The news: Startup Artisan raised $11.5 million in seed funding to deploy AI-powered virtual employees for sales teams. The company’s AI assistant, Ava, automates tasks like lead generation and personalized outreach, potentially streamlining sales processes.

Artisan, whose existing platform generates $1 million in recurring annual revenue, already has 120 business clients and is looking to expand its AI agents to marketing and customer-success applications.

Streamlining the sales process with AI assistants: Artisan is looking to solve the often-fragmented tangle of sales software from different vendors by offering a single platform that it says can handle everything from lead generation to email outreach.