A smart sales strategy is critical to your bottom line, but it can be hard to establish and maintain an effective sales pipeline. Fortunately, there are plenty of artificial intelligence (AI) tools you can use to find your sales sweet spot.
What are AI sales tools?
AI sales tools are AI-driven features you can use to save time on routine sales tasks or maximize your sales outreach. AI sales tools include customer relationship management (CRM) software and sales engagement platforms with built-in AI functionality, as well as AI-first CRMs and sales engagement platforms.
How to use AI tools in sales
Whether you’re struggling with sales or just curious about how to maximize your revenue opportunities, AI sales software can help. Not only can AI sales tools streamline your sales workflow and help you connect with more leads in less time, but AI-powered tools can also help you improve your communication and refine your selling approach.
Many B2B sales engagement platforms have built-in AI functionality for things like automation and data insights, while other sales solutions use predictive analytics to anticipate trends and give outreach suggestions.
Here are some common ways to use AI in sales:
To organize customer data
To scrape and auto-capture lead data
To generate a prospect list and identify the most promising options
To automate outreach sequencing
to create cold email templates
To draft, personalize, and refine outreach emails
To figure out when to send emails for optimal engagement
To automate follow-up messages
To score leads and identify priority contacts
To generate call scripts
To transcribe and summarize sales calls
To track outreach and call performances
To forecast sales
Explore eight other practical business applications for AI.
7 of the best AI tools for sales
Here are seven excellent options to choose from:
Tool | Type | AI Features | Cost |
Dialpad Sell | Customer intelligence platform | Automated AI sales playbooks, AI meeting recaps, custom sales recommendations, AI agents | $39 a month per user |
InsideSales | AI-driven sales engagement platform | Automated data entry and lead scoring, lead communication suggestions, real-time sales performance insights, and buyer intelligence insights | Pricing upon contact |
Zia (Zoho CRM) | AI-powered conversational sales assistant | Automated lead entry and scoring, tailored nurture sequences, sales forecasts, real-time insights, and suggestions for following up with leads | $40 a month per user |
Avoma | AI meeting assistant and conversation intelligence solution | Automated sales conversation transcripts, recaps, and analytics; integrations with CRM solutions | $29 a month per user |
Lavender | Email intelligence solution with | Email analytics and automated reply suggestions, data-backed email insights | $45 a month |
Regie.ai | AI-powered sales engagement platform | Automated prospecting, lead scoring, and follow-ups, personalized nurture sequences | $35k for AI Agent |
Reply | AI-powered sales engagement platform | Automated prospect list, nurture sequences for leads, automated email analysis, and outreach insights | $89 a month per user |
1. Dialpad AI Sales Center
Dialpad is a leading customer intelligence platform that uses AI functionality to drive sales and improve customer loyalty. Dialpad Sell has a range of AI features designed to help you close deals quickly. Think: automated AI playbooks to train new salespeople, AI sales call summaries, instant answers for reps with AI Agent Assist, and customizable recommendations.
Dialpad’s sales center also uses AI to analyze customer sentiment and satisfaction on sales calls and identify sales coaching opportunities.
Cost: The Dialpad Sell plan starts at $39 a month per user.
Dialpad is a good option if you want a platform that combines sales intelligence with customer support.
2. InsideSales
InsideSales is an AI-driven sales engagement platform that frees you up to do more meaningful sales work. InsideSales’s Playbooks platform uses AI automation tools to automate data entry and lead scoring, prioritize leads, and determine the best time and method to reach out based on a prospect’s past interactions with your company.
The platform also shares real-time insights on your sales performance, as well as buyer intelligence insights based on buyer behaviors and historical customer interactions.
Cost: Contact InsideSales for pricing.
InsideSales is a good option if you want a comprehensive sales engagement platform that integrates with Salesforce and Microsoft.
3. Zia
Developed by Zoho CRM, Zia is an AI-powered conversational sales assistant that can help with a wide range of sales-related tasks and initiatives. In addition to answering questions and providing you with resources, data, and charts in just a click, Zia can also predict the win probability of all your ongoing deals.
You can use Zia to automate manual lead entry, score leads, build tailored nurture sequences, draft messages, forecast sales, streamline the sales workflow, and get real-time, data-driven insights and actionable suggestions for following up with leads.
Cost: The Enterprise plan is $40 a month per user.
Zia is a good option if you want AI-powered sales insights and support that integrate with your customer relationship management tools.
4. Avoma
Avoma is an AI meeting assistant and conversation intelligence solution that supports sales meetings. Avoma automatically records, transcribes, and analyzes sales conversations, so you can figure out what’s working and what you can improve upon.
The platform’s AI reviews call transcripts to identify different topics and speakers, share insights on talk time and recurring mentions, and generate recaps of the calls. Plus, Avoma integrates with a ton of different tools, including calendar, conferencing, and CRM solutions.
Cost: The Organization plan is $29 a month per user.
Avoma is a good option if you conduct a lot of sales calls with prospective customers or clients, and want more insights into how they’re working.
5. Lavender
Lavender is an email intelligence solution with a built-in AI-powered email coach. Lavender integrates with your email platforms and gives you insights into your sales emails, identifying patterns and explaining what’s effective and what’s not—so you can double your replies.
Lavender’s email coach grades your messages for clarity and relevance, then uses generative AI to suggest different phrasing or structuring. You’ll also get contact information directly in your inbox so you can personalize your sales emails, along with data-backed email insights.
Cost: The Individual Pro plan is $49 a month.
Lavender is a good option if you’re not getting enough responses to your sales emails and want practical tips and insights.
6. Regie.ai
Regie.ai is an AI-powered sales tool that uses generative AI to simplify the prospecting process. Regie’s AI Agent-Based Prospecting solution analyzes your CRM and sales data, identifies promising prospects, creates tailored messages for them, and suggests when to contact them for the best chance at engagement.
You can use Regie.ai to identify cold lead prospects, automatically schedule lead follow-ups, draft LinkedIn messages for target buyers, and create personalized email sequences.
Cost: The AI Agent starts at 35k per use case.
Regie.ai is a good option if: You want one all-inclusive solution for managing all your sales outreach and prospecting, and have the budget to customize it.
7. Reply
Reply is an AI-powered sales engagement platform that automates and uplevels every aspect of the sales cycle. With Reply, you get a massive database to help you build your perfect prospect list, along with AI-backed multichannel sequences to engage your leads.
You can also take advantage of Reply’s automated email analysis and outreach insights, tap into the AI assistant for drafting emails, and use the scheduler tool to book meetings faster.
Cost: The Multichannel plan is $89 a month per user.
Reply is a good option if you want practical help with inbound and outbound sales.
How to decide which AI tool is right for you.
Challenges of AI sales software
Here are some challenges to be aware of when you’re using AI sales tools:
Off-putting emails: AI email coaches and conversation assistants can help you cut out the fluff in your messages and incorporate key selling points, but they’re no replacement for your unique voice. If you rely solely on generative AI to draft and send your outreach emails, you risk coming across as robotic or fake. That’s why it’s better to use AI email coaches to help structure your emails and double-check your work, not copy and paste from scratch.
Irrelevant prospecting: AI sales software can help you find and contact 10 times the prospects you could on your own—but that doesn’t mean they’ll always be the right prospects. You’ll have to play around with the particular settings and filters on your software of choice to make sure you’re compiling a list of relevant, viable customers.
Few integrations: Some AI sales solutions don’t offer integrations with all your existing tools, which means you won’t have all your data and resources in one place. If integrations are important to you, prioritize a sales software that includes the ones you need.
Ready for more resources? Check out these 13 AI marketing tools and these seven solutions for customer success.
FAQs
How do I choose the right AI sales tool for my team?
Choosing the right AI sales tool for your sales team starts with identifying what you want out of AI sales support. What are the gaps in your sales processes right now? The bottlenecks you frequently encounter, along with your sales data, can be a good indicator of what you need help with—and when is the right time to get started. Once you identify your goals—whether it’s building out a more relevant prospect list or creating more engaging nurture sequences—you can research AI tools that will help you reach them more easily. Make sure you consider the tool’s capabilities, integrations, and your business’s sales budget, too.
What parts of the sales workflow can be streamlined with AI?
AI can streamline every aspect of the sales workflow, including: capturing and organizing contact data, scoring leads, automating outreach sequencing, drafting and personalizing outreach emails, automating follow-up messages, strategizing for customer engagement, generating call scripts, analyzing sales calls, analyzing sales metrics, and forecasting sales.
Can small businesses benefit from AI in sales?
Yes, small businesses can absolutely benefit from incorporating AI tools into their sales processes. Sales professionals at small businesses can save time on tedious tasks, maintain touchpoints with customers more easily, and get data-backed, actionable insights that can help them make more informed decisions about how to communicate with prospects and finalize closings.
Which AI sales tools integrate best with CRM software?
Most AI sales automation tools can integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) software, including platforms like Avoma, Regie.ai, and InsideSales. However, these days most CRM platforms, including Salesforce and HubSpot, have built-in AI sales assistants and AI features to optimize the sales process. When you’re considering your options, start by looking at the CRM software you already use to see if it has the AI sales features you need.
How do AI sales tools improve lead generation and conversion?
AI sales tools improve lead generation and conversion by saving you time on repetitive tasks, personalizing your sales outreach emails, and—most important of all—scoring your leads based on persona and behavioral data so your sales reps have a clear idea of which leads are the most likely to convert.
How much do AI sales tools cost?
Most AI sales tools charge between $15 and $100 per user per month. If you have dozens of salespeople on your team, investing in an AI tool could be a hefty monthly expense—but it also has the potential to drive more revenue growth per salesperson.
