Not everything old should be replaced, some should be complemented.

Which technology, more than 50 years old, isn't even worth trying to fight?

Email.

No matter how much you use AI, or even if you let AI handle your email, email isn't going anywhere. At the very least, the AIs will be sending those emails to each other.

That's why we didn't try to make people use less email with pieceERP. We brought pieceERP to email instead.

The Outlook add-in brings the customer's whole history and contact details right next to the message. As you browse your messages, the add-in looks up the company from the sender, along with its open orders and anything else you need.

One click creates a new customer in the CRM with basic details from the Finnish Trade Register. Another click has AI read the message and turn it, attachments included, into a quote directly in piece, with the products matched.

You can then add the finished quote to your reply and send it to the customer without typing a single line.

Automating all of this would be easy, because all the tools are there. Still, few are ready to let go.

Amid all the AI hype, it's worth remembering that in many companies even digitalisation is only halfway done. The printer is humming, and pen and paper are still the most important tools. From there, nobody jumps straight into a world where people no longer handle email. And sales, the thing a company's survival depends on most, where you have to succeed and get the margins right too, is the last thing anyone dares to automate.

It's a bit like me and self-driving cars: it's hard to take your hands off the wheel after gripping it for 15 years.

I don't know if email will ever die. But one thing is certain: as long as people aren't ready to give something up and it's still needed, it's worth making it as effortless as possible.

Would you dare let AI send a quote to a customer without checking it first?