The 10 Best AI Sales Assistants by Use Case
You’ve crafted an excellent sales strategy, but your reps could use a few more hours in the day to actually act on it.
It’s hardly surprising that two-thirds of executives aren’t very confident in their organization’s ability to hit their sales goals. On top of that, 86% of sales leaders also say they’ve noticed an increase in sales team burnout or turnover. The two issues are closely related.
Sales professionals lack resources desperately. That’s the main reason they fail to hit their quotas and churn. It would have been a huge problem a decade ago.
Today, however, while you can’t clone your reps (yet?), you can enhance their capabilities with AI sales assistants—which is even better. Instead of getting stuck in the loop of endlessly re-optimizing your sales strategy and searching for flaws, you can tackle the real issue and allow your sales team to finally focus on what truly matters.
Here’s how you can do it with the right sales assistant.
How AI Sales Assistants Can Impact the Sales Process
AI sales assistants are software tools that use artificial intelligence to streamline the sales process.
In just a few years, AI has permeated nearly every aspect of business. Whatever task you can think of, there's likely an AI assistant that can help you with it.
Now, let’s get more specific about how AI helps sales teams to improve their workflows. The survey by HubSpot reveals that 74% of sales pros are currently using some form of AI, with the most popular use cases being manual task automation, AI-powered analytics, and content creation.
Source: HubSpot
Based on the survey data and our extensive experience with AI-powered sales, we’ve pinpointed the top tasks where virtual sales assistants can make a significant impact:
Email writing. With just a few inputs, generative AI can create personalized and persuasive outreach email content tailored to each prospect.
Email warmup. Before launching your outbound campaign at full scale, the AI assistant will improve your sender reputation by sending out warmup emails to real addresses, opening them, and marking them as important.
Outbound lead generation. AI-powered SDRs can analyze vast amounts of data from various channels to identify and target high-quality leads that match your ideal customer profile (ICP). No need for sales reps to sift through social media or purchased email lists for a bunch of potential leads.
Lead nurturing. The AI sales assistant software can craft personalized outreach messages for each lead based on their data. After you review and approve these messages, the AI assistant will send them at optimal times and schedule follow-up emails if there’s no response within a set timeframe.
Lead scoring and prioritization. AI can keep track of changes in lead profiles and their behavior much better than any human could. In fact, about 25% of salespeople using AI are already relying on it to qualify and prioritize leads.
Administrative task automation. Sales pros who use AI tools to handle administrative tasks save up to two hours a day. You can do it too by handing over time-consuming and repetitive tasks, like data entry, meeting scheduling, and never-ending follow-ups, to your virtual assistant.
Predictive analytics. By analyzing big data, AI can forecast future outcomes with incredible precision. It can predict which leads are most likely to convert, which customers are at risk of churning, how much sales you’re going to make, and which sales strategies are likely to succeed.
Sentiment analysis. AI tools can analyze your customer interactions (e.g. calls and emails) and provide instant insights into your prospect’s true sales engagement level—even as you speak. Currently, 41% of salespeople use AI-powered sentiment analysis to gauge and react to buyer emotions. And 83% of those who use it find it to be highly effective.
Sales rep coaching. With an AI bot supporting your reps during lead outreach, product demos, and pitching, they get a coach that's available 24/7. It can highlight areas for improvement in real time, offers recommendations, and keeps track of notes for performance reviews.
The Best AI Sales Assistants
So what AI sales assistants serve these use cases? Here are 10 of them:
Artisan
Clay
GemAI by UserGems
Instantly.ai
Otter
Dialpad
CoPilot AI
Forwrd
Lavender
Second Nature AI
1. Artisan
Best for: outbound sales automation from A to Z
Artisan’s Ava is an AI sales agent that automates the entire outbound sales process. Ava helps sales teams generate more qualified leads faster—without the need to grow the headcount.
Ava uses conversational intelligence to gather data about your ICP and your goals through a simple chat interface. As you interact with her, Ava taps into her database of over 300 million contacts to identify leads that match your ICP.
Then, she crafts personalized emails for each lead and presents them to you for review. Once you approve them, Ava sends the emails at optimal times, taking into account the time zones of your audience. If there’s no reply, she’ll automatically send two follow-up emails at a schedule you set.
And there’s more. Ava also warms up your email addresses, builds detailed contact profiles, and matches the tone of each email to the playbook you’ve selected. Plus, as she gathers more historical data, Ava continually improves her performance.
Key features
Conversational AI assistant
Email warmup
Lead discovery
Lead data enrichment
Email writing
Personalized outreach
Automated follow-ups
Sales playbooks
Ongoing deliverability and response rate optimization
Native integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, and more
Artisan pricing
Artisan tailors pricing to your individual needs. Contact us to get a personalized quote.
Artisan’s Ava is your key to easing your reps’ workload and hitting your SDR quota. Try Ava today.
2. Clay
Best for: lead enrichment
Clay is your assistant for company and people research. It enriches your lead data with details like the lead’s competitors, office locations, case studies, pricing information, and much more.
For example, if you have a list of company names but are missing key information, or if your data needs refreshing, Clay has you covered. It connects to over 75 data sources and automatically pulls in the information you need.
You can easily link it to your data spreadsheet using a Chrome extension or work directly within the Clay interface.
Key features
Lead research and enrichment
Over 75 data sources
Email writing assistance
Chrome extension
Clay pricing
Clay is free to start with up to 100 data enrichment credits per month. Paid plans start at $149/month for up to 2,000 credits (suitable for solopreneurs).
3. GemAI by UserGems
Best for: continuous lead enrichment and scoring
UserGems is AI-powered buyer signal-tracking software. But what does that mean?
Think about the last time your deal stalled because your potential customer didn’t have the budget, or your key end user couldn’t persuade the decision-makers. UserGems helps move those deals forward by tracking changes within the company, like funding rounds or promotions, so you don’t miss an opportunity to re-engage those almost-closed deals.
GemAI is the AI assistant that stands behind all of the UserGems processes. It tracks job changes, company growth, and other key signals, scores leads, and signals you when it’s time to take action.
Key features
Lead tracking
Intent assessment
Lead scoring and prioritization
Integration with major CRM systems
Automated sales workflows
AI-assisted email writing
Pipeline analytics
Gem AI pricing
UserGems doesn’t display pricing information publicly.
4. Instantly
Best for: centralized sales management with AI-powered features
Instantly is a multifaceted AI-powered sales tool for small businesses. It integrates key features from lead management to performance tracking, centralizing the entire sales cycle in one interface.
While it may lack the complexity required for larger organizations, Instantly is perfect for those who don’t have experience with sophisticated CRM systems. Instantly AI supports small business owners through lead enrichment, crafting and delivering emails, tracking website visitors, and other daily tasks in their pipelines.
Key features
Built-in CRM
Lead research and enrichment
Email warmup
Email verification
AI-assisted email writing
Website visitor tracking
Deliverability optimization
Instantly pricing
Instantly offers separate packages for lead generation and email sending. Email sending and warm-up services start at $30/month, while lead discovery plans begin at $39.90/month.
5. Otter
Best for: call transcriptions and note-taking
Otter is an AI-powered assistant for automated meeting notes. It transcribes your sales calls, generates summaries, and suggests action items so you can quickly map out your next steps after meetings.
Its built-in dedicated sales assistant, OtterPilot, takes things a step further by providing real-time coaching insights and automatically syncing your call data with Salesforce and HubSpot. It also generates follow-up emails based on the valuable insights it extracts from the calls.
Key features
Automated transcriptions
Note-taking
Action items
Native integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce (only available in the Enterprise plan)
Real-time sales coaching
Collaboration capabilities
Otter pricing
Otter provides a free plan that includes up to 300 minutes of call recording per month with limited features. Paid plans start at $8.33/user/month.
6. Dialpad
Best for: sales rep coaching
Dialpad offers a comprehensive suite of AI-powered tools split into four key products: business communications AI, AI meetings, AI contact center, and AI sales. Guess what we’re here for 👀
Dialpad AI Sales is a sales intelligence platform that helps to improve sales rep performance with real-time coaching insights. It provides automated summaries, assist cards, buyer intent identification, and customer experience assessment—all to help your reps make more successful sales calls.
Key features
Call recording and transcription
Custom AI playbooks
Real-time assistance
Power dialer
Team performance scoring
Dialpad pricing
Dialpad AI Sales offers basic functionality starting at $60/user/month. For real-time call assistance, pricing begins at $95/user/month.
7. CoPilot AI
Best for: LinkedIn prospecting and outreach
CoPilot AI is a sales intelligence tool designed to automate LinkedIn outreach. It scans your leads' profiles, ranks them based on the likelihood of accepting your connection request, analyzes sentiment, and creates personalized outreach messages.
It’s a great choice if you’re looking to hand over repetitive LinkedIn prospecting tasks to AI.
Key features
Lead research
Lead qualification
Sentiment analysis
Cold outreach
AI-generated replies
Meeting scheduling
A/B campaign testing
CoPilot AI pricing
CoPilot for individuals starts at $234/month. For teams, custom plans apply.
8. Forwrd
Best for: predictive analytics
Forwrd is an AI-powered revenue intelligence platform for go-to-market (GTM) teams. With it, you can create a self-learning scoring model that automatically evaluates and prioritizes your sales opportunities, improving its accuracy with each use.
The tool qualifies MQLs, SALs, and SQLs for you, forecasts future sales trends, and highlights gaps in your strategy. It's like having a crystal ball for your sales pipeline.
Key features
Lead scoring
Account scoring
Churn signals
Self-improving scoring models
Integration with HubSpot in all plans
Forwrd pricing
Forward has a limited forever free plan. Paid plans start at $1,299/month. Native integrations with Salesforce, Oracle Eloqua, and other systems are available at $1,999/month.
9. Lavender
Best for: email outreach optimization and coaching
Let's face it—not everyone is ready to fully rely on AI alone to craft sales emails. But after manually writing a dozen personalized emails in a day, it’s tough to care about what the next ones look like.
That's where Lavender comes in. It acts as an AI sales email coach for SDRs and AEs, guiding you through the email-writing process. Lavender analyzes your email templates and suggests improvements, so you can write more effective emails, faster.
Key features
Email writing assistance
Email performance tracking
Personalization assistance
Integration with major CRM and sales intelligence systems
Lavender pricing
Paid plans start at $27/month with unlimited emails and recommendations. Integrations are available at $45/month.
10. Second Nature AI
Best for: risk-free sales training
Second Nature AI is designed to help sales teams sharpen their skills through realistic, AI-driven role-play simulations.
The platform uses conversational AI to simulate sales scenarios, allowing reps to practice pitches, handle objections, and refine their sales techniques in a risk-free environment. With it, reps can improve their performance and build confidence before engaging with real prospects.
Key features
AI-driven role-play simulations
Conversational intelligence
Personalized feedback
Gamified training modules
Integration with major LMSs
Built-in reports
Second Nature AI pricing
Pricing information is provided upon request.
How to Choose the Right AI Sales Assistant
If you're considering using AI to improve your sales workflows but aren't sure where to start, here’s a quick 6-step process to guide you:
Analyze your sales performance and workflows.
Identify where you’re falling short.
List the key issues you're facing.
Rank them by urgency, focusing first on the most critical areas.
Look for AI sales assistants that fit your use case.
Choose the solution that offers the best balance between features, cost, and scalability.
Features to Look For In an AI Sales Assistant
AI sales assistants may serve a variety of use cases, but it’s rare to find a single tool that does it all.
For example, AI SDRs typically focus on lead discovery, research, email warmups, and outreach. Meanwhile, AI-powered analytics copilots are better suited for providing conversational insights, accurate sales forecasts, and coaching tips.
No matter what specific tasks you need to address, a good AI sales assistant should include the following features:
Real-time data analytics
What sets AI apart from basic automation tools is its ability to analyze sales data, draw conclusions, and take immediate action. Ensure that your AI sales assistant isn’t just another workflow automation tool, but one that knows its way around big data.
Machine learning capabilities
AI tools equipped with machine learning can continuously improve over time by learning from your data. The longer they work with your sales processes, the more accurate and effective they become, adapting to new patterns and optimizing outcomes over time.
Natural language processing
Natural language processing enables modern AI assistants to understand and generate human-like text. With an NLP-powered copilot, you can simply provide input in everyday language, and the AI will deliver clear, easy-to-understand output—saving you from spending hours setting up campaigns or interpreting data.
Sales process automation
Look for AI tools that can seamlessly handle repetitive sales activities without requiring constant oversight. For instance, if your AI SDR is responsible for cold outreach, ensure it also handles follow-ups. This way, you avoid getting bogged down in repetitive tasks and can focus on more strategic aspects of your sales process.
Standalone functionality
Many AI sales assistants come integrated with larger systems like CRM platforms or analytics solutions. While these integrations can be useful, opting for a standalone AI tool will help you avoid the hassle of migrating all your data to a new application just to use an AI copilot.
Seamless CRM integration
Your AI sales assistant absolutely must offer native integration with your existing CRM system. Trust us, you don’t want to face issues like outdated information or the hassle of manually entering data.
Manual override capabilities
Even the smartest AI needs a human touch from time to time. Sometimes, it may misinterpret nuances or require context that only you can provide. To keep things running smoothly, you should be able to step in and adjust the AI’s actions when necessary.
It’s Time to Augment Your Sales Ops with AI
When you're ready to implement your first virtual assistant, train your team to use it effectively—so the new setup improves their workflows instead of complicating them.
Looking for an AI sales assistant to automate your outbound sales? Hire Ava, an AI SDR that will take over lead research, enrichment, and outreach for you.
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