<p>Bengaluru: <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/the-democratisation-of-artificial-intelligence-on-an-enterprise-scale-3861625">Artificial Intelligence</a> (AI) adoption in sales is already becoming mainstream, as 90% of Indian sales organisations currently utilise some form of AI for tasks such as prospecting, forecasting, lead scoring, or drafting emails. Salesforce on Thursday announced its findings from its State of Sales report, which revealed that AI agent adoption is accelerating, and 54% of Indian sellers said they have used agents and nearly 43% plan to use them by 2027.</p><p>Once implemented, Indian sellers expect agents to cut proposed research time by 35% and email drafting by 38%.</p><p>What can be the worst part of a sales rep's job? It is cold calling, as 58% of Indian sales reps say so, and 61% of sellers say they lack bandwidth to do adequate cold outreach. To close this gap, 54% of Indian sales professionals are using AI for prospecting, and another 41% are planning to do so in the future, according to the report.</p><p>Globally, high performers — sellers who have substantially increased y-o-y revenue — are 1.7 times more likely to use agents to help with prospecting than underperformers who merely maintained or decreased y-o-y revenue.</p><p>“In India’s hyper-competitive market, we are seeing a fundamental shift from hustle to high-precision. AI agents are becoming the great equaliser by removing friction, accelerating learning, and giving teams back the time they need to build trust with customers. In a market as fast-moving and relationship-driven as India, the sellers who win in 2026 will be those who pair human judgment with AI agents working relentlessly in the background," Sangeeta Giri, SVP & Chief Operating Officer - South Asia, Salesforce said.</p>.AI will run routine IT tasks, humans to orchestrate workflows, reshape roles.<p>According to the report, while the average seller spends 40% of their time selling, Gen Z reps overall are trapped at 35% — losing approximately two hours each week to manual data entry that senior reps spend researching prospects and building relationships. Also, there is a mentorship drought as 46% rarely get feedback on their sales conversations.</p><p>To maximise the benefits of AI, sales professionals are focusing on trusted, connected data — with high performers leading the way. Over half of Indian sales leaders with AI (66%) say disconnected systems are slowing down their AI initiatives.</p><p>To help, 82% of Indian sales professionals are focusing on data cleansing — removing duplicates, correcting errors or omissions, and standardising formats across siloed systems to maximise their AI returns.</p>
<p>Bengaluru: <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/the-democratisation-of-artificial-intelligence-on-an-enterprise-scale-3861625">Artificial Intelligence</a> (AI) adoption in sales is already becoming mainstream, as 90% of Indian sales organisations currently utilise some form of AI for tasks such as prospecting, forecasting, lead scoring, or drafting emails. Salesforce on Thursday announced its findings from its State of Sales report, which revealed that AI agent adoption is accelerating, and 54% of Indian sellers said they have used agents and nearly 43% plan to use them by 2027.</p><p>Once implemented, Indian sellers expect agents to cut proposed research time by 35% and email drafting by 38%.</p><p>What can be the worst part of a sales rep's job? It is cold calling, as 58% of Indian sales reps say so, and 61% of sellers say they lack bandwidth to do adequate cold outreach. To close this gap, 54% of Indian sales professionals are using AI for prospecting, and another 41% are planning to do so in the future, according to the report.</p><p>Globally, high performers — sellers who have substantially increased y-o-y revenue — are 1.7 times more likely to use agents to help with prospecting than underperformers who merely maintained or decreased y-o-y revenue.</p><p>“In India’s hyper-competitive market, we are seeing a fundamental shift from hustle to high-precision. AI agents are becoming the great equaliser by removing friction, accelerating learning, and giving teams back the time they need to build trust with customers. In a market as fast-moving and relationship-driven as India, the sellers who win in 2026 will be those who pair human judgment with AI agents working relentlessly in the background," Sangeeta Giri, SVP & Chief Operating Officer - South Asia, Salesforce said.</p>.AI will run routine IT tasks, humans to orchestrate workflows, reshape roles.<p>According to the report, while the average seller spends 40% of their time selling, Gen Z reps overall are trapped at 35% — losing approximately two hours each week to manual data entry that senior reps spend researching prospects and building relationships. Also, there is a mentorship drought as 46% rarely get feedback on their sales conversations.</p><p>To maximise the benefits of AI, sales professionals are focusing on trusted, connected data — with high performers leading the way. Over half of Indian sales leaders with AI (66%) say disconnected systems are slowing down their AI initiatives.</p><p>To help, 82% of Indian sales professionals are focusing on data cleansing — removing duplicates, correcting errors or omissions, and standardising formats across siloed systems to maximise their AI returns.</p>