AI Tools for Sales: Elevate Your Strategy & Boost Efficiency

Will artificial intelligence (AI) replace salespeople? What is the likelihood of AI replacing salespeople? How is AI going to shape the sales world?

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These are just a few examples of questions clouding the sales community in light of the emergence of AI tools.

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While AI likely won’t fully replace the art of selling any time soon (because you can’t replace human interactions!), sales professionals can reap the benefits of AI tools in their daily sales work. In this article, we’ll dive into AI sales tools and how they can help salespeople with various parts of their work, including prospecting, sales enablement, content generation, and more.

What are AI sales tools?

AI sales tools include artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) applications. These tools help sales teams streamline workflows, improve sales processes, create more unified and personalized customer experiences, and boost productivity. Ultimately, AI-powered sales tools give sales reps more time to focus on creating authentic human-to-human interactions and relationships.  

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Benefits of AI in sales tools

AI assists with several core functions of a salesperson’s day-to-day responsibilities. The primary benefits of AI-powered sales tools include the following: 

Personalized customer journey experiences 

The buyer’s journey doesn’t look the same for every buyer, and a completely personalized sales process isn’t ideal for sales professionals speaking with multiple prospects at once. Fortunately, with the right AI tool, sales reps can prioritize personalization throughout the customer journey. This might include automating tailored communications, adapting emails to add relevant details, and leveraging machine learning algorithms to analyze customer behavior and suggest future actions. 

Increased number of leads (and better-qualified ones)

AI-powered sales tools for lead generation can help sales reps analyze lead data to identify data correlations and patterns and streamline monotonous tasks like creating personalized emails for each lead. Additionally, AI-generated lead scoring tracks and analyzes customer data, allowing sales teams to focus on the right leads. 

Advanced insights for sales and forecast predictions 

AI can help sales teams better predict challenges, assess sales pipeline changes, and prepare for detrimental and unexpected market changes with more accurate forecasting. Reliable forecasting is critical for confidently making business decisions and achieving sales targets.

More proactive sales assistance 

Salespeople can’t be everywhere, assisting potential customers with varying needs simultaneously. However, there are AI tools that can help bridge gaps and serve as trusted communication partners for better customer experiences. For example, AI-powered chatbots can provide 24/7 assistance and instant responses, answering easy questions that don’t require a full-blown email exchange or phone call.

Automated repetitive tasks, like content generation and meeting coordination 

Finally, AI tools can help sales teams conquer administrative tasks more quickly, allowing them to reserve time to connect with more customers or close deals. Salespeople can use AI tools for content generation (drafting emails, summarizing notes for customers, etc.) and scheduling calls and meetings without the hassle of manual and back-and-forth coordination. 

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How are sales teams using AI? 

Recent research from HubSpot suggests that many sales professionals are already harnessing the power of AI tools and will continue to do so. They reported that 80% of sales pros shared that AI and automation tools can help them spend less time on manual tasks, and 60% believe AI tools are important to their overall sales strategy. 

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In the same report, sales professionals indicated that they’re using AI tools to:

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• Automate manual tasks
• Offering data-driven insights (sales forecasting, lead scoring, pipeline analysis) 
• Writing sales content
• Analyzing sales calls for coaching purposes
• Assist with prospect outreach and lead generation 
• Qualify leads

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AI can help sales professionals with many aspects of their daily work. We’ve rounded up some of the best AI sales tools below. Many descriptions also contain a G2 review, and reviews may have been modified slightly for readability. 

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AI tools for lead generation

Enhance your lead generation strategy with AI-powered assistance. Below are three AI tools for lead generation listed in alphabetical order.

LeadIQ

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LeadIQ is an AI-equipped sales prospecting tool that helps sales teams build confident pipelines. With LeadIQ, you can find accurate contact data, identify and capture leads in a prospecting sequence, track key accounts, and write personalized emails with AI. LeadIQ integrates with major platforms like Salesforce, Hubspot, Salesloft, and more. 

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G2 reviewer Brenda T. wrote, “It's super easy to use and pairs with LinkedIn, which makes finding contact information a breeze. I can easily find direct numbers and cell numbers. I also like that you can submit a request for contact info if you're having trouble locating a number or email address for a specific prospect. I love how you can easily find a prospect's cell number. It's hard reaching people on their desk lines now, but most will answer their cell. Makes getting ahold of someone much easier.”

Pricing

LeadIQ offers a free plan, and paid plans start at $39 per user/month, billed annually. Check out the full pricing details here.

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Outreach

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Outreach is a sales execution platform with sales engagement, deal management,  sales pipeline, and forecasting capabilities, to name a few. Thanks to AI, Outreach can help identify search intent, enabling businesses to prioritize high-quality leads and use the right content to engage them accordingly. Additionally, Outreach automates prospecting workflows with proven templates, snippets, and tasks and can help send personalized messages to every prospect at the right time. 

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G2 reviewer Sherryl J. appreciates how easy it is to manage tasks and stay on top of leads with Outreach, “We like that Outreach allows us to create templates to send quick updates to our leads and helps us carefully manage our tasks for each lead at each of the organizations we communicate with. Now that we have acquired RingCentral to use with the Outreach platform, we are experiencing very smooth transitions between tasks and carefully organized communications between team members and our clients.”

Pricing

Request pricing information to learn more. 

Seamless.AI

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Seamless.AI finds verified cell phone numbers and email addresses so sales teams can connect with their ideal customers and close more deals. It uses AI and ML to research and verify contract data for millions of people across companies in real time for accuracy. Seamless.AI also produces quality content to make connecting with and engaging prospects easier without manually writing email after email. 

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In a G2 review, Joshua N. wrote, “I can find contact info on pretty much anyone. The best part is pulling it right from their LinkedIn profile. The cool part is that it easily plugs into your browser. Customer support is there to ensure that implementing this tool is easy with all the available sales resources. I use it EVERY DAY.” 

Pricing

Try Seamless.AI for free and reach out for additional pricing information.

AI tools for sales forecasting

Consider an AI-driven solution to improve sales forecasting accuracy. Below are three AI tools for sales forecasting, which are listed alphabetically.

Aviso 

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Aviso is an AI-powered sales tool that helps teams improve their forecasting accuracy and overall sales performance. With Aviso, companies can roll up their sales forecasts across all sales reps and teams in real-time across all reports and dashboards, use Aviso’s proprietary WinScore Explanations to identify upside and at-risk deals, and visualize revenue progress across different metrics. Since it analyzes past trends, market conditions, and deal data, it generates more reliable forecasts for sales teams. 

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Aviso integrates with leading CRM tools like Salesforce, Hubspot, Freshsales (formerly Freshworks), Oracle, and more to unlock your organization’s revenue operations by leveraging data where it already exists. It also integrates with email and meeting tools for a holistic solution. 

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Forecasting appears to be Aviso’s strength. G2 reviewer Jonathan B. wrote, “One of the struggles currently is the ‘gut feeling’ on sales forecasts, specifically around larger deals. Having a deal score helps guide the sentiment and ultimately the forecast and gives some quantitative metrics to help inform the final northbound forecast.”

Pricing 

Although pricing information isn’t available online, you can contact the sales team to explore the Virtual Selling and Enterprise solutions. The advanced forecasting features, like predictive deal-level forecasting and WinScore insights, are available as part of the Enterprise solution. 

Gong.io

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Gong is an AI platform for revenue growth designed to maximize team effectiveness, provide accurate forecasts, and accelerate closing deals in the pipeline. It uses 300+ unique signals as part of its AI-powered forecast projections to provide more accuracy and precision than traditional CRM algorithms. Gong’s AI features also help teams prioritize and win high-impact deals by evaluating customer insights to determine the likelihood of a deal. Key features include predictive forecasting, pipeline inspection, conversation intelligence, and executive dashboards.

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Gong leverages AI to analyze each customer interaction, turns insights into action by identifying coaching opportunities and pipeline performance, and uses this information to drive business outcomes and increase revenue growth. Gong integrates with three popular CRMs (HubSpot, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics 365), calendar tools like Google Calendar and Office 365, email and meeting tools, support software, and automation tools. 

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In a review for G2, David T. wrote, “Simple to set up, works across all business lines, ability to review and coach on the fly and get a truly accurate forecast. The amount of support we get is second to none. All the integrations worked, and everyone in the org immediately started using it. I recommend this product to anyone looking to up their sales, support, and success game.”

Pricing

Gong’s pricing model depends on team specifics. Fill out the pricing form for a custom proposal for your team.

Weflow 

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Weflow is an advanced pipeline management and AI forecasting solution that drives predictability and efficiency. Hence, pipeline changes feel less surprising, and team members can more readily identify deals at risk. Weflow offers helpful features for the entire revenue team to provide a holistic experience through one tool. Revenue leaders can deliver more accurate forecasts and improve win rates, revenue operations can run a reliable forecasting process and improve Salesforce data quality, sales managers can spot deal risks, and account executives can update Salesforce faster while focusing on deals that matter most. 

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An important thing to know about Weflow is that it syncs to Salesforce, so you must be a Salesforce user to use the tool. Explore their various product tours to see how the product works. 

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Users love Weflow because of the time it saves them. In a G2 review, user Kole S. wrote, “Its automated logging, updates, and processes streamline everything, saving me valuable time. The platform's automated insights increase visibility, empowering me to make informed decisions. With Weflow, I close more deals efficiently. Also, the UI is beautiful. It's a game-changer!”

Pricing

Weflow operates on a per-user pricing model. If you want to try before you buy, there’s a free plan available with some of the basic features. After the free plan, plans start at $19 per user/month but check out the latest pricing information. If you’re interested in using Weflow for sales forecasting, you need the highest-tier plan, Forecasting & Insights (also the most popular). 

AI tools for sales analytics

Sales analytics includes collecting, analyzing, and interpreting sales activity and performance data to make better-informed business decisions and close deals. Below are three AI tools for sales analytics listed in alphabetical order.

Clari 

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Clari is an AI-powered revenue platform with many essential revenue capabilities for sales teams, including forecasting data, sales engagement, conversation intelligence, revenue analytics, mutual action plans, and data capture. Clari eliminates manual entry and record-matching to improve data quality across the team’s tech stack. 

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Clari also offers Clari Copilot, a conversational intelligence platform that provides real-time alerts and battle cards to help sales reps navigate objections and conversations with ease and suggested approaches. In Copilot, RevAI delivers formatted call summaries, suggested next steps, and more to help team members close deals faster. 

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One unnamed G2 reviewer wrote, “The predictive analytics functionality of Clari deserves special recognition. By leveraging advanced algorithms, the platform can forecast future sales trends and customer behavior, enabling us to proactively adjust our strategies. This forward-looking approach has proven instrumental in staying ahead of the competition and swiftly adapting to market changes. It's great at projecting where we are and where we want to be.” 

Pricing

There are no platform fees, but you must contact the Clari team for a quote if you are interested in pricing specifics. 

Salesforce Sales Cloud (with Sales Analytics) 

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Salesforce Sales Cloud is a comprehensive CRM solution that helps teams close deals faster with AI-powered deal insights and guided selling. A sales analytics add-on allows teams to accurately forecast with Sales Cloud, Data Cloud, and Tableau. With real-time forecasting management, a consolidated pipeline view, pre-built dashboards, and AI-powered predictions based on any sales data, sales reps can take action on deals with all of the necessary contextual information and insights they need. 

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G2 reviewer Supreet K. wrote, “One of the standout features of Salesforce Sales Cloud is its comprehensive suite of tools for managing the entire sales process. From lead generation to closing deals, its customizable dashboards, robust analytics, and integration capabilities make it a powerful platform for boosting sales productivity and efficiency. Additionally, its scalability allows businesses of all sizes to tailor their sales processes according to their specific needs and grow seamlessly as their requirements evolve.”

Pricing

The Sales Analytics pricing instructs users to choose the Sales Cloud edition to meet their needs (remember, this is an add-on to Sales Cloud). Some Sales Cloud editions include Sales Analytics, but you can easily add it to your package if the one you select does not. The most basic package is $25 per user/month. Check out the latest pricing information here.

Zoho CRM (with Sales Analytics)

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Like Salesforce Sales Cloud, another leading CRM provider, Zoho CRM has advanced sales analytics features, enabling organizations to get visual answers from their data. Zoho CRM’s analytics help businesses monitor every aspect of the sales cycle with customized dashboards and analytical widgets for sales targets, funnels, KPIs, and more. Customizable reports allow drilling into sales data and examining sales trends, marketing campaigns, team performance, and more.

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Additionally, Zoho has an embedded AI sales assistant named Zia that includes AI-powered predictions around customer behavior, personalized recommendations to improve the customer experience, workflow suggestions for increased productivity, and AI-powered chatbots that can support customers. Zoho CRM is part of the broader product suite, Zoho One, which includes additional productivity products. 

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G2 reviewer Scott H. wrote, “It is helping us do a much better job tracking our 'new customer outreach' while providing an excellent platform to track our sales data and analytics every week!”

Pricing 

Zoho CRM offers a free trial with no credit card required. From there, pricing for the Standard plan starts at $14 per user/month, billed annually. Review the most current pricing here, and don’t forget to pop down to the “Reports and analytics” section to ensure the bundle you choose includes the sales analytics features you’re looking for. (AI analytics are only available with the Enterprise and Ultimate plans.) 

AI tools for sales enablement

Sales enablement includes providing sales teams with the resources, tools, training, and support they need to engage prospects and close deals. AI-powered sales enablement tools leverage AI and ML to enhance the efficiency of sales processes by providing automation capabilities, personalized recommendations, and more. Below are three AI tools for sales enablement listed alphabetically.

Highspot

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Highspot is a sales enablement platform that empowers salespeople to win more deals quickly. It provides the right content to sales reps when they need it most to engage and convert buyers seamlessly, offers AI-driven sales plays and playbooks for better selling preparation, houses onboarding and ongoing training programs for sales teams, and provides sales coaching for improvement. 

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Highspot also offers a generative AI digital assistant called Highspot Copilot. This assistant quickly provides AI-generated answers based on the collection of assets available, streamlines email creation, and automatically generates meeting summaries and notes. Highspot integrates with 100+ tools, including Salesforce, Microsoft, Google, Slack, and more. Ultimately, Highspot is a robust enablement sidekick for sales professionals. 

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Users boast many helpful features and capabilities, but G2 reviewer Marc L. highlighted its training and onboarding as a key feature, “The Training & Coaching portion of the platform has enabled us to reduce our seller ramp time dramatically. Implementing a streamlined onboarding program gets sellers up to speed on selling strategies, playbooks, and complex sales motions.” 

Pricing

Complete Highspot’s form to receive pricing details and discuss which capabilities may be most beneficial for your business. 

Mindtickle

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Mindtickle is a revenue productivity platform that includes sales onboarding, content management, coaching, deal rooms, conversation intelligence, and forecasting to transform selling and equip sales reps with the information they need to close deals. Mindtickle’s Copilot is a generative AI productivity assistant that quickly analyzes calls and reports to provide answers, creates assessments based on learning content to test knowledge and drafts emails. 

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Mindtickle integrates with Google, Salesforce, Okta, Dropbox, Slack, and others. It also offers a REST API point for custom connectivity. 

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In one G2 review, an unnamed reviewer wrote, “The interface is snappy, and it looks like admins have a lot of content options. I regularly see videos, quizzes, interactive text, etc. It is a platform that can unify all the content different departments want to publish. This is the best learning platform I have used after working on three multinational corporations. There are also gamification options.”

Seismic

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Seismic is an enablement platform that enables reps with skills and content to close deals, engages teams with training and content, and optimizes selling strategies with data-driven insights around what’s working. It combines strategic planning, content, and training opportunities in one platform for a unified growth experience.

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In Fall 2023, Seismic’s AI roadmap included key features that will transform sales enablement, including targeted content, AI-powered content creation, automation for manual tasks, and personalized guidance on “next best actions.” In February 2024, Seismic shared that its generative AI-powered assistant, Aura Copilot, expanded its capabilities across the areas outlined in the AI roadmap. AI capabilities continue to grow!

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G2 reviewer Katie P. summarized Seismic’s capabilities well: “We have resources in a million disparate systems, but Seismic gives internal and external stakeholders access to all of these resources in one space.”

Pricing

Get a demo for pricing information. 

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AI tools for sales automation

Last but certainly not least, sales professionals can lose valuable time for manual, repetitive tasks. Below are three AI tools for sales automation listed alphabetically.

Clockwise

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Clockwise is a GPT-powered AI calendar that can help sales teams boost their productivity by finding time for meetings, prospecting, and breaks between calls for preparation. Clockwise helps sales and customer teams seamlessly share availability with prospects with Scheduling Links, preserves time for lunch and breaks, and makes it easy to coordinate across multiple schedules for demos, hot prospect calls requiring additional team members, and more. 

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Flexible meetings enable teams to rearrange internal teams and automatically open up more Focus Time. Sales professionals can use Clockwise AI Scheduler to manage bulk scheduling requests easily and eliminate the hassle of manually coordinating and scheduling meetings. 

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Don’t take our word for it—read more about how Segment’s sales team uses Clockwise to create more time for pipeline generation. 

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Pricing

Sign up for Clockwise for free today. Paid pricing plans start at $6.75 per user/month, billed annually. 

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Copy.ai 

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Copy.ai offers pre-built workflow templates for lead enrichment, lead scoring, meeting insights, opportunity analysis, and more. Copy.ai’s AI Sales OS captures details from calls, automatically updates deals after sales calls in your CRM, and enriches and qualifies leads. The nice thing about Copy.ai is that it can automate many parts of sales teams’ workflows with 2000+ integrations with other tools. 

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Another cool feature is free AI-powered writing generators for ad hoc tasks. 

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Copy.ai also offers an AI Marketing OS, and most reviews on G2 and Capterra appear to be about the marketing features, so we’ve opted not to include a review here for relevance reasons. 

Pricing

Copy.ai offers a free plan, and plans start at $36/month annually for five seats after that. Explore the latest prices here.

HubSpot AI: Sales Hub

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HubSpot users, listen up! HubSpot’s AI tools enable sales teams to automate tasks and tedious daily work. Sales reps can use email authoring, predictive sales forecasts, and automatic workflow descriptions in the Sales Hub. Read more about HubSpot AI and Sales Hub, announced at INBOUND 2023. 

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G2 reviewer Grace H. wrote, “Sales hubs guides, Q&A section, and AI are so helpful when I am looking for a solution with little time to spare. The answers are always innovative and help our sales team to find new ways to increase productivity.”

Going forward

From locating accurate contact data for prospects to leveraging advanced sales analytics insights and automating manual tasks like scheduling meetings, AI can help sales professionals with nearly every aspect of their workday. If you don’t know where to begin, sign up for Clockwise for free and let AI help you manage your calendar. 

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