To make their AI models truly effective, Personio enriched them with specific, internal go-to-market knowledge. They uploaded ICP definitions, pitch decks, and onboarding processes. This proprietary context, layered on top of customer data, is critical for training LLMs to be relevant for a specific business.
Relying solely on grassroots employee experimentation with AI is insufficient for transformation. Leadership must provide a top-down motion with resource allocation, budget, and permission for teams to fundamentally change workflows. This dual approach bridges the gap from experimentation to scale.
The CRO of Personio frames the ultimate question for AI's impact on GTM not as incremental efficiency, but as transformational growth. The true north star is whether the company can double its business with existing headcount, shifting the default from hiring more people to solving problems with AI first.
Before building sophisticated AI models, Personio invested heavily in data hygiene. They deduped their Salesforce instance, where one-third of data were duplicates, and spent months cleaning their prospect database. This foundational work is essential for making subsequent AI initiatives accurate and effective.
Personio created 'Go-to-Market Engineer' roles within their Revenue Operations team. These individuals have a business background but are also data-driven and tech-focused. This hybrid role is crucial for successfully implementing AI solutions because they understand both business context and technical requirements.
Personio adapted the 'Jobs to be Done' framework, typically used for product development, to analyze their internal go-to-market roles. By shadowing employees like account managers, they identified significant time sinks—such as switching between eight systems—and prioritized AI projects with the highest impact.
To foster an AI-centric culture, Personio goes beyond simple recognition and offers tangible, high-value incentives. They announced that several seats in their highly coveted annual President's Club trip would be reserved for employees who make the best contributions to their AI initiatives.
An AI chatbot is not a 'set it and forget it' tool. Personio assigned a specific employee to be accountable for their chatbot, 'Nia.' This person's job is to review the AI's daily outputs, provide feedback, and test in real-time to correct errors like giving legal advice or bashing competitors, ensuring the AI improves continuously.
By building a custom AI assistant integrated into Salesforce, Personio dramatically increased its expansion SDRs' productivity. The tool consolidates customer information from over 10 systems, reducing daily research time from two hours to just 15 minutes and doubling the pipeline generated per employee.