How Podium is arming 10,000+ SMBs with AI brokers

Podium⁠(opens in a brand new window) builds AI tool for native companies—corresponding to HVAC suppliers, auto sellers, and medspas—that lend a hand them building up earnings by means of shooting and changing extra call for and offering higher carrier to their shoppers.

After 11 years running side-by-side with small-to-medium (SMB)-sized operators, Podium noticed the chance to harness AI and grow to be how native companies marketplace, promote, and develop by means of turning neglected calls and sluggish replies into booked jobs, extra earnings, and happier shoppers.

Early experiments with OpenAI in 2020 serious about level answers like unsolicited mail filtering and lead enrichment. As fashions complicated, Podium advanced the ones equipment into an AI agent they affectionately name “Jerry” that converses naturally, follows enterprise insurance policies, and drives enterprise results by means of scheduling and confirming appointments or following up throughout channels.

Companies briefly embraced Jerry; now not as a device, however as a teammate. Many gave their AI agent a reputation. Some shoppers even stroll into retail outlets asking to talk with “Jerry,” assuming that they had talked to an individual.

Since launching their preliminary agent, “Jerry,” in March 2024, Podium has deployed tens of 1000’s of brokers for native companies and noticed 300% year-over-year AI earnings expansion. Podium’s AI brokers affect billions in earnings by means of responding in underneath a minute and turning in 24/7 carrier, permitting companies to develop with out including headcount.

For native companies, each and every lead issues—and lots of arrive when nobody is to be had. More or less 40% of inquiries hit after hours. Podium’s research confirmed best converters answered in about two mins, whilst the standard human answer landed in over two hours.

Overlooked calls translate immediately into neglected earnings: an HVAC proprietor estimated a unmarried misplaced Saturday lead may price tens of 1000’s of greenbacks; a medspa operator saved her telephone within the bathe to keep away from shedding high-ticket appointments.

However creating AI brokers for pace by myself isn’t sufficient. Each and every enterprise has other products and services, tone, and insurance policies, frequently formed over many years, so Podium constructed AI brokers that may be skilled in undeniable language and changed at the fly. To stay bettering, the crew advanced a rigorous analysis framework to measure what mattered: conversion, now not simply correctness.

Podium’s subsequent era in their AI agent, “Jerry,” makes use of GPT‑5.1 to maintain lead seize, scheduling, carrier requests, gross sales, and follow-up briefly and with out shedding nuance, tone, or context throughout channels.

Homeowners can replace their personal tastes the usage of herbal language, and the gadget adapts in actual time. As an example, a medspa buyer can write, “say ‘injectable’” as an alternative of ‘fillers,’” and Podium’s next-gen agent makes the trade throughout every channel with out engineering experience required.

The Podium crew made 3 key selections to construct Jerry 2.0 to prioritize reaction accuracy and scale:

• Vertical baselines + business-level tuning: Podium ships adapted brokers for auto, house products and services, aesthetics, and retail which can be highest in school, proper out of the field. Each and every enterprise can then customise the AI to its emblem’s explicit tone, playbooks, and workflows to make it a complete extension in their enterprise.
• Result-first orchestration: Jerry makes use of confirmed carrier and gross sales playbooks to qualify leads, maintain objections, and shut jobs. When wanted, it escalates to people.
• Commercial-grade analysis: Each and every unencumber runs via 1000’s of production-like eventualities. In head-to-head opinions, GPT‑5.1 gained the bulk at 65.4%, delivered 41% lower price consistent with dialog, and answered 39% quicker than competition.

Podium’s AI brokers are are living in 10,000 companies, influencing billions in earnings and riding measurable have an effect on.

A big midwestern auto workforce noticed after-hours bookings develop 80%, shooting gross sales and products and services alternatives that in the past went to competition. In HVAC, a Texas store booked 15 further emergency upkeep in a single month, due to instant after-hours responses.

One medspa proprietor in Utah says, “Jerry responds in about two mins, and if the client doesn’t answer, he follows up the following day and once more after that. He’s riding earnings for our enterprise.”

Lately, AI brokers are Podium’s fastest-growing product line. Inner groups now transfer quicker with AI, too: non-technical group of workers use ChatGPT Endeavor and OpenAI APIs to create onboarding flows, dialog playbooks, and role-play eventualities in hours, now not weeks.

OpenAI stays Podium’s most popular fashion supplier for one reason why: it plays. GPT‑5.1 delivers the most productive mixture of reasoning, instruction-following, pace, and value. Minimum fine-tuning is wanted, and contours like serve as calling and streaming combine seamlessly into Podium’s multi-agent stack.

Subsequent, Podium is increasing its AI brokers into the total lifecycle of its shoppers’ operations to proceed to power native enterprise expansion.