Awais Khan, the Vice President of Operations at Superhuman AI, brings a singular mix of technical experience and a background in advertising and gross sales to his function. As the primary worker at Superhuman, Khan was drawn to AI by the passion 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 function, Khan has navigated important challenges, notably in forming partnerships throughout the AI business. By focusing on startups with low-cost promoting initially and finally attracting enterprise corporations with useful 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 function of AI in advertising and gross sales and the necessity for companies to stay adaptive and forward-thinking to remain forward of business developments.
Are you able to share the journey that led you to turn into the VP of Operations at Superhuman AI, and the way your background in advertising and gross sales influenced your strategy to AI and automation?
I used to be worker #1 at Superhuman. The thought was that our CEO is extra of a artistic sort whereas I thrive extra on the technical/repetitive facet of issues so I made a decision I might deal with Operations. My curiosity in AI was fairly unrelated to my 9 – 5 day job. I bear in mind when ChatGPT had blown up in late 2022 and other people had responded very positively to it. That’s after I simply began nerding out on it and began posting about it a couple of months later. Seeing individuals’s enthusiasm in direction of AI made me wish to make it the main target 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 wish to phase our companions into 2 varieties: Enterprise corporations and early-stage startups. It was fairly simple getting early-stage startups within the door. Our e-newsletter, Superhuman AI, was charging very low CPCs (cost-per-click) to promote within the Superhuman AI e-newsletter in the beginning. Plenty of these early-stage startups who had smaller budgets have been seeing nice outcomes with us and that made renewals simple. We didn’t have an outbound gross sales perform in the beginning, which made it fairly exhausting to focus on bigger corporations in order that was considered one of our most important challenges. Nevertheless, as soon as our e-newsletter grew to 500,000+ readers, we grabbed the eye of enterprise corporations, typically even with out doing outbound. So long as you produce nice content material and supply worth to readers, entrepreneurs in enterprise corporations are certain to note you and wish to work with you ultimately.
In your opinion, what are the important thing elements companies ought to take into account when integrating AI and automation into their operations to maximise effectivity and productiveness?
I consider we’re nonetheless fairly early within the AI revolution and aren’t fairly on the level the place AI can merely substitute your staff. Be sure you are hiring the perfect people who find themselves already nice of their features earlier than prioritizing AI over the whole lot else. We use ChatGPT and Midjourney for writing our e-newsletter but when we didn’t have a few of the greatest 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 device to spice up your greatest staff to allow them to prioritize higher-value duties.
How do you envision the function of AI evolving in advertising and gross sales over the subsequent 5 years, and what ought to corporations 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 occasions. 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 the usage of a sure AI device 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 continually 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 device by far seems to be Midjourney. Our Content material Crew is nice at prompting and the standard of pictures that we produce in our e-newsletter is one thing that’s enormously cherished 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 potential to make use of the AI.
How do you stability your duties at Superhuman AI together with your function as a content material creator on LinkedIn, and the way do these two roles complement one another?
It’s not too exhausting. I change between creating a few of my content material after which having somebody on my Content material Crew 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 results in subscriptions to our e-newsletter. Natural subscribers are way more engaged than subscribers who come by way of paid channels.
What developments do you at the moment see in AI and automation that excite you probably the most, and why do you consider 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 indicators of prospects and let you know what’s working and what’s not with the intention to enhance lead conversion. It takes a number of experimenting and AB testing in Gross sales to determine what’s working and what’s not so an empathetic AI like this could 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 dear and expensive. We’re quick approaching a time limit the place will probably be way more expensive to not have applied AI.
How do you strategy the monetary facets of AI initiatives to make sure they ship a robust ROI for Superhuman AI and its companions?
For us, AI has been a price saver. Till very lately, we had no person with a devoted profession in Design. So lots of the designs/pictures for the e-newsletter and our social media content material have been produced utilizing AI. In relation to our companions, nonetheless, we’re fairly danger averse as we wish to guarantee the perfect service – supply. For this reason we have now 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 gross sales, based mostly in your profession experiences and business insights?
In the event you’re recent to advertising or gross sales, be certain you perceive individuals rather well earlier than utilizing AI – our jobs are about human psychology. AI would possibly allow you to to go from being a horrible Content material Author to a mean Content material Author but it surely received’t allow you to go from being a mean Content material Author to an excellent Content material Author.