AI in Sales—Examples & Creative Uses

Up until a few years ago, using AI gave sales teams a unique advantage and the possibility to work smarter. Today, AI is a necessity for all teams that want to stay competitive, win over more customers, and automate different parts of sales campaigns.

Our team recognized AI’s potential a while back, and we’ve used the technology to achieve excellent results. For example, we’ve automated a four-step campaign for our outbound sales sequences, getting a 5.1% positive response rate. Now, we want to share our knowledge with other teams seeking change.

In this guide, we’ll dig into concrete AI in sales examples to discuss how you can use the technology in your work. We’ll discuss the following uses:

1. Task automation
2. Data scraping and enrichment
3. Data analysis
4. Writing emails
5. Sales forecasting
6. Training and learning

Example #1: Task Automation

According to a Salesforce report from 2022, sales reps spend only about 28% of their week selling—the rest of their working hours are mainly consumed by administrative tasks, which are often repetitive.

AI can significantly change these percentages by taking over routine tasks that come with the job and allowing sales pros to focus on what they do best, like negotiating and closing deals. Here are a few examples of how to use AI for task automation:

Data Entry

Thanks to optical character recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP), and speech-to-text functionalities, AI can analyze images, documents, emails, and phone calls to extract and verify relevant information and ensure consistency. If there are issues, AI tools will ping SDRs and ask for additional verification. 🤝

After validation, you can connect AI tools to your CRM systems or other platforms in your tech stack to facilitate automated data entry and ensure your records are always updated.

Calendar Management

AI can help SDRs optimize their calendars by scheduling meetings, entering tasks, sending important reminders, and prioritizing specific items depending on availability. Some AI tools can pick up on users’ work habits to suggest the best way to organize their calendars. 📅

AI calendar management tools can efficiently navigate time zones and sync a team’s calendars to prevent overlaps and scheduling issues.

Interacting With Leads and Customers

AI chatbots can automate communication with potential and existing customers by: 

1. Answering frequent questions
2. Clarifying uncertainties
3. Collecting feedback and insights

You can train chatbots with sales scripts to ensure they offer accurate and relevant responses. They can also be trained to recognize signals that indicate a person should be transferred to an SDR.

Example #2: Data Scraping and Enrichment

Conducting research and collecting data takes up a significant part of a sales pro’s workday. SDRs need to:

1. Keep an eye on the market and competitors
2. Gather info on their leads
3. Continuously learn more about existing customers to offer them a personalized experience 🤓

Traditionally, SDRs relied on manual research to gather valuable intel. Today, AI can do this in a fraction of the time it would take to do it manually, allowing SDRs to focus on other sales-related activities that require their attention.

Here are two examples of how to use AI for data scraping and enrichment:

Generating Leads

AI techniques such as NLP and machine learning (ML) allow SDRs to effortlessly pull lead information from various sources, such as:

• Company websites
• Data providers
• Social media

You can scrape entire pages or specific info you’re interested in and save it within your tool to build a comprehensive database and easily score and qualify leads. 🥇

The same technologies support lead enrichment to help you obtain extra info on your existing leads or find missing details.

Researching the Market

AI data scrapers and enrichment tools can automate market research by gathering data on your competitors, such as:

• Offers
• Pricing
• Revenue
• Marketing strategies

Having this information readily available helps you adjust your sales campaigns and ensure you don’t fall behind.

AI tools can also go through case studies and business websites and summarize relevant info to ensure you’re in the loop about the latest trends and potential market gaps to capitalize on. 🔍

Example #3: Data Analysis

Analyzing data on customers, business performance, internal operations, and sales activities helps SDRs make informed decisions. They can also leverage the data to improve strategies and enhance conversions and customer satisfaction.

Old-fashioned data analysis methods that involve gathering data from multiple disconnected sources like Excel spreadsheets and CRM tools are no longer an option for companies that want to stay competitive. You can get more precise results and unlock robust data analysis capabilities if you add AI to your processes.

Here are a few examples of how to use AI for data analysis:

Analyzing Customer Sentiment

By leveraging conversational intelligence and NLP, you can analyze speech- and text-based communication with customers and detect relevant topics. This helps you assess customer sentiment and adjust your approach accordingly. 🎯

For example, AI can identify keywords indicating a customer’s frustration and help you diffuse the tension by suggesting how to approach them.

Reducing Customer Churn

Thanks to its ability to process vast amounts of data, AI can look back into the past and analyze the characteristics and behaviors of customers who stopped using your products or services after a specific time. Then, it can analyze your current customers to identify similarities and flag high-risk accounts to pay attention to and minimize churn. ⬇️

Optimizing Pricing Suggestions

AI can analyze your customer’s past purchases, promo code usage, location, and preferences to offer optimal pricing suggestions that will help you improve retention and maximize profits.

The same strategy can also be valuable in identifying upselling and cross-selling opportunities. ✅

Example #4: Writing Emails

Communicating with potential and existing customers is a major part of an SDR’s job. If your emails are context-appropriate and personalized, you’ll close more deals and improve customer satisfaction. The problem is that email writing gets much more complicated and time-consuming when you have a lot of potential and existing customers.

With the help of AI, you can efficiently declutter your inbox and reach out to leads with unique and resonating messages. Here are a few examples of using AI to handle email communication:

Cold Outreach

AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT can help you reach out to people and businesses you haven’t interacted with before. With the right prompts, ChatGPT can write unique emails and create cold outreach templates you can save and reuse with minimal adjustments. 📧

💡 Bonus read: Learn more about leveraging ChatGPT for sales by reading our articles focusing on prompts for emails and lead-scoring techniques.

Following Up

AI can help you re-engage leads or provide additional value to them after you’ve already interacted. Chatbots can analyze previous interactions with leads and create personalized follow-up emails and call scripts with an appropriate tone. 

Some AI tools can also suggest the best time to follow up to avoid being perceived as pushy or impatient.

Responding to Emails

AI tools can help SDRs manage flooded inboxes by handling email responses. One option to create an email response is to write a prompt that summarizes the gist of the email you want to respond to and input it into a chatbot. Another option is to paste the email into a chatbot like ChatGPT and instruct it to create an adequate response.

The chatbot will conduct a quick analysis and write the response while respecting your instructions regarding tone, length, and approach (if you added them to your prompt). ✍️

Example #5: Sales Forecasting

Accurate sales forecasting is vital for making informed decisions about the future, identifying potential issues, and properly allocating resources. ☑️

Historically, sales forecasting was largely based on intuition and guesswork and involved a lot of manual research, which was time-consuming and tiring. Contemporary sales forecasting involves the use of AI to:

• Identify trends and patterns
• Adjust strategies
• Improve performance

Let’s go over two examples of using AI for sales forecasting:

Predicting the Likelihood of Closing a Deal

Machine learning algorithms can explore the data you have on your current and potential customers, identify patterns, and determine how likely an account is to proceed through the sales funnel and complete a purchase. 🛒

These algorithms can also analyze your leads based on how well they fit into your ideal customer profile (ICP) and score them accordingly to ensure you focus on high-potential accounts.

Forecasting Challenges

AI predictive analytics uses machine learning algorithms and models to learn from historical data and identify past and current market trends. The algorithms can then use this knowledge to predict future trends and outline potential challenges.

This information allows you to prepare for what’s ahead, ensure you have enough team members on board, and manage your budget more efficiently. 💸

Predicting Sales Cycle Length

AI can quickly search your existing records to determine the time it takes your SDRs to turn a lead into a customer and pinpoint any obstacles that slowed down the process.

Based on this information, AI can make accurate predictions on the sales cycle length for each new lead and offer suggestions on making your sales cycles more efficient.

Example #6: Training and Learning

Besides taking on an active role in managing and optimizing different sales processes, AI can help SDRs hone their skills, which ultimately leads to better results and improved performance.

Here are a few examples of how to use AI for training and learning:

Training New Staff Members

AI can help you create detailed training materials for new team members to help them get comfortable in their new roles as soon as possible. The technology can adjust the materials to different learning styles to customize training and improve each team member’s experience.

To boost motivation and engagement, you can instruct AI to infuse the materials with gamification elements and rewards.

Helping Current Staff Members Improve

AI can help your SDRs improve their skills through personalized coaching. By relying on generative AI, SDRs can:

• Understand their strengths and weaknesses
• Refine their selling techniques
• Maximize performance

For example, SDRs can enter their sales records, call transcripts, email communication, and target vs. actual sales in a chatbot and ask it to analyze performance and suggest ways for improvement.

Creating Role-Play Simulations

With AI, you can create different role-play simulations of cold calls, sales pitches, handling objections, or negotiations. Depending on your needs, you can create simulations for everyone or personalize scenarios to align with each team member’s strengths and weaknesses.

By participating in these simulations, your SDRs can prepare for every possible outcome and properly respond to any situation.

How To Choose the Right AI Tool

As the AI industry continues to grow and more tools emerge on the market, choosing one can be overwhelming. To help you make the right decision, we’ll offer tips on picking the best AI-powered platform for your sales workflows:

Analyze Current Processes

Before deciding on an AI platform, you need to evaluate current sales procedures and determine which tasks and activities are high-performing and which ones drain your resources. Besides establishing KPIs and going over relevant documentation, you should also talk to your staff and see how they feel about different parts of their work. 👥

For example, you may realize that your sales training processes don’t require improvements—your team is happy with them, and the results speak for themselves. 

On the other hand, the analysis may show that lead research takes a significant portion of your team’s time. So, you may want to look into a solution that will allow them to automate this part of the sales process with AI.

Consider Your Goals

In addition to improving resource-extensive processes, you may have other reasons for implementing AI in your work. For example, you may want to generate more leads, shorten the sales cycle, or streamline email communication.

Whatever your goals are, note them down and look for a tool with a feature set that aligns with them. 🏁

Pay Attention to the Tool’s Complexity

If an AI tool has a complex interface, needs comprehensive setup and customization, and requires extensive training, you’ll have to wait months to see results. During this period, you’ll likely need to invest significant time and money in teaching your staff how to use the tool. This could ultimately result in your team’s reluctance to use it in the first place.

While a slight learning curve is expected when introducing a new tool to your tech stack, you shouldn’t waste months on training when you can enjoy immediate results. Find a platform with an intuitive interface and plenty of resources to help you learn the ropes as soon as possible. ✅

Think About Your Budget

AI tools come in wide price ranges, and determining your budget will help you narrow down your options. Keep in mind that more expensive isn’t always better—some tools with a hefty price tag might offer features you don’t need, so they won’t offer much value to your team.

To get the best bang for your buck, look for a tool that offers multiple pricing plans so that you can choose one based on your budget and the features you currently need. Ideally, find an option with a free forever plan or a free trial to try it out before committing.

Prioritize Multifunctionality

Constantly switching between apps can cause your SDRs to lose focus. To ensure that doesn’t happen and streamline work, choose an AI tool you can use for multiple purposes. 

For example, instead of subscribing to an AI data scraper and an outreach tool, you can find a platform that can handle both and let you keep all your work under the same roof. 🏡

Consider Available Integrations

The ability to integrate your AI sales tool with CRM systems, databases, social media, and other platforms unlocks a new dimension in your work. By leveraging integrations, you can give your AI tool extra functionalities such as syncing communication history, tracking customer interactions, and generating detailed sales analytics.

If you’re looking for an AI-powered sales tool that can streamline your pipeline and campaign management, we’ve got the solution—Clay. It can help you automate anything from research to outreach. ♥️

Easy Campaign Management With Clay AI

Clay is an advanced sales automation platform with robust AI options that can help you build and manage high-performing campaigns.

One of Clay’s AI-powered options is Claygent, an AI research agent and a unique personal assistant. Based on GPT-4, a large language model created by Open AI, Claygent can understand and extract relevant data from any corner of the internet.

In practice, this means Claygent can:

• Scrape specific company- and people-related information
• Answer questions regarding your leads and competitors
• Enrich existing lead data with extra info
• Summarize information

Another AI feature you’ll love is OpenAI/GPT integration. With it, you can conduct specific actions like generating text or images without leaving Clay.

Once you wrap up your research and populate your Clay table with comprehensive info, use the platform’s AI email writer to create personalized and resonating emails. This valuable feature writes messages based on the data from your Clay table, ensuring each account receives tailored content. 👌

After your emails are ready, send them to a preferred CRM system or email sequencer or save them as a CSV file.

Clay’s Enrichment Options—Easy Access to Dozens of Data Points

Claygent may be powerful, but it’s not the only data enrichment weapon in Clay’s arsenal. The platform offers integrations with over 50 data providers—you can tap into these databases and get the desired info without leaving the platform.

While you can access each database individually, a much better option is to use waterfall enrichment. This feature automates the enrichment process by accessing multiple databases one by one until it finds the info you need.

You choose the data point you want Clay to find (like email addresses or company revenues) and the data providers you want to search, so you remain in charge of the process. 💪

Clay will stop the enrichment whenever it comes across a valid match to prevent money waste.

Find a Plan That Matches Your Needs

Clay offers a free plan that allows you to use its core features without commitment. The plan has no expiration date, so if it works for your team, you won’t be forced to switch to a paid option.

If you’d like access to Clay’s more advanced functionalities, you can choose one of the following paid plans:

Every plan offers multiple credit options—credits are Clay’s currency, which you use to pay for actions and data points. The credit-based system ensures you don’t waste a cent on features you never use. 💸

Regardless of the plan you opt for, you’ll enjoy unlimited users.

Clay users agree—the platform is worth every penny. Here are some of the results a user accomplished with Clay:

Set Up Your Account With Clay

If you’re ready to start using AI for sales efficiency and build successful campaigns, set up your Clay account today. The process won’t take more than a few minutes:

1. Visit the signup page
2. Enter the required info
3. Explore the platform’s options

To discover everything Clay offers, head to Clay University, where you can watch detailed feature walkthrough videos along with explanations in text form. If you’d like to see how other sales pros use Clay in their campaigns, join the Slack community and check out community Claybooks for tips on boosting your campaigns with Clay’s features. 💌

💡 Keep reading: Want to know more about implementing AI in sales? Check out our guides below:

• AI selling
• AI lead nurturing systems
• AI BDR
• ChatGPT for sales and business development
• Gen AI for presales