If you keep up with recent trends in technology, then you’ve probably been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence (AI) lately. Artificial intelligence has many uses and is already seeing multiple cases of real-world applications. But that doesn’t tell you much about how your business can use it, or if it’s going to be something you need to adapt in the coming years. For instance, can it help you deliver a great customer experience?

This year alone, it’s predicted that holiday retail sales will top $1.10 trillion. It’s a pivotal time for companies: bright and jolly marketing campaigns go out in a flurry and sales teams put on the pressure to get their numbers to an all-time high. But, while the increase in marketing efforts inevitably leads to more customers, it also means customer support teams find themselves spread thin.

2018 has been the year of artificial intelligence (AI). What was until recently just an emerging trend, has now established itself to the extent that it is already hard to imagine a work life without AI-driven applications. Chatbots—one of the more popular applications of AI —have become ubiquitous, and every SaaS company has jumped on to the AI and machine learning (ML) bandwagon.

A few years ago, I thought design meant how good something looks. Whether it’s the streaming app that I use to binge watch my favorite TV shows, or the E-commerce website where I get the best deals, how good the interface looks seemed to drive my choices. But today I can tell you—I’ve never been more wrong. As I interacted with more and more products for my day-to-day tasks, I realized that aesthetics isn’t the only factor contributing to the end user experience.

It’s the whisper on every store owner’s lips, and the shout rising from every eager shopaholic across the country: the Black Friday weekend is coming. November 23rd is fast approaching, with Cyber Monday hot on its heels. Last year consumers spent $19 billion over the Black Friday weekend. And on Cyber Monday alone online spending reached a record breaking $6.59 billion.

The Freshworks Marketplace continues to grow from strength to strength, we’ve added close to 30 new apps and integrations to the platform with more being added on almost a daily basis. Here’s a quick look at some of the apps that were added to the Freshdesk Marketplace in the past month.

Every business has their own unique mission and vision and a unique set of products or services. But they all share one common goal: drive more sales. And this is a goal that requires effort from every department and team within a company. Even employees that don’t directly sell to customers have an impact on this goal.

As Freshdesk users, you constantly provide us with great feedback as our product evolves. Your feedback influences every decision we make as a product team. We recently visited some of our most popular feature requests and we’re excited to be introducing features that many of you had been waiting for. Starting from setting up your account, supervising your team every day, to scaling your support team, working with Freshdesk becomes easier with these feature additions.

In today’s digital world, almost everyone knows about voice commands thanks to Google Assistant and iPhone Siri. It’s becoming more and more common for people to call a friend, open an app, or search for a café using voice commands. In addition to phone-based voice assistants, Amazon has introduced an exclusive product named Alexa that can play music, do online shopping, initiate payment transaction and make your home smart solely based on your voice commands.