searchable transcript of what was actually said during the meetings, rather than just your own recollection and scribbled notes. After all, you are unlikely to write down literally everything yourself as it simply isn’t practical.

• Automated summaries and action points – this can save you a lot of admin time and effort when working out and following up “next steps”.

However, whilst it is undoubtedly very convenient to have an extra pair of hands to take detailed notes and summarise the key points you have been discussing with your prospective clients, there are some other factors to consider as you chase those new business wins – and this may be particularly relevant on your first new business meeting, when both yourself and the prospect are at the “getting to know you” stage:

Nuance

This is something that absolutely shouldn’t be overlooked. AI has become pretty proficient in its ability to understand and summarise the key points discussed between the meeting attendees. What it is currently less capable of is picking up subtleties such as tone, context, sarcasm and body language/non-verbal signs (presuming you are in a meeting where you can see the other attendees).
Any mediocre (let alone good) sales person will be able to spot and interpret these signals during the course of a new business meeting. You stand a far better chance of winning a client if you can weave these details into your own notes so your follow ups can be tailored accordingly.

Trust

Even though we are all becoming more and more familiar with the presence of AI in our daily lives, it doesn’t mean everyone will be entirely happy with its use in a meeting. There may be business sensitive topics discussed and the presence of an all-seeing-eye may put some prospects on edge or reluctant to divulge full information which they may have done otherwise. This brings us on to another critical reason for this trepidation:

Data Security

Where is the data that is gained by the AI from a meeting being stored and what is to stop it being harvested and used by that system for other purposes? There may be an expectation of confidentiality in business meetings, whether that is implicit or explicit. It would be perfectly understandable if attendees were uncomfortable with AI recording meetings for those reasons. And beyond that there may be legal and regulatory obligations to consider such as GDPR.

Inaccuracies

For the most part, the AI seems pretty good at picking up what is discussed in a meeting between two parties verbatim.
However, it would be negligent to not review the output relating to these recordings and ideally you would want to do this while everything is still fresh in your mind. Don’t treat AI summaries as the absolute truth… and certainly have a proper check through the details before sharing information so you can ensure that Mr Robot’s analysis is in line with your own understanding of everything discussed in the meeting.

Advice for first meetings

If you want to use AI tools in an initial new business meeting with a prospect, here are a few tips to consider:

• Ask for permission before starting the meeting – let the prospect know you would like to do this and be prepared to graciously turn it off if they are not comfortable with that.

• Ensure the tool you want to use is reputable, from an enterprise-grade vendor that offers strong data security and will not harvest any of your data that you don’t want it to.

• Review before you share – make sure you have double checked any output for errors or misunderstandings at the earliest opportunity after the meeting has finished.

• Be prepared to pause or turn it off during the meeting if discussing sensitive subjects. Anyone who has made credit card payments over the phone will be familiar with the agent pausing any call recording software at that point and these tools should be treated with the same mindset.

Remember, building trust is far more important than immediate administrative efficiency when talking to a new prospect that you are hoping to entice to spend potentially vast sums of money with your organisation in the future!

Further research

Anecdotally, we already know that AI meeting recording tools seem to divide opinion for meetings in general – but in particular for first time new business meetings.

With this in mind, we are hoping to commission a series of short surveys to our client base and beyond over the next couple of months. These will aim to gather opinions about how the increasing use of AI is affecting both the agency world and wider marketing industry (whether positive or negative).

If you would be interested in giving your feedback, please contact robert@alchemis.co.uk. Any participation in these short surveys will remain confidential and any published findings will be anonymised.

On a final point, if you would like to discuss how Alchemis can help you with any of your new business challenges or ambitions, please get in touch here.