Automated Proposals Built Literally in Minutes Before Your Eyes
Portal executives Kirk Chisholm and Josh Willits recently gave me a sneak preview at a dramatic new feature they have developed for Portal users that is a potential game changer for those seeking to increase companywide efficiency by streamlining an essential but time-consuming process all integrators face – building compelling, complete, and accurate proposals. With Portal’s new AI Proposals, your proposals practically build themselves – literally in seconds on simple installations or in a minute or two on more sophisticated projects.
AI Proposals is a new use for artificial intelligence (AI) with real-world consequences that benefit integrators and their clients.
Learn more about the all-new AI Proposals from Portal
As a member of the media, I am constantly deluged with press releases, content proposals, and sales pitches on AI-this or AI-that. Frankly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has, in my opinion, been completely overblown. That’s not to say it isn’t an important development, but unfortunately, it has become a buzzword that everyone is trying to hype and exploit to make a buck…and it’s getting oversold.
A Rare Meaningful Application of AI
So I’ll admit that when I first heard about Portal’s new AI-enabled feature – AI Proposals – I wasn’t thrilled. In fact, I was a bit skeptical.
Then…they demo’d it for me and I could hardly believe my eyes. In just a matter of minutes, a genuine, full-fledged, well-formatted, and compelling proposal was created from the soundtrack of a video recorded and uploaded into Portal by an integrator from a walk-through of an integration project. This was no small project – it was, the Portal execs told me, about a $200,000 install.
A Critical Part of CI Sales That Can Be Time-Consuming to Create
Proposals are a critical part of the sales process…yet they can be quite time-consuming to create. Integrators meet with a client (or other appointed project manager) to walk through the project taking notes on a space-by-space basis and confirming the project scope with the client. The integrator then heads to the office to build a proposal based on his notes from the walk-thorough. It can take a day or two to complete the proposal and get it out to the client, depending in part on how many projects the integrator is juggling at any given moment.
But with AI Proposals, the base-level creation of the proposal is almost literally a snap (or the push of a button). Imagine this scenario – during your project walk-through, you pull out your phone and film a video of the walk-through as you go room by room, verbally describing what will be done in each space. Chisholm says this video walk-through can be done with the client, or separately by the integrator after a client meeting.
Uploading Video Walk-Through Makes the Process Simple
Upon returning to the office, you then upload that video into Portal which transcribes the audio from that video to be fed into AI Proposals. You can actually upload multiple videos on larger scale, multi-building properties for the same project. You then select the option to create a Proposal Outline. After just a few seconds, an outline of the entire proposal is created. You then confirm that this is the correct project and that the outline contains all of the necessary elements required for the project. Then you hit the button to Build Proposal.
Building that full proposal can take up to a few minutes to create, but what you get is a surprisingly robust, full-featured project proposal with areas, descriptions, products, labor, budget, and more. Some of the text is placeholder text, where you can go in and enter a specific item/model number and update the pricing – so you make those adjustments and then the proposal is ready to be transmitted to the client for approval.
A Video Confirms the Scope of the Project and Adds a Touch of Professionalism
Portal recommends you embed your walk-through video with the proposal which helps to confirm to the client that the proposal covers the full scope of the project as you had both discussed. This not only helps the client see how the proposal directly follows the walk-through but also adds another level of professionalism to your company.
The magic is in how AI Proposals has turbo-charged the proposal creation process from one that takes hours to one that takes minutes.
Your Accountant and Your Employees are Going to Love AI Proposals
The payoff is your accountant is going to love seeing your company’s bottom line improved by the much more efficient proposal creation process (more proposals in less time) and your improved closing rate on project bids. Your staff is going to love saving so much time in the creation of each proposal, and your production team and project manager are going to love being able to see the video of the space which gives them much more tangible information than just notes hastily scribbled during the walk-through.
“Nothing beats video,” Chisholm told me. “Because with video, nothing gets lost in the translation.”
However, the system is really quite flexible – so you can continue with your handwritten notes if you like. As Willits told me, “Dealers can upload a video file of the walkthrough, an audio file, a text file, or they can type in the scope of work. Or they can even just dictate it.” No matter how you input the project into AI Proposals, the output will be the same. But Portal notes that a video or audio file is the fastest way to an AI Proposal.
AI Proposals is Super Easy Now and Will Get Even Easier
The system is in early Beta, but Chisholm tells me that Portal is already working on progressing later iterations that will even be able to pre-populate product and pricing fields, based on the company’s historical ordering patterns across all of its installations. You will still be able to manually change these items where needed, but it would be one step closer to a finished project, as most of those pre-populated fields would be accurate.
Making the process even easier1, Portal’s software is Mobile Responsive, so users can easily interact with the system on their favorite mobile device, whether iOS or Android. An integrator could, for example, dictate directly to his phone that is connected through the app and uploading the audio right into AI Proposals. Once your dictation is done, you hit the button and the Proposal Outline is created. A quick review of that and then you select “Build Proposal” – and by the time you arrive back at your office the proposal is done! A few adjustments and tweaks to that and you are ready to send it to the client only a matter of hours after the walk-through. Neat!
Based on OpenAI’s GPT-4
AI Proposals is built upon OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, but Chisholm tells me that they can work with any of the available artificial intelligence systems out there. In fact, they tested a few of the major players, such as Gemini and Llama, but found that at this point in time GPT-4 works the best.
For now, AI Proposals is only available as an early Beta for current subscribers. About a month or so after the CEDIA Expo, it will open up to full Beta and be available for others to try out.
‘Their Minds are Blown!’; ‘He Started Dropping F-Bombs On Me!’
Portal has worked with around six of its dealers, testing out the early Beta of AI Proposals. I asked if they could share how those dealers felt about the feature…what kind of feedback have they been getting?
“I mean, their minds are blown!” Chisholm said. “This is one of the few things that we don’t have to sell dealers on. They see it and in a heartbeat, they just get it.”
Willits added, “I had one dealer that I just described it to without even showing it to him, and he started dropping F-bombs on me. I mean he was just. blown. away.”
AI Proposals Looks to Be A Game-Changer; ‘You Just Launched Yourself…Into the Future’
AI Proposals builds an entire proposal with the click of a button. It helps to streamline the workflow, improve the accuracy of the process, cuts time invested in creating a proposal with automation as opposed to building one from the ground up, and is easily operated successfully by any level operator. It looks to be a real game-changer.
Says Chisholm, “You know that by clicking that button to generate the AI proposal, you just launched yourself an hour into the future.”
See Portal’s AI Proposals at CEDIA Expo in Booth #C1320
Portal will have ongoing demonstrations of its dramatic new AI Proposals feature in its booth at this week’s CEDIA Expo in Denver, CO, from September 5-7, 2024. Find them in booth #C1320 and get your own in-person, mind-blowing demo.
Learn more about Portal by visiting portal.io.
CORRECTIONS
- – 9/5/2024 – This change was requested by the company – The article originally stated that “the company offers an iOS and Android app.” This incorrect statement resulted from a misunderstanding. However, Portal does offer an iOS app that currently does not include “AI Proposals.” This capability may be added at some time in the future. There is no Android app at this time. ↩︎
2. – 9/5/2024 – This change was requested by the company – This image caption was changed to reflect the fact that Portal’s software is Mobile Responsive and therefore can be used on iOS or Android devices. Originally, this caption incorrectly stated that the company has an iOS and Android app as a result of a misunderstanding.
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