Glossary

Plain, neutral definitions for the sales-automation and AI-demo terms used across this site. Written to be accurate on their own, independent of anything we sell.

AI demo agent

Software that holds a live, two-way conversation with a website visitor and demonstrates a product, instead of a human rep or a pre-recorded video doing it. Zodiem is one example: it additionally navigates a real browser live while it talks.

Agentic product demo

A product demo led by an AI agent that can take real actions (navigate a live product, answer grounded questions, capture a lead) rather than just play back fixed content.

Live demo vs. recorded demo vs. AI avatar video

A live demo is driven in real time and can respond to questions. A recorded demo is the same fixed video for every viewer. An AI avatar video sits in between: often scripted or templated, with a synthetic presenter, but typically not a live two-way conversation.

Demo-to-lead conversion

The share of people who start a product demo (live, recorded, or agent-led) who end up captured as a qualified lead. Used to compare how well different demo formats actually convert interest into pipeline.

Speed to lead

The time between a prospect expressing interest (filling a form, starting a demo) and a company's first real response. Widely cited research associates a faster response with a meaningfully higher chance of qualifying the lead.

Sales engineer (SE)

A technical specialist who partners with a sales rep to answer in-depth product and integration questions during a deal, often running live technical demos for complex evaluations.

Solution architect

A role (sometimes overlapping with sales engineer) focused on designing how a product fits into a prospective customer's existing systems and architecture, usually for larger or more technical deals.

Business analyst (sales/discovery context)

A role that gathers and documents a prospect's requirements and current workflows during discovery, to inform how a deal, implementation, or demo should be scoped.

CRM (customer relationship management)

Software that tracks contacts, deals, and pipeline stages for a sales team, such as HubSpot or Salesforce. A CRM manages the pipeline; it doesn't by itself run a live product demo.

Sales dialer

Software that places or queues outbound phone calls for a sales team, often with features like local presence numbers or voicemail drop. A dialer is for outbound calling, not for hosting an on-site live demo.

Email sequencing / sequencer

Software that automates a series of scheduled outbound emails (and sometimes other touches) to a list of prospects over time, such as Outreach or Salesloft.

SDR (sales development representative)

A rep focused on prospecting and qualifying inbound or outbound leads before handing them to an account executive for a full sales cycle.

Knowledge base / grounded answers

A set of a company's own uploaded documentation that an AI agent is restricted to answering from, so it doesn't invent features or answers outside of what's actually documented.

Lead routing

Rules that decide which rep, team, or workflow a newly captured lead is sent to, often based on traffic source, company size, or the content of the conversation.

See also: What is Zodiem and AI agent info.