The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Takes Shape State of Sales 17 03 Given how many sales teams are leaning into AI Use Cases Go Beyond the Expected data-driven forecasting, it’s of little surprise that intelligent forecasting is the AI use case with the High-performing sales teams are far more bullish than their underperforming competition biggest expected impact — but only by a slim on the impact of AI across various use cases. margin. Sales professionals expect that opportunity insights will have nearly as great an influence. A Percentage of Salespeople Who Believe AI Will Transform or High Performers vs. majority of salespeople also see a big role for AI in Substantially Impact the Following Within Five Years Underperformers helping prioritize leads, surfacing account insights, Intelligent forecasting (i.e., data science and automating data entry via activity capture. insights on commit, open pipe, and 70% 2.0x likelihood to deliver on target) 57% more likely Nearly half of salespeople think AI will play a role in 35% guided selling-related capabilities like opportunity Opportunity insights (e.g., customer 66% sentiment, competitor involvement, and 55% 1.7x rankings and suggested next steps. overall prospect engagement) 39% more likely 62% of high-PERFORMING Lead prioritization 66% (i.e., automatically prioritize leads most 53% 2.0x SALESPEOPLE foresee a big role likely to convert based on history) 32% more likely for guided selling that ranks Account insights 65% potential opportunity value (i.e., surfacing of business developments 52% 1.9x and suggests next steps. relevant to accounts) 34% more likely Activity capture (i.e., connecting data 65% Across the board, top teams are nearly twice from sources like email, calendar, and 49% 1.9x as likely as underperformers to anticipate an CRM to automatically update records) 34% more likely important role for AI in their work over the Guided selling 62% coming years. (i.e., opportunity ranking by potential 47% 1.9x value and sales activity effectiveness) 32% more likely High performers Moderate performers Underperformers Base: All respondents Salesforce Research