May 5, 2026
AI Beyond Chatbots: Operational Intelligence
The AI conversation in business has been dominated by chatbots and content generation. But the real operational value of AI lies elsewhere…
Merken Soft
Every growing business has them: the invisible chokepoints where work piles up, decisions stall, and opportunities slip through the cracks. We’ve analyzed hundreds of operational workflows and identified the seven bottlenecks that show up most consistently — and most expensively.
The most common bottleneck is the gap between teams. When sales closes a deal and hands it to operations, what actually happens? In most businesses, an email is sent. Someone has to manually enter the deal information into a new system. And somewhere in that gap, context is lost.
Approvals that require multiple sign-offs create queues. When those approvals happen over email, there’s no visibility into where things are stuck, no escalation when deadlines approach, and no audit trail when things go wrong.
Merken Soft
Merkensoft Team
Writing about operational systems, AI in business, and the future of revenue operations.
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