It’s taken less than two years for generative AI to shake up entire industries and challenge the way we think about the future of education, law, politics, art and much more.
So how will generative AI transform sales? It’s a question that promises to drive billions of dollars in revenue opportunities over the next five to 10 years. And if you’re not at least testing AI solutions in your go-to-market motions, you’re already behind.
Companies like ZoomInfo have already incorporated generative AI technologies across their products — with more AI advancements coming in the very near future — to help customers unlock deeper insights, engage customers more effectively, and win faster.
Here’s how AI is affecting sales today, and how we see it widening the gap between winners and runners-up in the years to come.
How is AI Used in Sales Today?
Generative AI has already become commonplace in frontline sales and marketing teams as companies seek to achieve stronger returns in a leaner economy.
It’s also affecting the leadership suite at a rapid pace: hiring data tracked by ZoomInfo shows that senior leaders with AI-related titles increased by nearly 2.5X over just two years.
That makes it doubly important for established AI practitioners and newcomers alike to understand the areas in which AI excels, and where human intervention is still preferred.
To date, the generative AI technology most commonly deployed by frontline GTM teams centers around automating routine administrative tasks, with a view to improving overall efficiency.
It has not replaced large swaths of salespeople and marketers, and is unlikely to do so in the near future. But it can make those professionals much more efficient, effective, and just plain faster at the tedious parts of digital marketing and sales prospecting.
Use cases of generative AI in sales
Although generative AI has captured the public imagination with its ability to produce readable content and even rich artwork based on simple prompts, most of the use cases of generative AI in sales are far more mundane — but no less effective.
Frontline GTM teams are using generative AI in many ways:
- Automated meeting summaries
- Email composition
- Greater ABM personalization
- Sophisticated GTM Plays
- Market and revenue intelligence research
Use cases of AI for sales operations
AI in all its forms — from generative AI to more traditional systems — is also being leveraged by sales operations specialists to give their revenue teams a major advantage in today’s market.
A must-have for AI in SalesOps? Clean, consistent, high-quality data. Some of the top use cases for data modeling with AI include:
- Predictive analytics
- Lead routing and prioritization
- Personalization of marketing and sales assets
- Predicting customer churn and retention
- High-precision risk analysis
- Detailed customer segmentation
- Competitive intelligence and analysis
- Product recommendation engines
ZoomInfo Copilot: AI-Fueled Platform Inspired by Top Sellers
ZoomInfo Copilot is an AI-powered solution that turns every seller into your best seller by unifying the best, broadest GTM data and proactively identifying the insights that sellers need.
With Copilot, sales teams can act on urgent buying signals, find whitespace in existing business, and engage with interested buyers at scale, without spending precious cycles on combing through data or crafting compelling messaging. It enables sales teams with:
- Account Expansion: ZoomInfo Copilot identifies and suggests new leads within existing accounts, alerting sellers to time-sensitive opportunities indicated by intent signals such as new hires and competitor research.
- Targeted, Intelligent Prospecting: By analyzing real-time intent data, ZoomInfo Copilot ensures sellers can connect with decision-makers at accounts that have demonstrated strong purchasing intent, at the right time, with offers relevant to their business.
- Insights on Demand: With aggregated account summaries at their disposal, customer-facing teams can gain deep insights into accounts quickly, allowing them to understand their prospects’ problems and deliver rewarding customer experiences.
- Personalized Engagement at Scale: Boost your outreach conversion rates with the AI Email Generator and craft personalized messages that speak to unique customer pain points, based on previous engagements, intent data, and more, in a matter of seconds.
How to Leverage AI for Sales Prospecting Insights
Imagine if every seller on your team had the time to study your prospects’ 10-K filings and earnings call transcripts to better understand the needs and priorities of your potential customers.
That’s exactly what ZoomInfo Sales’ Earnings Scoops feature offers.
Earnings Scoops leverages generative AI technology to scan companies’ 10-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as numerous other sources of financial reporting data, to identify the most urgent needs and pressing challenges facing your prospective customers.
The kinds of insights surfaced by Earnings Scoops are an invaluable competitive edge in today’s uncertain macroeconomic environment. Earnings Scoops are available for more than 17,000 publicly traded companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nasdaq, and dozens of other global stock exchanges.
What do Sales Leaders Think About Generative AI?
We recently asked GTM leaders to articulate how generative AI technologies are changing the ways they work today, as well as speculate on how these technologies may continue to evolve in the near future.
As ZoomInfo Chief Revenue Officer James Roth puts it, the future of AI in sales isn’t a group of robots outselling humans — it’s “a world in which data is the most important thing.”
Beyond empowering frontline GTM professionals with the tools, data, and insights they need to do their jobs more effectively, our leaders are focusing on a number of other important aspects of AI in sales, such as the necessity of a strong data foundation, the ramifications of generative AI for privacy and compliance professionals, and how to establish and maintain customer trust when deploying AI technologies.
Sales-Ready Data: the Foundation of B2B AI
With so many companies experimenting with generative AI technologies, many are now learning that even the most sophisticated AI technologies can only do so much with the data they’re given.
If that data is unreliable, the results will be virtually worthless.
Forward-thinking business leaders are recognizing that trustworthy, reliable data is fundamental to the success with generative AI technologies, and investing accordingly.
“Start thinking about your data as an infrastructural element of your technology stack,” ZoomInfo CEO and Founder Henry Schuck says. “It’s just as important as any IT infrastructure you have, and ensuring data is incredibly accurate and usable by generative AI will be an infrastructural layer in the future.”
Data Infrastructure for AI in Sales
Just as generative AI technologies need trustworthy, reliable data to produce useful outputs, they also need to be easily integrated into existing systems if they are to be of practical use in the enterprise.
ZoomInfo has been excited to partner with some of the world’s largest technology companies to deliver world-class B2B data. This data is powering exciting generative AI initiatives through ZoomInfo’s APIs and Webhooks, data cubes, and data services such as modeling, scoring, and validation.
“What we really believe is that the data underlying customer outreach needs to be incredibly accurate, totally enriched, and really deep,” Schuck says. “We are in this unique position as a company, with an offering to really fuel that.”
Investing in reliable, scalable data infrastructure is an investment in efficiency and growth. In this blog post, we demonstrate how generative AI technologies built atop solid, trustworthy B2B data can have an immense impact on the accuracy, and effectiveness, of an automated prospecting email.
Generative AI: the Future of Sales, Today
We couldn’t be more excited to see how our customers are already using generative AI technologies to prospect more efficiently, reach new markets and audiences with their products in less time with fewer resources, and engage prospective customers more effectively.
It’s clear that AI will revolutionize the way sales teams find, engage, and communicate with prospects and customers. But we strongly believe that the fundamental, irreplaceable human element in sales will only become more valuable and more important as AI takes over the mechanics of the GTM process.
AI isn’t just a new technology — it’s a new chapter in the story of all GTM practitioners. We’re excited to support more than 35,000 customers worldwide on this journey to selling smarter and winning faster with AI in their corner.