Awais Khan, the Vice President of Operations at Superhuman AI, brings a novel mix of technical experience and a background in advertising and marketing and gross sales to his position. As the primary worker at Superhuman, Khan was drawn to AI by the keenness surrounding ChatGPT’s rise in late 2022. This ardour led him to focus his content material on AI, which finally formed his profession. In his position, Khan has navigated important challenges, significantly in forming partnerships throughout the AI business. By concentrating on startups with low-cost promoting initially and finally attracting enterprise firms with worthwhile content material, he has efficiently grown Superhuman AI’s attain. Khan believes within the early potential of AI to spice up productiveness and effectivity however emphasizes the significance of getting expert staff to leverage these instruments successfully. His insights spotlight the evolving position of AI in advertising and marketing and gross sales and the necessity for companies to stay adaptive and forward-thinking to remain forward of business traits.
Are you able to share the journey that led you to change into the VP of Operations at Superhuman AI, and the way your background in advertising and marketing and gross sales influenced your strategy to AI and automation?
I used to be worker #1 at Superhuman. The concept was that our CEO is extra of a inventive kind whereas I thrive extra on the technical/repetitive facet of issues so I made a decision I’d deal with Operations. My curiosity in AI was fairly unrelated to my 9 – 5 day job. I keep in mind when ChatGPT had blown up in late 2022 and other people had responded very positively to it. That’s once I simply began nerding out on it and began posting about it just a few months later. Seeing individuals’s enthusiasm in the direction of AI made me wish to make it the main focus of my content material.
What have been probably the most important challenges you’ve confronted in forming partnerships throughout the AI business, and the way have you ever efficiently navigated them?
I prefer to phase our companions into 2 sorts: Enterprise firms and early-stage startups. It was fairly straightforward getting early-stage startups within the door. Our publication, Superhuman AI, was charging very low CPCs (cost-per-click) to promote within the Superhuman AI publication at the start. Lots of these early-stage startups who had smaller budgets have been seeing nice outcomes with us and that made renewals straightforward. We didn’t have an outbound gross sales operate at the start, which made it fairly exhausting to focus on bigger firms in order that was one among our most vital challenges. Nonetheless, as soon as our publication grew to 500,000+ readers, we grabbed the eye of enterprise firms, typically even with out doing outbound. So long as you produce nice content material and supply worth to readers, entrepreneurs in enterprise firms are certain to note you and wish to work with you finally.
In your opinion, what are the important thing components companies ought to take into account when integrating AI and automation into their operations to maximise effectivity and productiveness?
I imagine we’re nonetheless fairly early within the AI revolution and usually are not fairly on the level the place AI can merely exchange your staff. Be sure you are hiring one of the best people who find themselves already nice of their features earlier than prioritizing AI over every part else. We use ChatGPT and Midjourney for writing our publication but when we didn’t have a number of the finest content material writers/producers within the business, they wouldn’t have an eye fixed for when ChatGPT is producing nice outcomes or horrible outcomes. AI ought to be a software to spice up your finest staff to allow them to prioritize higher-value duties.
How do you envision the position of AI evolving in advertising and marketing and gross sales over the subsequent 5 years, and what ought to firms do to remain forward of the curve?
It’s exhausting to say. The tempo of progress is so intense and our expectations have been surpassed so many instances. To remain forward of the curve, take heed to your staff once they say they wish to combine AI into their work. So typically, my colleagues at Superhuman AI have requested using a sure AI software that I hadn’t even heard of however we built-in and it produced nice outcomes. Presently, we’re experimenting with AI in Gross sales and it’s producing nice outcomes. Be open-minded and grateful for workers who’re always considering of those enhancements.
Are you able to present an instance of a profitable AI implementation at Superhuman AI that considerably impacted enterprise outcomes? What have been the important thing takeaways?
Our favorite software by far seems to be Midjourney. Our Content material Staff is nice at prompting and the standard of photos that we produce in our publication is one thing that’s significantly liked by our viewers and units our model aside. The key takeaway is that Midjourney is on the disposal of so many newsletters on the market but it surely’s actually about your capability to make use of the AI.
How do you stability your tasks at Superhuman AI together with your position as a content material creator on LinkedIn, and the way do these two roles complement one another?
It’s not too exhausting. I swap between creating a few of my content material after which having somebody on my Content material Staff assist produce the content material if I’m ever too busy. The 2 roles are intertwined with one another. Nice content material results in nice engagement, which ends up in subscriptions to our publication. Natural subscribers are far more engaged than subscribers who come via paid channels.
What traits do you at present see in AI and automation that excite you probably the most, and why do you imagine they are going to be game-changers for companies?
Within the gross sales business, there are some rising instruments that may learn the communication and emotional alerts of prospects and inform you what’s working and what’s not with the intention to enhance lead conversion. It takes loads of experimenting and AB testing in Gross sales to determine what’s working and what’s not so an empathetic AI like this may be an enormous resource-saver.
Out of your expertise, what are the widespread misconceptions companies have about AI and automation, and the way can they overcome these misunderstandings?
That AI implementation is pricey and expensive. We’re quick approaching a time limit the place it will likely be way more pricey to not have applied AI.
How do you strategy the monetary features of AI tasks to make sure they ship a robust ROI for Superhuman AI and its companions?
For us, AI has been a value saver. Till very lately, we had no person with a devoted profession in Design. So lots of the designs/photos for the publication and our social media content material have been produced utilizing AI. In terms of our companions, nonetheless, we’re fairly threat averse as we wish to guarantee one of the best service – supply. Because of this we’ve got a devoted workforce for the Partnership expertise, whether or not that’s gross sales or copywriting.
What recommendation would you give to younger professionals who aspire to work within the intersection of AI, advertising and marketing, and gross sales, primarily based in your profession experiences and business insights?
For those who’re contemporary to advertising and marketing or gross sales, make certain you perceive individuals very well earlier than utilizing AI – our jobs are about human psychology. AI may assist you to to go from being a horrible Content material Author to a mean Content material Author but it surely received’t assist you to go from being a mean Content material Author to a fantastic Content material Author.
