Same Same But Different – Unblocking Commercial Teams with AI Agents

Closing deals fast is the lifeblood of continuous expansion and success in fast-growing tech companies. However, commercial teams often find themselves blocked, unable to close deals due to a lack of information or the inability to complete necessary tasks themselves. They often have to request support from expert teams such as legal, finance, compliance, IT Security and other operational teams. The question then arises – how can these teams unblock commercial teams and accelerate the pace of growth?

Unblocking commercial teams by deploying legal AI agents

An obvious solution lies in the intersection between legal and commercial teams. All too often, commercial teams find themselves waiting for the legal team's approval or input, causing a delay in deal closures. By introducing AI agents to legal departments, this process can be expedited significantly. The primary focus for legal departments is to unblock commercial teams, allowing deals to close faster.

The secret sauce does not lie in improving efficiency of the legal function. AI agents should not be set up for internal legal work to make them do the same work just a little bit faster. Rather, AI agents should be set up, curated, and monitored by the legal team but used by the commercial teams to expedite deal closures. Removing some of the work that lands on legal’s desk altogether and letting it be handled by the teams that need the work to be done with the help of an AI assistant.

Same same but different – operational business teams have the same focus but also the same challenges

The legal team is not the only one that commercial teams are waiting for. Operational teams across the board are continuously bombarded with repetitive requests from commercial teams. These enquiries range from understanding policies and FAQs, to internal documentation over getting responses on technical or Infosec questions that your prospects may have around your product.

Although the documentation for all of these requests may exist, they're rarely read or comprehended with confidence. Reading the documentation takes time, understanding it and feeling confident that you’ve found the right response takes even more time. Therefore, a large volume of requests is still coming in to be answered by expert teams directly, slowing down deal closures.

In addition, all teams also grapple with "side-of-desk" work. This could include reimbursement of travel costs, questions about their employment (such as parental leave, sickness or benefits), or seeking permission for particular activities (such as giving or receiving gifts, marketing activities or procuring new software). These tasks, while crucial, eat up a portion all teams’ time in an organisation.

Same challenge – same solution

The answer to these challenges? AI agents. AI agents can handle a high percentage of these low-value requests, effectively freeing up valuable time for operational teams. Implementing AI with Flank is as simple as uploading your documentation and adding the agent to an existing Slack or Teams Channel, where these questions are already being asked, except now the bucket load is handled by the AI agent rather than a human.

For this reason, the rebrand of Legal OS to Flank came naturally. Commercial teams were so quick to adopt the AI agents that their legal teams had set up that other teams with quite similar challenges organically asked for the same solution to be deployed for their teams. Due to the need for legal information to have a very high accuracy and the compliance requirements were higher than for most teams, other business teams had no hesitancy to begin implementing their very own AI agents – with great success.

Remove work to be able to do more

Instead of striving for increased efficiency and productivity, focussing on providing an AI that acts just like a colleague in your expert team allowed all kinds of business functions to remove work and as a result become more impactful. These teams were able to actually do less (work) with less (resources) while increasing their value for the organisation.

Once operational, AI agents take the load off the teams, allowing them to focus on three critical areas:

1. Monitoring the AI agents and ensuring they are operating efficiently
2. Improving the expert team’s knowledge base that feeds the AI and becomes available at scale, enhancing the ability of the AI agents to respond to a wider array of requests.
3. Most importantly, operational teams can focus on strategic work that not only accelerates deal closure but also sets up the organisation for meaningful success.

Conclusion

Unblocking commercial teams should be the number one focus for all tech companies that are growing and expanding quickly. Adopting AI agents that can handle the repetitive and lower-value work is the game-changer most business teams and not just the legal function have been looking for. By taking on the heavy lifting, AI agents free up operational and commercial teams to focus on strategic initiatives that propel growth. This not only accelerates deal closures but also enhances the overall efficiency of the organisation. Being an early mover and implementing AI agents sooner rather than later may be the key to unlocking the full potential of the growth in your organisation, making the difference between being a market participant and leading the pack.

Want to find out about our AI agents? See here.