What AI should do in a CRM (and what it shouldn’t) — our stance on AI

Like the march of time, there's an air of inevitability about AI. Companies across the world are scrambling to implement the technology into their day-to-day lives.

But Capsule CRM, a CRM provider for small businesses, has taken a different stance. It has taken a measured, intelligent approach, guided by the principles that govern the business.

Does AI make Capsule CRM easier to use? Does it solve a customer problem? Will this be cost-effective for our customers? These are all things, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Anna Dick — and her team — grapple with daily.

We interviewed Capsule CRM CEO, Steve Ledgerwood to understand more about the Manchester-based organization’s values, implementation and thought processes around AI.

AI is everywhere. But it must be more than buzzwords

In the last year, every product demo, every conference keynote, every roadmap slide seems to lead with the same message: we’ve added AI.

CRM providers are no different. The race is on. Faster summaries. Smarter automation. “intelligent” everything. It can feel overwhelming. It can feel complicated.

But here’s the thing: adding AI isn’t the same as adding value.

At Capsule CRM, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about what AI should do in a CRM, and just as importantly, what it shouldn’t.

“We mustn’t just play into the hype,” says Capsule CRM CEO, Steve Ledgerwood. “We have to make sure AI is solving something we can’t already solve with what we’re using today. That’s the true value of AI. The hype is a massive distraction from what really matters.”

Really, CRM at its very core is simple. It exists to help manage relationships. It works when the data going in is accurate. It works when you trust it. It works when it makes your day easier, and not more complicated.

“Can Capsule CRM be your first hire?”

Capsule CRM exists to help businesses build stronger and winning relationships with prospects and customers.

The trouble is, we’re all busier than we’ve ever been. According to data from TechRadar, workers spend 5.6 hours a week on entirely avoidable admin tasks.

Here’s what we’ve seen from our customers:

• Sales teams are buried in admin, like logging calls, tracking deals
• Customer success teams are juggling too many conversations, writing reams of follow-up emails
• Founders switch between all of these roles every hour.

And for some CRMs, the very system that’s supposed to create clarity and control, doesn’t help these people do their jobs effectively. Or, some CRMs can be the bottleneck. It can’t give you access to what you need, fast enough.

But this is where we think AI helps.

Ledgerwood says: “Thinking about these use cases, sales, customer success, project management.

“Imagine if we found a way to take about 50% of that admin requirement away? Imagine if we were able to find a way to speed up some email comms, build dashboards quicker, or summarize key information immediately. I think this is the real opportunity. Not so much time saved or efficiency, but how would you rather spend your working day? Do you think these admin tasks are your best use of time? In the case of these use cases, absolutely not.”

And this is where Capsule CRM is firmly focused. Its customers should be utilizing their strengths: listening, solving problems, and building the best customer relationships.

The key is to recognize that AI will not, and should not, replace humans. What people bring to the table cannot be replaced.

However, what AI can do is augment what humans do. It can help you sift through reams of data and spot the patterns. It’ll help you connect the dots when you’re preparing for a customer call. And AI, implemented right, within CRM, turns the tool from being a record-keeper, to a strategic, decision-making partner.

For startups, this is especially salient:

“We often talk about this idea: can we be your first hire?” Steve says. “If you’re in startup mode, and cash poor, and a solution helps you delay your first hire because it solves so many of those needs, how much more valuable is that?”

AI fatigue isn’t a thing. AI just needs to make sense.

There’s plenty of anti-AI sentiment out there. But after listening to our customers, we don’t think AI is actually the problem.

We think people are rejecting the rampant bandwagoning, the complexity some AI features have added, and that sense that AI means you’re losing control of your working day.

And frankly, they have a point. Away from B2B SaaS, AI is everywhere. At CES 2026, countless consumer products, such as smartphones, tablets, TVs, and even, vacuum cleaners shoehorned AI into their offering. It’s a relentless rush to bolt AI onto everything.

So when companies promise that AI will “transform productivity,” customers have learned to ask the obvious follow-up: Transform it into what, exactly? Steve understands that scepticism directly.

“We’ve already had this from customers,” he says.

“They’re worried there are going to be data privacy problems. They’ll say: ‘I don’t want you to have any AI in our business because I don’t want you stealing our data. They feel they have less control’”

And perhaps the biggest concern of all is this: that businesses are adopting AI not because it helps customers, but because it helps marketing.

Ledgerwood adds: “People are worried that companies are going down the AI route just because it’s AI,” Steve explains. “That everything is going to be AI now. And it becomes more complex by nature.”

CRM is supposed to create clarity. But AI, bolted on without thought, can easily become unhelpful — another feature users didn’t ask for, another workflow they didn’t need, another layer of automation they simply don’t trust.

How Capsule CRM ships AI features

Some of the bigger players in the CRM market have moved fast.

Over the last year, we’ve seen AI features launched, re-packaged, moved into new pricing tiers, spun into standalone modules, and in some cases quietly reshaped. Credits introduced. Credits removed. Capabilities redefined.

This all tells a story. It suggests experimentation in public, and not everything working the way it was expected to.

Ledgerwood doesn’t criticize that approach. He gets it. “They started on the AI journey quicker than us.”

But Capsule CRM took a different path. Steve says:

“What we do is look at what customers are telling us about the gaps in our product. Then we ask: do we solve this using conventional means, or can we solve it through AI?”

What Steve’s comment shows is that we’re not using AI as the starting point in our product development, we’re using our customers' problems as the centrepiece. This is an important distinction to make.

Further, Ledgerwood gave more detail on Capsule CRM’s AI feature release process:

• Small testing groups - that first line feedback from trusted but critical users
• Private betas - a larger group of people to stress test capabilities and provide additional feedback
• Full release - only when we’re confident this feature is really going to make a difference and add value.

“We are very, very strict on how we create testing groups,” Steve explains. “We don’t take something off public beta prematurely. We want to make sure it’s adding value — not just throwing out a feature people won’t use.”

Unfortunately, this means this approach has consequences.

“It means we’re deliberately slower to market,” Steve says plainly. “We’re taking the time to really understand how they’re going to add value consistently over time.”

Capsule CRM is in no position to ship features the way bigger companies do so. But, it gives the team focus.

Coupled with its relentless focus on only things that make sense for its customers, and things they’ll actually use, Capsule CRM will be in a position to add value.

Do we trust AI? And should you?

With any new technology, there’s always a trust issue. But we do think there’s a pertinent question to ask about AI. Especially when it’s being used in a CRM.

Your CRM has your most sensitive information. Your deals, your customer contact details, your relationship history, and for some, your innermost thoughts.

So, when we hear our customers question or hesitate about AI, we don’t think they’re being difficult. They’re being responsible.

It is fundamental to our business, and how we implement AI, that we treat privacy and control over AI as an essential part of our process, and not something optional.

Capsule CRM is a data-centric organization. We follow all the data privacy and security regulations, hold ourselves to high standards and feel a real responsibility when we implement these features.

On privacy and security specifics, Ledgerwood says:

“We follow SOC 2 guidelines for data transfer, data security and data privacy,”

“We’re GDPR compliant. We’re setting the parameters according to the way authorities are asking us to play in this world.”

When we asked him about how some organizations have acted with data captured from AI, Steve was unequivocal:

"We are not using AI to take their data and use it for something else. We've never done that and we never will.

What our future with AI looks like

AI isn’t going away. In fact, the use cases and implementations are accelerating.

Steve recalls browsing LinkedIn 12 months ago:

“Most businesses were experimenting with a single general-purpose AI tool.

He adds: “Today, there are specialist AI systems for almost every function imaginable. AI technology is evolving faster than anything I’ve ever experienced. And as each day passes, each use case becomes more and more tangible.”

The bottom line is: there is no getting away from AI. However, that doesn’t mean we have to surrender our values when we implement it.

• Does AI make Capsule CRM easier to use?
• Does it solve a customer problem?
• Is it cost-effective to use?

These principles will guide Capsule CRM and its business strategy in the years to come.

Don’t expect loads of meaningless AI features that don’t meet our values.

Instead, expect things like an agentic AI feel, as Ledgerwood explains:

“One of the biggest things we’re working on is how to create more of an agentic AI feel inside Capsule,” Steve explains.

“Something that makes it easier to interrogate your data, something you can talk to, something you can treat as a co-pilot or another member of staff.”

"But crucially, whatever is implemented in Capsule CRM will always follow our checks and balances to ensure that we’re always delivering the best for our customers."

A final thought

As the market rushes to add AI into its feature set, it is easy to lose sight of what CRM is really about. The second letter in the acronym ‘relationship’ is perhaps its most important.

The best sales teams don’t win because they have more automation.

The best customer success teams don’t succeed because they have more dashboards.

Small businesses don’t grow because they collect more data.

All three win because they understand the people they serve. They understand that building, nurturing and protecting their relationships is what really matters.

Capsule CRMs AI features aren't here to replace humans, and it certainly isn’t here to automate relationship building.

To be blunt: it’s your job to build those relationships, and it’s your job to bring your unique human value to those precious relationships, something AI can never do.

Instead, Capsule CRM’s AI features are here to help you do what you need to do to better build those relationships. They’re there to help you protect your time, and to show up, every day, consistently.

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