5 use cases to inspire smarter workflows

I’m skeptical of most marketing claims, but nothing triggers a raised eyebrow faster than someone saying AI “will revolutionize” sales. It’s not that I don’t think AI is powerful (it is—and it’s slightly unnerving). It’s that most of the chatter is about what’s possible, not what’s actually working in the real world.

So we asked sales and marketing leaders to skip the hype and share how they’re using AI in their day-to-day workflows: what they’ve automated with AI, what’s stuck, and what’s quietly saving their teams hours every week. Here’s what they said.

Table of contents: 

1. Turn sales calls into structured, searchable insights

Sahan Rao, founder of LeadAi Solutions, worked with a client whose sales team was stuck in a frustrating cycle: important deal details were getting lost between calls, follow-ups were inconsistent, and their CRM was barely usable. So she integrated an AI tool with the client’s call platform and CRM to remove the friction. 

Sahan shares a few examples of AI-powered call intelligence in action:

• Call summaries. “After each call, the AI generates a clean summary with key points, including decision-makers, pain points, and next steps. Those insights are then automatically pushed to their CRM.” 

• Follow-up emails. “We set up a workflow where the AI drafts personalized follow-up emails based on the conversation. Reps review and tweak the drafts, but the heavy lifting is done by AI.”

• Talk track library. Sahan helped her client build a call library of “top performer moments,” using AI to identify winning talk tracks and techniques to share with new reps. 

• Sales coaching. “Sales managers get an AI-generated digest of key moments and patterns—for example, objection trends or deals missing a sense of urgency—to help them deliver more targeted sales coaching.” 

The impact was immediate: “Within the first 60 days, our client saw a noticeable lift in rep productivity and deal velocity. Follow-ups went out faster, notes were consistent, and managers had visibility into conversations at scale.” 

With Zapier, you can connect your sales tools with thousands of other apps to orchestrate a similar sales op workflow—from automatically capturing lead info and logging sales calls to your CRM, tracking sales chat attribution, and sending the perfect follow-up email. Get started with one of these Zapier templates.

If you want to build an automated call coach so your sales team can get immediate feedback, there’s a Zapier template for that, too.

2. Make clean CRM data the default

CRM data hygiene is one of those problems that doesn’t seem urgent until your forecasts fall apart or your reps waste half their day cleaning up records. That’s why Gianluca Ferruggia, managing director at DesignRush, uses AI to handle pipeline cleanup and CRM maintenance. Here’s what that looks like: 

• Always-on data enrichment. “Our AI runs pipeline health checks 24/7. AI auto-enriches records with firmographic data, identifies duplicates, and instantly logs all emails, calls, and meetings.” 

• Pipeline monitoring. “The system flags any opportunity that goes quiet beyond 30 days, downgrades its probability, or triggers an automated outreach or exit sequence.” 

For Gianluca, AI went beyond helping his team save time. “It makes clean data the default. And that becomes the foundation for sophisticated forecasting, better prioritization, and smarter revenue operations decisions,” he says.

It didn’t take long for his team to get on board with this new workflow, either: “Our weekly pipeline confidence ratings, which we track as a qualitative pulse, rose sharply after launch—chiefly because leadership could rely on real-time CRM snapshots with up-to-date data.” 

3. Scale personalized outreach with AI

Outbound sales doesn’t have to feel like a shot in the dark. With the right data and messaging, even cold outreach can create warm conversations. That’s the mindset behind Lars Nyman’s approach. As fractional CMO at Nyman Media, he built the team’s outbound pipeline using AI not just to move faster, but to connect more meaningfully.

“Our entire outbound pipeline—from list creation to first touch—is AI-powered,” he says. An example: “We run bespoke AI tools to build outreach lists based on firmographics, and then AI writes the initial outreach message, pulling context from public sources like blog posts or press releases.”

The results speak for themselves: “One AI-supported pitch recently referenced a company’s funding activity and inferred where the value-add might lie,” Lars explains. “The prospect replied in under 30 minutes, saying, ‘This is the first cold email I’ve replied to in a year.'”

Lars’s example is a reminder that relevance scales better than volume. And with the right AI workflows in place, outbound teams can spend less time guessing and more time connecting.

Vito Vishnepolsky, founder and director of Martal Group, uses a similar approach. His team uses AI to filter millions of contacts based on their ideal customer profile (ICP) fit and intent signals—like recent hiring, expansion, or tech adoption—and then generates personalized messaging tailored to each segment. 

“AI isn’t replacing our reps,” says Vito. “It’s removing the noise, so they can spend more time strategizing with clients and closing high-fit leads.”

You can build a similar workflow with this Zapier template that identifies sales engagement opportunities and delivers a tailored outreach email draft directly to your sales rep.

4. Pre-qualify leads without tying up your team

For lean sales teams, the last thing you want is your top reps stuck on qualification calls that go nowhere. Ahmad Nahle, head of sales and marketing at Rugged Books Inc., saw it happening too often, so he put an AI sales assistant in charge of early conversations to pre-qualify leads before they hit a rep’s calendar. 

“Previously, our sales reps spent too much time on early qualification calls, often with prospects who weren’t the right fit for our specialized products,” explains Ahmad. “Now, the AI handles these initial conversations, asking key questions about budget, timeline, and specific usage needs.” 

These AI efforts are paying off. “Our sales team now spends 40% more time with qualified prospects who are actually ready to buy. The information collected is organized and waiting when our representatives make their first call, allowing them to jump straight into solving the customers’ specific needs rather than starting from scratch.” 

Ahmad’s also transparent with his client about his AI use, disclosing that the initial contact is made via an AI sales assistant. “We’ve seen higher engagement rates than with our previous web forms. And they appreciate that they get immediate attention at any hour.” 

You can also use AI to determine where in the funnel a lead is and which team is best suited to help them. This inbound message routing template uses AI to send leads to marketing, sales, or support, depending on the lead.

5. Surface emotional objections before they stall deals

When someone visits your site or chats with your team, they’re already interested. The next step is helping them feel confident enough to move forward. Meesha Gerhart, CEO of Redtree Web Design, uses AI to better understand what prospects are really thinking to help them do exactly this. 

“We feed AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude transcripts from sales calls, website chat logs, and competitor reviews. Then we prompt the AI to identify recurring pain points, emotional triggers, and buying objections.” 

Meesha uses these insights to revamp messaging to address prospect concerns directly. “Instead of leading with what we do, we lead with what they’re afraid of and then show how we solve it. The result is warmer leads, faster sales cycles, and fewer on-the-fence responses.” 

Meesha continues: “AI isn’t just making our sales process more efficient. It’s making it more intelligent, empathetic, and human. Ironically, the machine is helping us connect more deeply with our prospects’ emotions.” 

Smarter sales workflows, not just faster ones

None of the marketing experts we spoke to set out to “AI-ify” their sales process. They started with specific friction points—manual data entry, cold outreach that wasn’t landing, leads that weren’t qualified—and looked for ways to solve those problems with AI.

That’s what makes these examples stand out. The AI isn’t flashy. It’s embedded. It’s doing small, unglamorous jobs that free up reps to focus on the parts of sales that require a human touch: building trust, making decisions, and closing deals.

By connecting all your sales and marketing tools with Zapier, you can orchestrate AI-powered automated processes across the board. Get notified about new leads, enrich lead data and add it to your CRM, and craft follow-up responses to customers wherever they are. 

Learn more about how to automate your marketing and sales ops processes, read how Zapier customers are using AI in sales, or get started right now with Zapier.

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