Pipedrive, the easy and effective sales CRM, today unveiled its State of AI in Sales Report, examining the adoption and usage of artificial intelligence (AI) tools among sales teams.

The report delves into the key challenges and opportunities for enhancing productivity in sales, highlighting the growing impact of AI on core sales functions, finding that one of the main challenges for a business is pre-sales communication.

Pipedrive’s report reveals that the majority of businesses (60%) face difficulties with all aspects of lead management, from keeping the leads pipeline filled to qualifying and nurturing leads. To address this, 27% of current AI users and 24% of prospective users aim to leverage AI as a solution to streamline interactions by automating routine communication tasks like follow-ups and meeting scheduling.

Automating these administrative tasks frees up time for sales teams to focus on core activities and directly contribute to revenue generation.

Despite these benefits, AI adoption is seen coming to a plateau in sales teams. While the survey shows that 75% of current AI users leverage AI for content creation, only 55% of prospective users view this as a priority, highlighting a major disparity in how AI’s full capabilities for salespeople and marketers are perceived.

Nearly half (47%) of current AI users have no immediate plans to further integrate AI into their workflows. This finding underscores a critical insight: while AI adoption has gained traction, many businesses view it as a static process rather than an evolving one.

Dominic Allon, CEO of Pipedrive said: “For many companies, AI adoption is still in its early stages. As it continues to reshape the business landscape, its role in sales and marketing has become more critical than ever. This is why we at Pipedrive offer tools and capabilities that allow teams and businesses of any size to integrate AI powered tools into their workflow easily and efficiently, empowering them to unlock new levels of productivity. By analysing how AI is being adopted by sales teams we are able to tailor Pipedrive’s offerings to fit their needs.”

Pipedrive’s report also examines the three stages of AI adoption and how this breakdown reveals significant gaps that prevent businesses from fully utilising the capabilities AI offers:

• While 75% of companies use AI-powered tools to create content, and 52% use them to summarise content, most do not move beyond these initial use cases, suggesting that leveraging the technology for more complex or sensitive issues is not easy.
• Less than a third of current AI users utilise AI to transcribe and summarise calls (29%) or to research outbound prospects (24%). Even fewer companies use it for data intelligence (17%) or marketing (14%).

Pipedrive’s State of AI in Sales Report is part of the company’s ongoing commitment to empowering businesses with actionable insights and tools that drive success. As AI continues to evolve, Pipedrive remains focused on delivering solutions that can maximise efficiency and profitability while also addressing the unique needs of sales teams. The full report can be found here.

Methodology

The report is based on a survey of 500 Pipedrive customers, business owners and leaders, in Q3 2024. It included both AI users (those who already use AI-powered tools) and AI prospective users (those who plan to start using AI-powered tools in the near future).