In an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, one of the most surprising frontiers of rapid adoption is the trades. From roofing and home improvement to solar energy and pest control, outside sales teams in these blue-collar industries are embracing AI not out of hype, but to solve real challenges and boost results.
Leading this transformation is Kunal Abichandani, Head of Product and Design at Rilla, and the visionary behind Rick AI, the world’s leading AI assistant for outside sales.
“People assume that innovation happens only in Silicon Valley garages,” Kunal says.
“But some of the most fascinating AI adoption I’ve seen is on kitchen tables in Indiana, front porches in Arizona, and driveways in Georgia, where reps are selling services face-to-face. These folks are hungry for technology that actually helps them close more deals and grow their business.”
Rick AI is a generative AI-powered assistant trained on millions of anonymized real-world sales conversations. It listens to reps’ pitches, timing, technique, and script compliance and then provides instant, targeted coaching to help them improve. For sales managers, it surfaces the exact moments when a deal went off-track, or closed brilliantly, allowing for high-impact coaching without hours of shadowing.
Why Blue-Collar Sales Is an Untapped Goldmine for AI
Outside sales in the trades is an environment where performance variation is high, onboarding takes time, and coaching bandwidth is limited. Reps work independently in the field, meeting customers at their homes or job sites, often without real-time feedback or structured support.
“Traditional sales tech doesn’t serve this model,” explains Kunal. “CRM tools assume reps are behind laptops. Script compliance tools are built for call centers. But offline i.e. in person sales is a completely different beast: it’s high-context, emotional, and time-sensitive.”
Despite these complexities, the market potential is massive. The U.S. home services market alone is valued at over $500 billion, with sales teams responsible for driving the bulk of revenue. Small performance gains—just 10–20% improvements in close rates—can lead to millions in new revenue for companies operating in this space.
From Penn to Product Leadership
Born in India and raised between there and Finland, Kunal was captivated by technology from an early age, especially watching innovation unfold at Nokia during its peak, where both of his parents worked. That early exposure to cutting-edge mobile tech inspired him to teach himself to code at just 15 years old, eventually building and releasing his own app on the Google PlayStore while still in high school.
He studied computer science and design at the University of Pennsylvania, where he spent time in the intersection of technical depth and user-centric design. “Engineering taught me what’s possible, and design taught me why it matters,” he says. That dual mindset has shaped his entire…
Read More: Designing AI For The Trades
