Over 90% Indian sales professionals find AI agents critical to business success: Salesforce report

Indian sales professionals believe AI agents are integral to business success, says a report by Salesforce, a cloud-based software company.

The State of Sales report by Salesforce has found that 91% of Indian sales professionals consider AI agents as essential to driving business success.

The survey of 4,050 sales professionals globally included 250 from India. It found widespread AI adoption in the country, with 90% of Indian sales organisations currently using some form of the technology for tasks such as prospecting, lead scoring, forecasting, and email drafting.

Sangeeta Giri, SVP & Chief Operating Officer - South Asia, Salesforce, said sales professionals generally spend about 60% of their time on non-selling activities, including administrative tasks and market research.

The benefits are tangible, according to respondents in the survey: 94% of Indian sellers using AI report that the technology deepens their understanding of customers, while 89% say it makes their work less stressful. Looking ahead, those who have adopted AI agents expect to cut prospect research time by 35% and email drafting time by 38%.

The findings also highlight a growing performance divide. Top-performing sellers (those who substantially grew their year-over-year revenue) are 1.7 times more likely to use AI prospecting agents than under-performers.

Prospecting is is the process of identifying, researching, and qualifying potential customers (leads) to build a sales pipeline. 

Despite already devoting close to one full working day per week to prospecting, 61% of Indian sellers say they still lack the bandwidth to conduct adequate cold outreach; 58% describe 'cold calling' as the worst part of their job.

Administrative burden is particularly acute among younger workers. Generation Z sales reps spend just 35% of their time on actually selling, roughly two hours lesser, per week, than senior colleagues as they are disproportionately engaged in manual data entry.

While 46% say they rarely receive feedback on their sales conversations, 47% report insufficient practice before customer calls.

Data quality is emerging as a key bottleneck to AI effectiveness. Over 66% of Indian sales leaders with AI tools say disconnected systems are slowing progress, prompting 82% of Indian sales professionals to prioritise data cleansing. High performers are again leading the way—79% focus on data hygiene, compared with just 54% of under-performers.

“Today with AI agents we can provide very industry specific solutions, and also there is informed conversation with the customers,” said Giri, adding that sellers who combine human judgement with AI working in the background would be best placed to win in 2026.