Oracle presents AI agents to support sales employees

The American technology giant Oracle introduced a new series of artificial intelligence agents on Tuesday, designed to assist sales staff with a variety of customer-related tasks. Amid a wave of major tech companies focusing on the development of virtual assistants, Oracle is placing its offering in the spotlight. Microsoft and Google's parent company Alphabet have also placed agents at the center of their AI strategies. Unlike general virtual assistants for consumers, Oracle's agents focus on specific tasks. Every time a salesperson meets with a customer, corporate records on the progress of a transaction need to be updated. These agents can tackle this task. More complex tasks are also covered: A special "Customer Intelligence" agent can integrate data from various categories of Oracle's business applications and generate reports for sales teams, even if the data is in different languages. For example, a U.S. sales team could learn through the system that a returning customer in another country has experienced delivery delays—information that could be helpful in offering concessions during a contract renewal. According to Rob Pinkerton, Senior Vice President at Oracle, the clients are often brands operating in the industry worldwide. "This support, to integrate all the data in the different languages relevant to the seller, is extremely useful," Pinkerton said in an interview. The new features are available immediately at no additional cost to customers.