As sales teams enter 2026 with ambitious new targets, they are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence — especially AI agents — to deliver on their plans. A new study of more than 4,000 sales professionals shows that AI has become their most important tool for driving business growth in the year ahead.
The data also explains why. Sales teams are under growing pressure from both sides: rising customer expectations and shrinking time resources. According to the study, the real brake on productivity is not a lack of skills or motivation, but excessive administrative burden. This problem hits Generation Z salespeople the hardest. In response, they are adopting AI and agents to do more with the resources they have. Among sales leaders already using agents, 94% say they are critical to achieving business goals.
By improving productivity, AI agents allow salespeople to focus on what they do best.
“We want to eliminate unnecessary routine work so our teams can concentrate on what truly moves deals forward: building relationships and delivering results,” said Adam Alfano, EVP Sales at Salesforce. “AI agents make that possible.”
Key findings of the study
Sales teams are deploying AI agents across the entire sales cycle
The use of AI in sales is now mainstream: 87% of sales organizations use some form of AI today, including for prospecting, forecasting, lead scoring and email generation.
Salespeople see clear value in the technology. 89% say AI deepens their understanding of customers, while 87% report that it makes their work easier and reduces stress.
Adoption of AI agents is accelerating rapidly. 54% of sales professionals say they already use them, and nearly 9 in 10 plan to implement them by 2027. Once fully deployed, salespeople expect agents to cut prospect research time by 34% and email preparation time by 36%, effectively giving teams back valuable hours in their day.
Alfano also revealed how his teams use AI agents in practice:
“AI agents have transformed how we operate. They help onboard new salespeople faster, price complex deals more efficiently, and personalize outreach through better data. They also run prospecting 24/7. These are not isolated improvements — agents are reshaping our entire sales engine.”
Top-performing salespeople are 1.7 times more likely to use AI agents for prospecting than lower performers.
Nearly half of sales reps cite cold calling as their least favorite part of the job, yet building a healthy pipeline requires more outreach and interactions than teams can manage alone. Despite spending almost a full working day each week on prospecting, 48% say they still lack the resources for effective cold outreach.
To close that gap, 55% of sales professionals already use AI for prospecting, and another 38% plan to do so. Among those using AI agents, 92% confirm that they meaningfully support their prospecting efforts.
Salespeople delivering the strongest year-over-year revenue growth are 1.7 times more likely to use agents than those whose results remained flat or declined.
“At Salesforce, we use agents to engage leads that previously went untouched,” Alfano added. “Those leads used to disappear. Now agents capture them and surface the most valuable ones. In four months they contacted 130,000 leads and generated 3,200 sales opportunities. Next year we expect results up to ten times higher.”
Administrative overload hits the youngest employees hardest
The “busywork tax” is real. On average, salespeople spend just 40% of their time actively selling. Generation Z reps spend even less — only 35% — losing roughly two hours per week to manual data entry instead of research and relationship building, which their more experienced colleagues prioritize.
They also face a mentoring deficit.
46% rarely receive feedback on their sales conversations.
47% say they lack sufficient practice and simulation before speaking with clients.
When asked about barriers to effective support, Gen Z respondents point to managers’ lack of time as the main obstacle. Millennials, Gen X and baby boomers most often cite limited access to data and analytics.
The result: Generation Z salespeople are the most likely to consider changing jobs, with the main reason being a lack of development opportunities.
Sales teams are cleaning up data to unlock AI’s full potential
To fully leverage artificial intelligence, sales organizations — especially top performers — are focusing on consistent, reliable data.
51% of AI-using sales leaders say fragmented systems slow down their AI initiatives. In response, 74% of sales professionals are prioritizing data hygiene: removing duplicates, correcting errors and standardizing formats across disconnected systems.
Top performers go further. 79% treat data quality as a strategic priority, compared with just 54% of lower-performing sellers.
“The secret to effective AI agents in sales is integrated data,” Alfano emphasized. “Standalone agents without full customer context usually fail. To deliver meaningful results, agents must see the complete picture — otherwise you get unusable outputs.”
Methodology
The data comes from a double-blind survey of 4,050 sales professionals, including sales leaders, account executives, partners, sales and business development representatives, and operations teams. The study was conducted between August and September 2025. Respondents represented Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
