9 Sales Tasks AI Agents Now Handle, and 4 Humans Still Own

Artificial intelligence is making waves across a wide variety of industries. One area where many employees feel that disruption most keenly is sales. The latest State of Sales Report from Salesforce puts numbers to the feeling. 

Once AI agents are fully rolled out, sellers are expecting a 34% cut in prospect research time and a 36% cut in email drafting time. This can save sales reps countless tedious hours. Where automation is set to occur is actually the more interesting part of this data. 

Apollo dug deep into this report, in conjunction with data from Digital Commerce 360 and Perplexity, to outline nine key areas where AI will have the greatest impact, along with a couple of areas that will still need human hands. 

What AI is taking over 

There are nine main sales areas where AI is set to have the largest effect. Coincidentally, they are also nine of the easiest areas where tasks can be directly shifted to agents without human intervention. 

The AI tools used today are the same ones that will likely be adapted in the coming years to optimize daily tasks, meaning limited investment in new technology will be required: 

1. Account research

Account research is the first area set to be automated by AI. A lot more reps are just asking ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and other models for information on prospects directly. By leveraging their data and then combining it with MCP connectors in products like Salesforce or HubSpot, they can pull live data straight into the conversation, too. Sellers surveyed in the Salesforce report go as far as to estimate that this will cut prospect research time by 34% once agents are fully in place. 

2. List building

To build an outreach target list in the past, a rep traditionally had to jump between a number of different tools. Now, they can just outline what an ideal customer profile looks like to a large language model and take a look at the output. This can be taken further by connecting the AI to a data source to get ranked lists, too. 

3. First-touch drafting

Email drafting is the bane of many reps' existence. Luckily, it’s also one of the areas AI can help. Reps can use LLMs to handle cold email creation and even pull account signals live from an MCP before even writing. This trend is projected to be a 36% time-saver according to the Salesforce report, as well. 

4. CRM logging

Ask a rep what their favorite part of the day is and you’d be hard-pressed to find any that say logging interactions in their customer relationship management system. It’s actually a common failure point in today’s workflows. AI agents and MCP-connected assistants that write back to Salesforce and HubSpot are automatically gaining traction as a result. 

5. Scheduling

If there’s one thing AI agents have already proved adept at, it’s handling meeting scheduling and calendar coordination. This is another tedious time suck for sales reps who could be focused on more important tasks. Using AI also means organizations can save money from not needing to hire an admin. 

6. Transcription

Human memory is finite and remembering every detail of a call is just impossible. Humans can also only write so fast. AI transcription services, on the other hand, are improving by the day. Notetaker apps and Fireflies-style tools are available as Claude and ChatGPT connectors, which can automatically extract decisions, action items, and next steps from prospect or client calls.

7. Signal monitoring

Flagged by Gartner at its CSO and Sales Leader Conference, monitoring buying signals, such as funding rounds, job changes, and intent data, is another area poised to be a time-saver with AI. 

8. Follow-up timing

AI agents can now flag and time follow-ups based on pre-set engagement signals and reply likelihood. This reduces much of the manual tracking that used to eat up rep time.

9. Pipeline hygiene

Finally, keeping opportunity records, stages, and forecasts up to date is shifting to automated agents and MCP write-backs. What was formerly an end-of-week manual cleanup task can now be automated by AI. 

What is set to stay human

As with any technology, not everything will be revolutionized. There will always be a human touch, and some tasks will likely remain rep-owned because they are directly tied to trust, quota performance, and deal outcomes: 

1. Live negotiation

People still like to chat with real people, and real-time deal negotiation is predicted to stay human. The Gartner survey found that buyers are more likely to say a human rep helped them advance to the next step, made them feel confident, and understood their needs. 

2. Multi-threaded relationship work

Building and maintaining relationships across multiple stakeholders in a buying group will also be a human task. Gartner found buying groups with low dysfunction, mainly built through sustained rep engagement, were 13 times more likely to report high-quality deals.

3. Reading a room 

Interpreting unspoken buyer intent is explicitly named by Gartner as a top seller skill tied to quota attainment. This is distinct from AI-partnership skills and is a human-only capability.

4. Deciding which deals deserve human time

Knowing when and where to spend human time should always stay with reps and managers. The time saved from integrating AI into a rep’s day-to-day should be reallocated to these specific human-only tasks to ensure maximum productivity. 

The future of AI in sales

AI is here to stay and there’s no changing that, but it doesn’t mean the importance of a rep’s job will shrink. Rather than spending time on busywork like researching prospects, drafting emails, or logging conversations, AI will free up a rep’s time to work on the more important side of sales: building relationships. Integrating AI to automate traditional tasks will allow for time to focus on work that requires human attention, such as negotiating deals and managing stakeholders.