Revolutionizing CRM with AI: Insights from Adam Honig
Guest: Adam Honig, Founder and CEO at Spiro AI
Host: Seth Earley, CEO at Earley Information Science
Published on: February 21, 2025
Join Seth Earley on Earley AI Podcasts as he welcomes Adam Honig, a pioneering force in the field of customer relationship management (CRM). As the founder of Spiro AI, Adam challenges the conventional need for CRM systems by offering an innovative AI-driven alternative. With a rich history of building one of the largest Salesforce consulting partners—eventually acquired by Accenture—Adam’s insights blend tradition with transformative technology, sparking discussions about the evolving landscape of CRM.
Key Takeaways:
- Revolutionizing CRM: Understand Adam's perspective on why traditional CRM systems are antiquated and how Spiro’s AI-driven approach offers a modern solution.
- Automated Data Capture: Learn how Spiro AI automates the tedious process of data entry and offers real-time insights for sales teams without manual input.
- Industry-Specific Challenges: Explore the unique hurdles faced by manufacturing and distribution sectors in adopting CRM and AI technologies.
- AI Implementation: Discover practical implementations of AI, including order entry automation, in revolutionizing traditional business models.
- Future of Work: Delve into a candid discussion on how AI could lead to significant job displacement, and the broader economic implications.
- Roadmap of Innovation: Get a sneak peek into future developments, including autonomous AI agents and enhanced integration with product data.
Quote from the show:
"Salespeople didn't go into sales to enter data. They want to meet with customers. They want to be where the action is, and they need the software to just get out of their way." – Adam Honig
"The average salesperson spends about 64% of their time not selling. And a lot of that is CRM-related administrative work. If you could get half of that back, that's a massive productivity gain." - Adam Honig
"We're going to have tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people displaced by AI. And as a society, we need to think about what we're going to do about that. Universal basic income might be the answer." - Adam Honig
Tune in to discover how AI is transforming CRM from a data entry burden into an intelligent assistant—and what this means for the future of sales, work, and the broader economy.
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhonig/
Website: https://spiro.ai
Ways to Tune In:
Earley AI Podcast: https://www.earley.com/earley-ai-podcast-home
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1586654770
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Podcast Transcript: AI-Driven CRM and the Future of Sales Automation
Transcript introduction
This transcript captures a conversation between Seth Earley and Adam Honig about revolutionizing CRM through AI, exploring why traditional systems fail salespeople, how automated data capture works, challenges in manufacturing sectors, AI-powered order entry, and broader implications for workforce transformation and economic change.
Transcript
Seth Earley: Well, welcome to today's Earley AI Podcast. My name is Seth Earley, and I'm really excited about our guest today. I've been really looking forward to this because you're going to hear some really interesting things about the evolution of customer relationship management systems and the integration of artificial intelligence, the role of AI and how it's transforming CRM systems, misconceptions about CRM and how AI can help to address those. Then, of course, the practical implementation. We like to get to the practical implementation issues around AI and managing sales and customer interactions. Our guest today built and led one of the largest Salesforce consulting partners in the world, which was later sold to Accenture. His current venture, Spiro AI, aims to revolutionize customer relationship management by utilizing AI to simplify and enhance the CRM experience. Adam Honig, welcome to the show.
Adam Honig: Thank you, Seth. Great to be here.
Seth Earley: So let's start with your background. Tell us about your journey from building a Salesforce consulting practice to starting Spiro AI. What led you to this path?
Adam Honig: Sure. So I spent about 15 years running a Salesforce consulting company. We grew it to about 300 people, and we eventually sold it to Accenture. During that time, I implemented Salesforce for hundreds of companies. And what I saw consistently was that salespeople hated CRM. They absolutely hated it. And it wasn't because they were lazy or didn't understand the value. It was because the system forced them to do a job they didn't sign up for.
Salespeople didn't go into sales to enter data. They want to meet with customers. They want to be where the action is, and they need the software to just get out of their way. So after we sold the company, I started thinking about how we could build a CRM that salespeople would actually love. And that's where the idea for Spiro came from. What if we could use AI to automatically capture all the data so salespeople never had to enter anything manually?
Seth Earley: That's a fascinating insight. So what does that look like in practice? How does Spiro actually work?
Adam Honig: Spiro connects to your email, your calendar, your phone system—all the tools that salespeople already use every day. And it automatically captures everything. Every email you send, every meeting you have, every phone call you make—it's all automatically logged in the CRM. The AI figures out which contacts and opportunities those activities relate to, and it updates everything automatically. So instead of spending an hour at the end of the week updating your CRM, you just work the way you normally work, and the CRM updates itself.
Seth Earley: And what kind of impact does that have on sales productivity?
Adam Honig: It's huge. Research shows that the average salesperson spends about 64% of their time not selling. And a lot of that is CRM-related administrative work. If you could get half of that back, that's a massive productivity gain. We've had customers tell us that Spiro has essentially given them an extra day per week to actually sell. And when you multiply that across a whole sales team, the revenue impact is significant.
Seth Earley: You mentioned that you work a lot with manufacturing and distribution companies. What are the unique challenges in those sectors?
Adam Honig: Manufacturing and distribution have some really interesting challenges that most other industries don't have. First, they have incredibly complex product catalogs. You might have tens of thousands of SKUs with different configurations, specifications, pricing structures. Traditional CRMs just aren't built to handle that level of complexity. Second, there's the integration challenge. These companies run on ERP systems like SAP or Oracle, and you have to have tight integration between your CRM and your ERP. Otherwise, you're constantly dealing with data sync issues.
Third, the sales process is different. It's not about closing a deal and moving on. It's about ongoing relationships, repeat orders, managing inventory, coordinating with production schedules. A CRM that's designed for SaaS sales or consumer goods just doesn't fit. So we've built specific capabilities for manufacturing and distribution—things like product configuration, complex pricing rules, integration with ERP systems, order management workflows. It's a very different animal.
Seth Earley: Let's talk about AI-powered order entry. That seems like a game-changer for B2B sales. How does that work?
Adam Honig: Yeah, this is really exciting. Imagine a customer sends an email saying, "I need 500 units of part XYZ-123 delivered to our warehouse in Ohio by next Tuesday." Traditionally, a salesperson would have to manually create an order in the CRM, look up the part number, check pricing, verify availability, coordinate with logistics, and send back a quote. That might take 30 minutes or more.
With AI-powered order entry, the system reads that email, understands what's being requested, checks inventory and pricing, verifies the delivery timeframe, and automatically generates an order or quote. The salesperson just reviews it and approves it. What took 30 minutes now takes 30 seconds. And the AI can handle all the complexity—special pricing for this customer, volume discounts, regional variations, all of it. It's learning from historical data about what orders typically look like and what exceptions might apply.
Seth Earley: That's impressive. What about accuracy? How do you ensure the AI doesn't make mistakes?
Adam Honig: That's the critical question. We've built in multiple layers of verification. First, the AI assigns a confidence score to every decision it makes. If it's not confident about something, it flags it for human review. Second, we have business rules that act as guardrails. For example, if an order is above a certain dollar amount, it always requires human approval. Third, the system learns from corrections. If a human changes something the AI suggested, the AI learns from that and gets better over time.
But here's the thing—we're not trying to replace humans entirely. We're trying to automate the routine stuff so humans can focus on the exceptions, the complex negotiations, the relationship building. The AI handles the 80% that's straightforward, and humans handle the 20% that requires judgment and expertise.
Seth Earley: Let's talk about implementation. When companies want to adopt AI-driven CRM, what's your advice on how to approach it?
Adam Honig: Start small and specific. Don't try to transform your entire sales process on day one. Pick one specific use case—maybe it's automated activity capture, or maybe it's AI-powered email insights. Implement that, prove the value, and then expand from there. The companies that struggle are the ones that try to do everything at once. They want to implement the full CRM, integrate with all their systems, train everyone, and flip a switch. That's a recipe for failure.
Also, involve your salespeople from the beginning. They're the ones who will use the system every day. If they don't buy in, it doesn't matter how good the technology is. Show them how it will make their lives easier, not harder. And be willing to adapt based on their feedback.
Seth Earley: What about data quality? That's always been a challenge with CRM systems.
Adam Honig: Yeah, garbage in, garbage out is still true. But AI actually helps with data quality in a few ways. First, by automating data capture, you eliminate a lot of human error. When someone manually enters a phone number, they might transpose digits. When the AI extracts it from an email signature, that doesn't happen. Second, the AI can detect anomalies and flag potential data quality issues. If someone's title suddenly changes from CEO to "John Smith" because of a typo, the AI notices that and flags it.
Third, AI can enrich data automatically. It can look up company information, verify addresses, find social media profiles, all without anyone having to do it manually. So you end up with richer, more accurate data just as a byproduct of using the system.
Seth Earley: Let's talk about the broader implications. You've been vocal about AI's impact on employment. What's your perspective on that?
Adam Honig: I think we need to be honest about this. AI is going to displace a lot of jobs. Not just in sales, but across the economy. And I don't think we're having a serious enough conversation about what we're going to do about that. I'm a technologist and an entrepreneur, so I'm excited about what AI can do. But I'm also worried about the social and economic implications.
We're going to have tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people displaced by AI. And as a society, we need to think about what we're going to do about that. Universal basic income might be the answer. Or maybe we need to rethink education and focus on skills that AI can't replicate. Or maybe we need new types of jobs that we haven't even imagined yet. But we can't just pretend that everyone who loses their job to AI will magically find a new one. That's not realistic.
Seth Earley: That's a sobering perspective. How do you think about that in the context of building Spiro? Are you making jobs obsolete?
Adam Honig: I think about it this way—we're not eliminating jobs, we're changing them. We're taking the tedious, repetitive parts of sales and automating them so salespeople can focus on the parts that actually require human skills: building relationships, understanding complex customer needs, negotiating, problem-solving. Those are things AI can't do well, at least not yet. So we're making salespeople more productive and more valuable, not obsolete.
But I do think there will be roles that go away. Data entry roles, certain types of administrative roles. And we have a responsibility as a company and as an industry to help people transition to new roles. That might mean investing in training, or working with educational institutions, or creating new types of positions that didn't exist before.
Seth Earley: Looking forward, what's on the roadmap for Spiro? Where do you see AI-driven CRM going?
Adam Honig: We're working on autonomous AI agents. Imagine an AI that can independently manage certain customer relationships. It can send follow-up emails, schedule meetings, answer routine questions, even negotiate simple deals—all without human intervention. The human salesperson just reviews what the AI is doing and steps in when needed. That's where we're headed. And I think in five years, that's going to be the norm. Every salesperson will have AI agents working alongside them, handling the routine stuff so they can focus on the high-value activities.
We're also working on better integration with product data. Right now, most CRMs treat products as simple line items. But in manufacturing and distribution, products are complex. They have specifications, configurations, compatibility requirements. We want the AI to understand all of that so it can make intelligent recommendations and catch potential issues before they become problems.
Seth Earley: That's exciting. Any final thoughts for our listeners?
Adam Honig: I'd say embrace the change. AI is going to transform how we work, and that can be scary. But it's also an opportunity. The companies and individuals who figure out how to work effectively with AI are going to have a huge advantage. So don't resist it—lean into it, experiment with it, learn from it. And push your vendors to build AI systems that actually make your life easier, not harder. Don't accept technology just because it has "AI" in the name. Demand that it delivers real value.
Seth Earley: Great advice. Adam, thank you so much for your time today. This has been a fascinating conversation. For our listeners, if you want to learn more about Spiro AI, visit spiro.ai or connect with Adam on LinkedIn. Thanks for tuning in to the Earley AI Podcast, and we'll see you next time.
Adam Honig: Thanks, Seth. Really enjoyed it.