How Sales Teams Use AI

Another week, another Thursday, which means: another newsletter to help you win.

All coming in at the end of another month. Let’s do this!

This week we’re rounding up some recent content, including: 

• Stats that show how AI is impacting sellers’ bottom line

• Recent updates to ZoomInfo Copilot to take your GTM to the next level

• Key steps you can take to expand your market

How Sales Teams are Using AI in 2025: Survey & Statistics

ZoomInfo’s State of AI in Sales and Marketing survey, which gathered insights from more than 1,000 GTM professionals, reveals just how quickly AI is transforming sales teams — and the roadblocks for further AI innovation.

We’re diving deeper into the survey’s findings for sales teams, offering a closer look at how sellers are using AI, where they’re seeing success, and what’s standing in the way. Whether you’re in sales leadership or frontline execution, these are the insights you need to compete in an AI-powered future.

Adoption and Usage

Of the 1,000+ respondents to the survey, 68% work in sales, with 45% using AI at least once a week.

That puts sellers slightly behind the overall survey pool, which found that half of all GTM professionals use AI daily or weekly. Sellers in the survey were more likely than the overall pool to be skeptics, with 42% using AI only a few times a year or not at all.

This highlights the lack of compelling bottom-line use cases delivered by mass-market AI tools, such as chatbots or basic CRM assistants — the most popular tools in our survey. 

As ZoomInfo Chief Revenue Officer James Roth notes: “AI needs to be built directly into specialized applications by people who know what go-to-market teams need to succeed. That’s how we are seeing companies drive real innovation in GTM.”

Impact on Sales Efforts

Teams that frequently use AI report solid improvements across all major performance metrics:

• Faster Deal Cycles: 78% of frequent users said AI has helped shorten deal cycles.

• Larger Deal Sizes: 70% reported an increase in deal size, likely attributed to better prospect insights and tailored outreach.

• Higher Win Rates: AI-powered tools contributed to a 76% increase in win rates.

• Profitability: 79% of respondents said AI has made their teams more profitable, highlighting its role in driving revenue.

Among sellers who use AI at least once a week:

• 81% said their deal cycles got shorter

• 73% reported increases in average deal size

• 80% saw higher win rates

These numbers show how AI wins for sales teams are moving beyond efficiency metrics and achieving stronger business outcomes across the board. AI’s ability to analyze prospect behavior, prioritize leads, and automate routine tasks directly impacts the bottom line for sales teams.

Challenges in Sales

Challenges that sales teams struggle the most with include:

• Data Quality: Sales teams depend on accurate and up-to-date data to prioritize leads and forecast effectively. Any discrepancies in data can erode trust in AI recommendations.

• Training Gaps: Many sales professionals lack the training to fully use AI tools, leading to underperformance or distrust.

• Integration Issues: AI tools must seamlessly integrate with existing CRMs and sales workflows to maximize utility.

Many teams are still working to overcome structural obstacles in AI adoption. 

Integration remains a sticking point — 28% of survey respondents to the overall survey cited difficulties folding AI into current systems. Meanwhile, a lack of skilled personnel (29%) and general resistance to change (28%) were also top barriers. 

That’s why phased rollouts, strong training programs, and a focus on strategic use cases — like forecasting or lead scoring — are critical for sustained success.

We dive even deeper into sales teams’ AI usage, exploring the tools sales teams use and notable success stories here. 

ZoomInfo Copilot Updates: Deeper Intelligence for Every Deal Stage

Sales teams today are juggling tighter timelines, tougher targets, and fewer second chances. You’ve got to move fast, stay sharp, and win more — with less. 

That’s why ZoomInfo Copilot is built to support sellers, all the way from first touch through closed-won. Whether you’re qualifying a cold lead or trying to get a deal over the finish line, Copilot now delivers AI-powered insights that lead to:

• Timely Strategy and Execution 

• More Opportunities Spotted

• Reduced Risk

• Data-Driven Decision-Making 

Built on ZoomInfo’s Go-To-Market Intelligence Platform, Copilot blends our massive universe of data and signals with intelligent automation, meeting sellers right where they already work. By delivering real-time buying signals and flagging critical deal risks — such as missing decision-makers or single-threaded opportunities — Copilot helps teams to stay ahead. 

The proof? Copilot users are seeing a 14% increase in closed deals.

Our latest upgrades to Copilot show what’s possible when intelligence and automation work together. 

Smarter Outreach: Account Intelligence for AI Emailer

Your inbox game just leveled up. Copilot’s AI Emailer has been expanded to help account executives and account managers keep deals moving, from renewals and upsells to long-term relationship building. It now taps into historical engagement, CRM data, and key account insights to craft smarter, more relevant messages for every stage of the sales cycle.

Spot Risk Before Deals Stall: Deal Risk Alerts – No Decision Maker or Single Contact

Copilot now flags at-risk opportunities early, alerting sellers when no decision-maker has engaged in the first 30 days or when only one contact is active in the deal. These proactive signals help reps know when to loop in more stakeholders before things stall.  

Full Context Insights: Sourced Insights in Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat now links directly to the meetings, emails, and calls that inform its insights —so now you know the “why” behind every recommendation. One click is all it takes to access the full context and act with confidence.

With more timely signals, more precise targeting, and less guesswork, Copilot is helping sales teams move faster and close stronger. And we have even more exciting updates to share.

Unlocking Market Expansion: Key Steps to Drive Growth with Strong Data

Marketing teams of all sizes are eager to drive growth wherever they can find it, from expanding into new markets to driving cross- and upsell opportunities. But moving from inspiration to action is easier said than done.

One major roadblock? Incomplete, inaccurate data that isn’t built to capture the constantly evolving needs of your customers. 

Luckily, today’s top marketers are able to assemble a much more accurate view of their customers and prospects by relying on Go-to-Market Intelligence, which fuses high-quality B2B data, real-time buying signals, and AI-fueled insights. 

If you’re ready to adopt a more data-driven approach to GTM, start with these key steps — and get ready to drive more leads, more opportunities, and more revenue. 

1. Define and Validate Your Total Addressable Market (TAM)

How well do you really know your customers?

Many companies believe they understand their ideal customer profile (ICP) and Total Addressable Market (TAM), but even this understanding is often based on incomplete information. 

That’s why it’s crucial that GTM leaders don’t just define, but also validate, their TAM and their ICP.

There are two primary ways to calculate TAM: top-down and bottom-up. Of these two methods, bottom-up tends to be more accurate, since it relies on first-party data to estimate revenue and market growth.

For a quick and easy way to gauge your TAM, you can use ZoomInfo’s TAM Calculator.

These simple equations are a great starting point for GTM leaders to calculate their TAM. But what happens if the data used in these calculations changes, such as significant changes in ACV? The output becomes outdated almost instantly. 

That’s why GTM Intelligence is vital for marketers: Business simply moves too quickly for CRM data alone to capture the true breadth of opportunity in today’s markets.

2. Pinpoint Key Decision-Makers and Contacts

Think about how often former champions and key decision-makers move to new roles at other companies. It’s no wonder many GTM teams end up wasting time trying to reach decision-makers who have moved on, or reaching out to the wrong contacts entirely. 

To make things even more complicated, today’s buying groups are larger than ever — Gartner estimates the average buying group is now between six and 10 people. 

The large-scale automation made possible by GTM Intelligence means frontline teams can go beyond individual contacts to profile entire buying groups, including key people who can make or break deals.

Find your key contacts and influencers by: 

• Mapping out key personas and decision-makers within target accounts

• Accessing verified contact data, including direct emails and mobile numbers

• Identifying the contacts most likely to engage, based on previous interactions and account activity using AI-powered propensity models

3. Leverage Buying Signals and Intent Data

The buyer’s journey has never really been linear, and it’s getting more complex. Buyers are better-informed than ever before and engaging sellers later and later in the process. 

Fortunately, this drawn-out buyer research period actually reveals important details about prospects’ needs, concerns, and intentions. And marketers can surface this vital information to gain a critical competitive advantage.

Buying signals, for example, give GTM teams invaluable insight into what prospects want, and provide timely opportunities for targeted outreach. Track these real-time signals and intent activity so you can:

• Find out which companies are most likely to convert based on high-velocity buying signals: attending events, downloading content, and active competitor research

• Discover the earliest inklings of expansion opportunities at key accounts, including new investment funding, budget increases, and senior leadership changes 

• Prioritize accounts that match historical patterns of high-value behavior, mapping the characteristics of your team’s previous success onto new opportunities at massive scale

These are just a few tips that barely scratch the surface of what you can do to expand your market. We share even more key steps you can take in this article. 

Thanks for reading!

Have something you’d like us to cover in an upcoming newsletter? Let us know in the comments. We promise, we read all of them.

Subscribe to this newsletter to get notified when we post.