Agentic AI is the latest topic of conversation for companies looking to leverage AI technology in their day-to-day operations, including those in the sales industry. But it’s not just a buzzword. By 2028, Gartner predicts 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, compared to less than 1% in 2024.
It may be the most significant paradigm shift for sales innovation yet – helping to democratize sales CRM platforms by making them more accessible to all types of users while also elevating the business user over the technical user, streamlining operations in ways not previously possible.
What is Agentic AI?
Over the past several years, many new phrases have entered our vocabulary regarding AI, and agentic AI is no exception. Similar to generative AI, agentic AI is a specific type of artificial intelligence that can be viewed as a subset of the larger AI universe. Unlike traditional AI, which depends on specific user commands and is constrained by strict rules, agentic AI is designed to “think” independently—analyzing situations, making decisions, and taking action without constant human input and oversight. Because of this, it can learn from experience, adapt to new information, and assist businesses in being more proactive.
This means that AI doesn’t just help sales teams manage customer data and streamline the CRM user experience. It can also help sales professionals prioritize leads, personalize outreach, schedule follow-ups and even optimize sales strategies in real time by actively viewing the larger picture to provide valuable insights.
For example, a sales leader might ask agentic AI to “create a report with comparative line graphs that show the velocity with which opportunities were moved through each stage of the sales process from lead to close in 2024, comparing the Western, Southern, Eastern and Northern Sales teams.” The agentic AI will not only be able to pull this report together faster and more effectively than a human could, but it will also be able to analyze the report to provide key insights and recommendations for the sales team to consider.
Challenges of the Traditional Sales Process
Though many traditional sales strategies are tried and true, they’re time-consuming and prone to human error. For instance, CRMs have made vast strides in how sales teams can manage their customer data, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a wealth of information sales teams must parse through to identify high-value prospects and which are at risk of sunk cost. Though well within human capabilities, this task is time-consuming without AI intervention and is prone to human error, especially if customer data is missing or entered incorrectly.
Data entry is another downfall of traditional sales processes. Though vital to the overall sales process, day-to-day tasks like scheduling follow-ups, logging customer interactions, updating CRMs and pulling reports take time away from what sales professionals do best: selling.
The Potential of Agentic AI to Revolutionize Sales As We Know It
By 2028, Gartner predicts that at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI. At the highest level, AI agents will allow sales professionals to unlock the full potential of their CRM platform by leveraging natural language queries, both via text and voice prompts, without needing to learn how to use the software in traditional ways.
For example, sales leaders know which information and reports they need to lead their teams most effectively. Still, they often lack the time or technical skills to get into the weeds of a CRM platform’s reporting capabilities and analyze its output. As a result, they frequently rely on an admin or technical sales operations specialist to extract the data they need and present it in a usable format. The result is usually time wasted on back-and-forth conversations and miscommunications with less-than-ideal results than the sales leader initially sought.
This is just one example of how agentic AI can help address the challenges of the traditional sales process. It can make it easier to automate administrative tasks, run and analyze reports, and provide intelligent, real-time insights that help prioritize leads and personalized sales interactions.
Risks of Agentic AI in Sales
As with all AI innovations, keeping a human in the loop is still necessary. Although the technology continues to evolve and improve, it still doesn’t have human insight – something especially valuable in sales.
Sales teams need to balance integrating agentic AI into their sales strategy while not relying too heavily on it and losing the human element of sales altogether. Agentic AI should be viewed as an additional resource for sales professionals, not a replacement. Instead, it can help augment sales professionals’ existing skills to enhance and optimize their performance for maximum success without additional stress and burnout.
Agentic AI has the potential to reshape the sales landscape over the next few years, helping sales teams eliminate efficiencies, automate administrative tasks and leverage deeper insights. By removing the need to focus on time-consuming administrative tasks, sales teams can spend more time building customer relationships and closing deals. With AI, they can more actively identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities, prioritize high-value leads, personalize their outreach and optimize workflows, operating more efficiently while achieving better sales results.
As AI technology continues to evolve and becomes more common in our daily lives, businesses must view agentic AI as the next opportunity for innovation, while also recognizing the importance of human talent and intuition in the sales process. Sales teams that effectively integrate agentic AI into their operations will likely experience the greatest success in the coming years.
