There’s still a long way to go before artificial intelligence could threaten to automate positions in areas such as sales that require a special human touch. But the technology can identify opportunities to increase output that might normally go unnoticed.

That’s the value proposition put forth by People.ai Inc., a San Francisco-based startup focused on enhancing the productivity of enterprise sales teams. It stepped into the spotlight today after revealing it has secured a $7 million investment led by venture capital giant Lightspeed Venture Partners.

People.ai sells a service that employs machine learning algorithms to give companies insight into their customer acquisition operations. It aggregates data about how salespeople communicate with leads over the phone, via emails and through other channels in a console that acts as a sort of scoreboard. Managers can check how each team member compares against peers to identify areas for improvement.

If the goal is to increase conversion, a sales director could use People.ai to examine what percentage of email pitches receive a response and identify representatives who fall below the departmental average. People.ai can also be used to assess the individual activities that personnel perform during the workday. If the service shows that certain salespeople, say, spend too much time in meetings, changes can be made to free them up for other activities.

In such scenarios, People.ai enables users to turn data from its platform into graphical reports to help them share key findings with the relevant colleagues. The visualizations are compatible with large displays, which means that they can be easily brought up during presentations.

People.ai founder Oleg Rogynskyy told TechCrunch that the capital from today’s round will go toward developing more features for the service. Besides Lightspeed Venture Partners, the investment saw the participation of Y Combinator, Index Ventures, Shasta Ventures and  SV Angel.

Image: People.ai