If your perception of AI sales tools is based on experiences from even a year ago, you're operating with outdated information—and it might be costing you deals.
The pace of improvement in AI sales tech has been remarkable. What initially looked like marketing hype is now a serious competitive advantage for sales teams that get it right.
"We started playing with AI features for the first time about nine months ago, and it just wasn't that exciting," says Tito Carriero, cofounder at Koala. "Fast forward to a month or two ago, and it's been pretty mind-blowing how far the models have come."
While most sales teams are still focused on simple use cases like call transcriptions, the highest-performing teams are already using AI to reimagine their sales strategies from the ground up.
The latest generation of AI sales platforms can analyze buying intent, automate prospect research, predict which deals will close, coach reps on what to say during meetings, and even call inbound leads on your behalf. For teams facing intense competition and increasing pressure to deliver results, AI has become less of a "nice-to-have" and more of a competitive necessity.
Choose your AI tool stack poorly, though, and there are consequences:
- Wasted investment on technologies that don't deliver ROI
- Decreased sales performance if reps waste time fighting with poorly implemented AI
- Damage to customer relationships if AI produces "uncanny valley" interactions that feel robotic
To cut through the noise and help you identify AI sales software that will actually drive results, we've identified seven critical categories of AI sales technology, each with examples of tools that are delivering real results for revenue teams today.
1. AI prospecting and research platforms
With AI prospecting and research automation, you can quickly enrich prospect data with company insights, job changes, tech stacks, and buying signals.
Managers can put AI-enriched customer data in the hands of sales representatives who otherwise might not have done the research. And detail-focused sales reps can get more research done in less time, so they can make more calls.
AI addresses a couple of issues with time-consuming manual prospecting methods.
First, sales KPIs often prioritize volume of outbound activities over in-depth prospect research. While quality research ultimately improves lead-to-opportunity conversion rates, this connection isn't always obvious to less experienced reps.
As one BDR manager explains on Reddit:
“Most BDRs don’t understand this. They come in, bang out 60 calls over five hours to a wide breadth of questionable targets. They sit back and think to themselves, ’Well I’ve done it, I’ve hit my target.’ And then when they fail they think, ‘This product sucks. There’s just not enough demand.’ It’s a constant battle to change this mentality on my team. And within my team of eight only about 2-3 of the BDRs understand this concept.”
Second, even well-intentioned sales reps who attempt in-depth research on high-value leads can get sucked into rabbit holes that kill their productivity—like listening to an entire podcast to understand their prospect’s pain points when an LLM can do the same thing in seconds.
Clay: For comprehensive GTM data enrichment and workflows
Clay works as an all-in-one GTM data platform that brings together 100+ data sources and AI research agents. With Clay’s waterfall enrichment, you can search dozens of data providers (like Hunter, Findymail, or LeadMagic) to find phone numbers and emails for your contacts until you get a valid match.
You can then use Clay’s AI research agents to clean up contact information and further enrich your list. Want to find a company’s 10-K, figure out if your contact appeared on a podcast, or summarize pricing plans? “Claygent” (as Clay calls its AI agent) can do all of that.
You can also build Clay’s enrichment process directly into your lead generation workflows: for example, you can collect signups via HubSpot web forms, enrich those contacts with Clay, and upload the newly-enriched contacts to Salesforce.
LeadIQ: For streamlining your prospecting workflow
LeadIQ’s Prospecting Hub lets you extract and enrich contact data from LinkedIn using a one-click Chrome extension and send it directly to the LeadIQ dashboard for management.
From there, you can send hyper-personalized sales emails and LinkedIn messages to each prospect using LeadIQ’s Scribe tool; there’s also a sales trigger functionality that nudges you to reach out when significant changes happen, like job transitions or important company news.
Other AI prospecting and research platforms include:
2. AI SDRs and sales outreach tools
AI SDRs are here, and they even have names: for example, 11x.ai offers Alice (an SDR) and Julian (an inbound sales rep).
But they’re not a magic bullet—at least not yet.
The current generation of AI SDR tools can perform many tasks in a narrow context, like generating human-like outreach messages and sequencing follow-ups. But as Tito Carriero of Koala points out, they can sometimes struggle to deliver value in a way that makes potential customers really want to engage.
“I think we're seeing a pulling back on AI SDRs just because they're not quite hitting the mark on… really thoughtful, genuinely helpful context. At the end of the day, if you're not offering value in that outbound message, you're not gonna book a meeting. And I think a lot of the AI SDRs have kind of fallen short of that promise.”
11x.ai offers a useful case study of the challenges faced by sales organizations that attempt to roll out AI SDRs. Reporting by TechCrunch in March 2025 found that AI hallucinations and poor performance have led many brands—like ZoomInfo and Airtable—to cancel their 11x.ai pilot programs. One former 11x.ai engineer told TechCrunch that customers often had to manually review and edit the work of the AI SDRs.
AI sales assistants can work well in large TAMs and lower ACVs (as Tito says, places where “it’s actually okay to make a mistake”). But with bigger deals, the consequences are greater: no one wants to watch a $75k deal slip through their fingers because of awkward AI execution.
For many sales orgs, AI SDRs can play a valuable role for top-of-funnel outreach, cold targets, and lower-tier prospects. If prospects are high-potential or if signs of genuine interest increase, sales activities should start shifting toward rep-driven.
11x.ai: The (controversial) tool for scaling outreach with AI-powered SDRs
Hasan Sukkar, founder and CEO of 11x.ai, says that while AI SDRs could enable a high-volume spray and pray approach, that’s not what he thinks is most effective now or moving forward:
“The age of high volume, templated outreach is much less effective than it ever was.”
Alice, 11x.ai’s flagship AI SDR, can track every lead in your market, handle lead scoring, research high-intent buyers, send cold emails, and manage multi-touch email campaigns independently. Julian, an AI phone agent, boosts conversion rates by calling inbound prospects less than 20 seconds after they submit a form.
Still, results can vary tremendously. Connecteam, an employee management app, used 11x.ai’s Julian agent to schedule 20 meetings per week and reduce no-shows by 73%. But ZoomInfo, which ran a one-month trial of 11x.ai, found that the product performed “significantly worse” than its human SDR employees.
11x.ai credits its own early growth to Alice’s outreach—she books dozens of meetings per week using messages like the below.
But it’s safe to say the jury’s still out on the effectiveness of AI SDRs.
Other AI sales outreach platforms:
3. AI conversational intelligence & coaching
Even the simplest AI conversational intelligence tools, like straightforward note-taking apps that transcribe calls and link with your CRM, can dramatically reduce sales reps’ admin work. According to Avoma, automated notes and call summaries save reps 4+ hours per week.
More sophisticated tools, like Gong and Chorus, let you:
- Extract patterns across hundreds of calls to identify which phrases correlate with closed deals
- Generate personalized follow-ups using exact customer language from the conversation
- Use sentiment analysis and benchmarking to highlight coaching opportunities
SecondNature, an AI sales training tool, lets reps role-play any conversation or situation, from cold calling to objection handling—opening up new possibilities for coaching and onboarding.
Chorus and Gong: For deeper insights and sales coaching
Chorus and Gong both offer real-time data analysis that lets you quickly find the moments that matter across each call, like next steps and mentions of competitors. Sales leaders can view aggregate conversational data and trends across their entire sales org, like talk-to-listen ratios and filler words.
Both tools also use machine learning to identify winning behaviors from top-performing reps—allowing sales managers to improve training—and surface calls for coaching review.
Gong’s AI coaching suite—including Scorecard Suggestions and Methodology Playbooks—keeps reps on track by ensuring they stick to your sales playbook, and offering personalized recommendations for better performance (e.g., “Talk less about pricing and more about benefits”).
Avoma: For a straightforward AI meeting assistant
If you don’t need all the bells and whistles offered by Chorus and Gong, Avoma is a more straightforward AI meeting assistant that lets you automate note-taking, email follow-ups, and sales data entry.
Features include Smart Chapters, which bookmarks important discussion points in each call; AI-generated email drafts; and an AI copilot that lets you ask questions about what happened in any meeting.
Other AI conversation intelligence platforms:
4. AI-enhanced digital sales rooms
Digital sales rooms turn scattered emails and files into a centralized hub where buyers and sellers collaborate throughout the deal cycle.
But even with a digital sales room centralizing all the details of your deal, let's be honest: sometimes, it's tough to follow up immediately after a call. AI makes this easier. You can instantly turn your meeting recordings into polished documents customized for each prospect—right from within your workspace.
With AI-enhanced sales rooms, you can speed up your workflow and keep deals moving forward by quickly converting call recordings into summaries, business cases, and step-by-step action plans, freeing you up to focus less on documentation and more on closing deals.
Dock: Smarter deal rooms for modern sales
Dock AI helps sales and presales teams turn client conversations into personalized content with just a few clicks.
With Dock's AI features, you can:
- Generate business cases, meeting recaps, and customer success plans from call transcripts
- Create executive summaries, proof of concept plans, and project checklists automatically
- Pull content directly from Gong call recordings or other document sources
- Customize AI-generated content with specific instructions and context
5. AI for forecasting and buyer intent
Gone are the days of relying on stale CRM data (or even worse, your reps’ “gut feeling”).
AI forecasting tools bring unprecedented accuracy to sales predictions. By analyzing historical deal patterns alongside current pipeline data, these platforms help sales leaders make data-driven decisions and predict revenue with confidence.
AI-powered sales forecasting tools examine conversion rates, deal velocity, and engagement metrics to flag risks early.
You'll know which deals are on track and which need intervention, with alerts like: "This enterprise opportunity has been in technical validation 2x longer than your average deal," or "Warning: No champion engagement in the last 3 weeks."
Buyer intent tools work differently by focusing on external signals. These platforms track customer behavior across the web, your website, and content interactions to identify who's actively in-market.
When a target account suddenly increases research on your product category, compares your pricing, or engages with multiple resources, intent tools alert your team to these buying signals. This lets reps prioritize high-quality outreach to the most receptive prospects, reaching out at exactly the right moment with relevant messaging.
A growing number of AI platforms now combine both capabilities—merging internal predictive analytics with external intent signals—to create a complete picture of opportunity and risk across your sales pipeline.
Clari: For holistic pipeline and deal risk analysis
Clari provides a unified view of pipeline health across your entire sales org. It tracks sales engagement across email, calendar, CRM, and calls, and flags deals that are off track based on your historical benchmarks.
Clari’s AI forecasting engine combines deal insights with historical numbers to give you data-driven insights you can count on, and if deal momentum stalls and critical dates are missed, Clari will alert you so you know where to focus.
6sense: For external buying intent and in-market account insights
6sense monitors anonymous buyer activity across the web, aggregating data like keyword searches, competitor comparisons, and industry research (what it calls the “Dark Funnel”). In addition to 6sense’s own intent data capabilities, it also pulls in buyer intent data from platforms like G2, Bombora, and TrustRadius.
6sense’s artificial intelligence uses this data to predict which accounts are most likely to engage (and when), helping you prioritize high-fit accounts and reach out at the perfect time.
Koala: For real-time engagement signals on your site
Koala helps teams detect high-intent website visitors and activity on your site, like revisits to pricing pages, repeat views of deal rooms, or return visits from senior stakeholders. You can set alerts (via Slack or CRM) when key buyers show signals of interest, or when engagement drops off completely, so reps know when to take action before a deal goes cold.
With Koala, you can set up AI agent “swarms”—groups of individual AI agents that go out to gather data from different sources (like prospects’ social media accounts) and report back.
As Tito Carriero of Koala explains, agent swarms can be a much more effective way of deputizing AI to gather data:
“I think the architecture that people are realizing makes a lot more sense is you want much smaller components. So you want a little research agent that can do this one task of maybe summarizing this user's session, and then you might have another research agent that does this task of looking up all of their past LinkedIn posts and coming back with a list. And then you might have another agent that does the same at the account level looking for how many open jobs there are.”
Other AI forecasting and buyer intent tools:
6. AI-powered sales enablement
Ask any sales enablement leader about their top frustrations, and content management will inevitably make the list.
The traditional approach is inefficient: marketing teams create materials and upload them to a repository, and reps spend valuable time digging through folders hoping to find what they need (and often discover outdated materials).
Modern AI-powered sales enablement tools help reps by:
- Generating customized materials on demand based on specific deal contexts
- Surfacing the right content at the right moment in the sales cycle
- Providing real-time guidance on which assets perform best for specific industries or buyer personas
- Delivering insights that show exactly which content drives deals forward
Tools with these capabilities eliminate the content scavenger hunt for reps. And for enablement leaders, understanding the impact of each piece of content means you can focus on the content that moves deals forward, while refreshing (or retiring) the rest.
Highspot and Seismic: For content recommendations and advanced metrics
Seismic’s LiveDocs feature allows sales reps to personalize pre-approved content templates while maintaining brand compliance. Seismic also offers AI-driven customer engagement analytics to help sales professionals understand which materials resonate most with specific buyer groups.
Similarly, Highspot's AI analyzes your CRM data, alongside content performance metrics, to understand which content leads to the most revenue. From there, you’ll get recommendations on optimal assets for each selling situation. Highspot also gives you access to built-in coaching tools that help reps understand how to effectively position each piece of content.
Dock: For asset management and AI-powered personalization
Dock AI transforms sales conversations and meeting transcripts into personalized content that can be immediately shared with prospects in collaborative workspaces.
With just a few clicks, your team can:
- Generate business cases from discovery call transcripts
- Create executive summaries that highlight key value propositions
- Develop custom POC plans based on technical requirements
- Build mutual action plans that keep deals moving forward
Dock’s content management library, which you can organize with tags and boards, makes it easy to find and share assets. And with Dock’s asset analytics, you can get stats on internal popularity, client engagement, views, shares, downloads, and more.
Other AI sales enablement tools:
7. AI expansion and renewal opportunity tools
AI expansion and renewal tools lead to stickier accounts, higher budgets, and improved customer experiences.
One reason for this is that reps can spend less time on manual account assessment, and instead, let AI guide them toward the accounts that need attention or offer opportunity. Teams that use AI for their renewal forecasts often see an impressive degree of accuracy—up to 95%, in the case of one of Gainsight’s customers.
By using AI to drive your expansion and renewal efforts, you can:
- Predict renewal likelihood months in advance
- Generate personalized expansion recommendations based on usage patterns
- Use sentiment analysis to identify frustrated customers before they churn
- Automatically prioritize accounts based on growth potential and risk level
In the past, these sort of insights were limited to big firms with the resources to crunch the numbers, which meant small businesses and startups were often flying blind.
As Pete Kazanjy of Atrium puts it, "Most sales managers and leaders don't come from the math department”—they’d rather be making calls than fiddling with spreadsheets and databases.
Now, with the latest AI sales tools, even the most complex sales metrics are being democratized.
Gainsight: For predicting customer retention
Gainsight’s Staircase AI tool analyzes all customer communication to gauge sentiment and identify at-risk customers. Designed to catch early warning signs and subtle post-sales churn risks, Gainsight’s approach helps save more at-risk accounts by being proactive instead of reactive.
For example, Gainsight can highlight expansion opportunities that would have otherwise been buried in customer support tickets, and send instant alerts for high-risk sentiment shifts.
Other AI expansion and renewal platforms:
Unleash your AI-powered sales process with Dock
AI is transforming every aspect of the sales landscape: how deals get done, how relationships are nurtured, and even how sales organizations themselves are structured.
"I think in the future, spend is going to shift from headcount to more technology," says Alex Kracov, CEO of Dock. "You're gonna have much smaller teams leveraging these tools to be able to do more because each person's gonna just be able to get a lot more tasks done."
The best AI sales tools act as a force multiplier for your sales org:
- Your best reps become even more productive
- Your average performers start to adopt the habits of top salespeople
- Your entire team spends less time on low-value activities
- Your customers enjoy a more personalized experience
The key is finding the right balance: using AI to handle repetitive tasks while freeing your team to focus on the high-value, human aspects of selling that truly move deals forward.
Dock helps revenue teams streamline their sales process with AI-powered workspaces that bring together the right content, context, and collaboration tools to move deals forward faster. From initial outreach through closing and expansion, Dock's platform helps you create exceptional buying experiences that differentiate your company.
Ready to harness the power of AI for your sales team?
Get started with Dock today and transform how you engage with prospects and customers.
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