---
title: "A clerk before a co-pilot: AI in a sales CRM | SalexHub"
description: "What sales people ask of AI in their CRM, read from 31 published studies and surveys: less record keeping first, and a look before an agent acts."
url: "https://salexhub.com/research/a-clerk-before-a-co-pilot"
kind: "Review"
area: "Sales"
published: "2026-11-11"
author: "SalexHub"
---

# A clerk before a co-pilot

Sales people ask AI to take the record keeping off them, and they want to see what an agent does before it does it. A reading of 31 published studies and surveys, with what has been measured and what has not.

[Research](https://salexhub.com/research.md) · Review · [Sales](https://salexhub.com/research/sales.md) · 11 November 2026

Method: Thirty-one published sources from 2018 to 2026, each read on its primary release and marked with who ran it and whom it asked.

The question: What do sales people want AI to do in the system where they keep customers and deals?

Nearly nine in ten sales organizations say they use some form of AI: 87% in the latest large survey [1]. What sales people want it to do inside the system where they keep customers and deals is a narrower question, and most of what is published on it comes from companies that sell to sales teams.

We read 31 published sources from 2018 to 2026 for an answer: eight peer-reviewed studies, four working papers, three releases of official statistics, three independent surveys, three reports by companies on their own data, and ten surveys run or paid for by companies that sell to the people they asked. Beside every reference we say what kind of evidence it is and whom it asked. Every number below was read on its primary release between 11 and 13 November 2026; the selection, and what we make of it, are ours.

## Key findings

- **Selling is still the smaller part of a seller's week.** In the latest survey of 4,050 sales professionals in 22 countries, sellers spend 40% of their time selling [1].
- **The first thing sellers ask AI for is record keeping.** Among 1,000 sales and marketing professionals who use a CRM, automated data entry is the single most requested AI capability, named by 15% [2].
- **Few would let an agent act unseen.** 16% of 220 B2B sales professionals would let an agent take a sales action without reviewing it first [3]. Three wider surveys put the share who accept AI working unchecked between 10% and 24% [4, 5, 6].
- **Trust thins as the work gets closer to a decision.** Sellers use AI most for customer research (43%) and least for forecasting and pipeline analysis (28%) [7].
- **Leaders trust AI more than the people doing the work.** 21% of sales leaders would skip the review, against 12% of individual contributors [3].
- **Trust grows with use, and stays watchful.** With one coding agent, about 20% of new users' sessions and over 40% of experienced users' sessions ran without asking for approval, and the experienced users stopped the agent more often [8].
- **The measured gains are in conversations with customers.** A chatbot answering shoppers before purchase raised an online retailer's sales by 16.3% [9], and an assistant raised support agents' issues resolved per hour by 15% [10]. We found no controlled study of B2B sellers working in a CRM.
- **Smaller firms start further back.** 24.7% of small EU enterprises use CRM software, against 65.4% of large ones [11], and 17% use AI, against 55% [12].

## Where does a seller's week go?

**Most of it does not go to selling.** In the 2026 edition of the largest recurring survey of sales professionals, sellers put the share of their time spent selling at 40% [1]. The 2024 edition reported 70% of time on non-selling tasks [13], and the 2022 edition 28% of the week spent selling [14].

**Figure 1. In the latest survey, selling gets two days of a five-day week**

Share of their time sellers say they spend selling

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| 2022 edition | 28% |
| 2024 edition | 30% |
| 2026 edition | 40% |

Each bar is a five-day week, and the coloured part is the share of their time sellers say goes to selling: 40% is two days. Self-reported, by edition of one recurring survey: 7,775 sales professionals in 2022 [14], 5,500 in 2024 [13] and 4,050 in 2026 [1]. The 2024 value is what remains of the 70% reported for non-selling tasks. Each edition asked different people in different countries.

The three editions asked different people in different countries, so the rise is a direction, not a trend line. In the same years the share of sales teams using AI passed four in five [13, 1], and more than half of the week still goes elsewhere.

**Much of the rest is keeping records.** In a survey of 1,000 sales and marketing professionals who use a CRM, 38% said they spend most of their time logging calls, emails and meetings, and 11% counted closing deals among their most frequent weekly activities [2]. Among 220 B2B sales professionals, 80% said they lose at least a tenth of their selling time to finding, cleaning or updating data, and 63% use three to five separate tools to research and reach a single prospect [3].

## What do sellers ask AI for first?

**The paperwork.** Automated data entry was the single most requested AI capability among 1,000 sales and marketing professionals who use a CRM, named by 15% [2]. A top answer of 15% also says the wishes are spread across many capabilities, and the release does not print the full list.

- **Research and drafting** Sellers expect agents, once fully in place, to cut the time they spend on prospect research by 34% and on drafting emails by 36% [1]. These are expectations, not measurements.
- **One place to look** 79% say they must switch between several tools to get a full view of a customer account [2].
- **AI they can find** 14% of those whose CRM includes AI never use it: 8% because they do not know the features exist, and 6% by choice [2].

**Figure 2. Of every hundred with AI in their CRM, eight do not know it is there**

People whose CRM includes AI: do they use it?

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Use it, at least sometimes | 86% |
| Never: do not know the features exist | 8% |
| Never: choose not to | 6% |

Each square is one person in a hundred. Professionals whose CRM includes AI capabilities, among 1,000 sales and marketing professionals surveyed in the United States in June 2026 [2]. The source gives the 14% who never use it and its two parts; 86% is what remains. The size of the group is not given.

**What sellers already use AI for is reading up and writing.** Of 500 sales people asked in another survey, 81% use AI for some part of the job: 43% for customer research, 39% for content, 35% for summaries of calls and meetings, and 28% for forecasting and pipeline analysis, the lowest of the activities listed [7].

**Figure 3. Sellers use AI most to read up and write, least to run the forecast**

Share of sales people who use AI for each activity

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Customer research | 43% |
| Content creation | 39% |
| Call and meeting summaries | 35% |
| Forecasting and pipeline analysis | 28% |

500 sales people in software, manufacturing, financial services, automotive and technology, of whom 81% use AI for some part of the job [7]. The four activities are the ones the publisher's article prints. The report page gives no country and no dates.

Work in general shows the same order. Among US workers who had used a chatbot for work, the most common uses were research (57%), editing written content (52%) and drafting it (47%) [15]. In work conversations with one AI assistant, sampled between April and June 2026, the most common result was a document or a report (20%), ahead of an explanation (9%) and an email draft (7%) [16].

Firms point to the same place. Among US firms that used AI between November 2025 and January 2026, sales and marketing was the most common business function, at 52% [17]. Among EU enterprises that used AI in 2025, marketing or sales was the most common purpose, at 34.7% [12].

## Where does trust stop?

**At the point where an agent acts alone.** In a survey of 220 B2B sales professionals, 16% said they would let an agent take a sales action without reviewing it first [3]. Half said they would personally be blamed if an agent acted on bad data, and 14% said an agent could act on their current sales data as it is, without a cleanup first.

**Other surveys, asking other people other questions, land in the same narrow band.** Among nearly 6,000 knowledge workers in nine countries, 10% said they trust AI to operate autonomously today [4]. Among 942 owners of US businesses with 2 to 249 employees, 22% were completely confident that AI can do low-level business tasks without human supervision [5]. Among 2,950 decision-makers in three regions, 24% were comfortable with agents working in the background without people knowing [6].

**Figure 4. Four surveys, four questions: between one in ten and one in four accept AI that works unchecked**

Share who accept AI acting without a person's check

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Knowledge workers, nine countries | 10% |
| B2B sales professionals | 16% |
| Owners of small US businesses | 22% |
| Decision-makers, three regions | 24% |

Each bar is a different survey with its own question. Knowledge workers: trust AI to operate autonomously today, nearly 6,000 people, March and April 2024 [4]. B2B sales professionals: would let an agent take a sales action without reviewing it first, 220 people [3]. Owners of US businesses with 2 to 249 employees: completely confident that AI can do low-level business tasks without human supervision, 942 people, April 2026 [5]. Decision-makers: comfortable with agents working in the background without people knowing, 2,950 people, May and June 2025 [6]. The bars do not rank the groups.

The same people are not against agents. Three in four of those decision-makers were comfortable with an agent working alongside them, and 30% with an agent managing them [6]. Of the knowledge workers, 77% said they will come to trust AI to operate autonomously, 54% trust people and AI to do most work together, and 63% said more human involvement would build their trust [4].

Wider studies of work draw the line in the same place. Across 844 tasks in 104 occupations, 1,500 workers were positive about automating 46.1% of the tasks, most often to free time for higher-value work, the reason chosen in 69.4% of those cases [18]. The level of involvement they chose most often, in 47 of the 104 occupations, was an equal partnership with the AI. Of the 28% who voiced concerns, 45% named a lack of trust in the system's accuracy or reliability. In a survey of 5,273 employed adults in the United States, 52% said they were worried about how AI may be used at work, and 36% said they were hopeful [15].

**An older experiment says why the look matters.** In three forecasting studies with money at stake, people were considerably more likely to use an imperfect algorithm when they could modify its forecasts, and they did better for it. How much they were allowed to change made little difference: what they wanted was some control over the result, even a slight amount [19].

## What would people hand over, and what would they keep?

**No survey we found asks sellers this task by task.** The closest evidence is about knowledge workers in general, and about what sellers do with AI today.

Asked which work they trust AI to do with no person involved, knowledge workers most often named writing code (15%), uncovering insights in data (13%), written communications (12%) and acting as a personal assistant (12%). Asked which work they trust people alone to do, they named being inclusive (47%), onboarding and training employees (46%) and keeping data safe (40%) [4]. Taken together, they said they already trust AI with about 43% of their work tasks.

**Figure 5. No task is trusted to AI alone by more than 15%; three are kept for people alone by 40% or more**

Share of knowledge workers who trust a task to AI alone, or to people alone

| Measure | Group | Value |
| --- | --- | --- |
| write code | Trust AI alone to | 15% |
| uncover insights in data | Trust AI alone to | 13% |
| write internal and external communications | Trust AI alone to | 12% |
| act as a personal assistant | Trust AI alone to | 12% |
| be inclusive | Trust people alone to | 47% |
| onboard and train employees | Trust people alone to | 46% |
| keep data safe | Trust people alone to | 40% |

Nearly 6,000 full-time knowledge workers in nine countries, surveyed online with a polling firm from 20 March to 3 April 2024 [4]. The release prints the tasks named most often on each side, not the full list. These are knowledge workers in general, not sellers.

Decision-makers in another survey ranked their trust in agents by kind of work: highest for IT support and skills development, lowest for hiring, finance and legal matters [6]. Sellers' own use follows the same slope: most for research and content, least for the forecast and the pipeline [7].

**Our reading: the line follows what a mistake costs and whether it can be taken back.** A wrong summary is corrected in a minute. A wrong forecast, a wrong price or a message a customer has already read is not. None of these surveys tested that explanation; it is ours.

What agents do today fits it. In one AI developer's study of the agents built on its models, published in February 2026, 73% of the agents' actions appeared to have a person in the loop in some way, and 0.8% appeared to be irreversible. Software engineering made up nearly half of those actions; sales was one of several fields at no more than a few percent each [8].

**A look only helps when it is used.** A 47-country study of more than 48,000 people reports that 66% rely on AI output without evaluating its accuracy and that 56% have made mistakes in their work because of AI; its summary does not say of which group [20]. Asking for a review does not mean a review happens.

## Who trusts it more?

**By role: leaders more than the people doing the work.** Among the 220 B2B sales professionals, 21% of leaders and 12% of individual contributors would let an agent act without review [3]. Among knowledge workers, leaders said they trust AI to do 51% of their work, and rank-and-file workers 40% [4]. Among US employees who use AI, 21% of leaders and 13% of individual contributors said it has had an extremely positive effect on their productivity [21].

**Figure 6. In three surveys, leaders trust AI more than the people doing the work**

Leaders and individual contributors on three measures of trust in AI

| Measure | Individual contributors | Leaders |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Would skip the review | 12% | 21% |
| Work trusted to AI | 40% | 51% |
| Felt a large gain | 13% | 21% |

Would skip the review: would let an agent take a sales action without reviewing it first, among 220 B2B sales professionals [3]. Work trusted to AI: the share of their work tasks they say they trust AI to do, leaders and rank-and-file workers among nearly 6,000 knowledge workers [4]. Felt a large gain: say AI has had an extremely positive effect on their productivity, among US employees who use AI at least a few times a year, from a survey of 23,717 employees in February 2026 [21]. Three surveys, three questions.

One reading is that caution sits with whoever cleans up. In the same sales survey, 61% of individual contributors said their tools are still held together by manual workarounds, against 43% of leaders [3].

**By size of company: the question has not been put to sellers.** We found no survey that compares sellers in small and large companies on what they would let an agent do unreviewed. The nearest figure is about owners, not sellers. Among owners of US businesses with 2 to 249 employees, 22% were completely confident in unsupervised AI for low-level tasks, and 31% named distrust of AI's accuracy as a barrier to using it more [5]. We found no matching figure for large companies, so the evidence does not say which end trusts more.

**By experience: the line moves, and attention moves with it.** Among decision-makers still exploring agents, 36% trust their organization to use them responsibly; among those further along, 95% [6]. Usage data shows the same shift. With one coding agent, about 20% of new users' sessions ran without asking for approval, and over 40% of experienced users' sessions. The experienced users also stopped the agent more often: in about 9% of its turns, against 5% for new users [8]. They had moved from approving each step to watching and stepping in.

## Where has AI in sales work been measured?

**Where AI talks with customers, and where it works beside an agent.** Four studies with a comparison group come close to a seller's work.

- **Customer support** Among 5,172 support agents at one company, an AI assistant raised the number of issues resolved per hour by about 15% on average. Less experienced agents gained in both speed and quality. The most experienced gained little speed and lost a little quality [10].
- **Selling by telephone** At a telemarketing company selling credit cards, an AI caller made the first contact and passed interested customers to 40 sales agents. Across 3,144 customers, the agents who worked after the AI were 2.33 times as successful at answering questions outside their training, and their customers were almost twice as likely to buy. The gain was much larger for the top-ranked agents than for the bottom-ranked [22].
- **Online retail** On one cross-border retail platform, seven uses of generative AI were tested on millions of shoppers in 2023 and 2024. A chatbot answering questions before purchase raised sales by 16.3%. Refined search queries and AI-written product descriptions raised them by 2.9% and 2.1%. AI-written push messages and advertising titles had no detectable effect [9].
- **Coaching sellers** In a series of field experiments with sales agents, an AI coach helped middle-ranked agents most. Bottom-ranked agents were overloaded by its feedback, and top-ranked agents resisted it. An AI coach working with a human manager did better than either alone [23].

**Figure 7. Tested against a comparison group, the large gains came where AI talked with customers**

Measured change, by what the AI did: sales in retail, issues resolved per hour in support

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Answered shoppers before purchase | 16.3% |
| Assisted support agents | 15% |
| Refined shoppers' search queries | 2.9% |
| Wrote product descriptions | 2.1% |
| Wrote marketing push messages | no detectable effect |
| Wrote advertising titles | no detectable effect |

The retail rows are randomized field experiments on one cross-border platform in 2023 and 2024, each on tens of thousands to millions of shoppers or products; two further uses were not measured in sales [9]. The support row compares 5,172 agents at one company as the assistant was introduced to them in stages [10]. Different companies, outcomes and years: the bars show size, not a ranking.

**Office work shows time saved, and little else so far.** In a six-month experiment with 7,137 knowledge workers at 66 firms, the 80% who used an AI tool built into their email, meetings and writing spent two fewer hours a week on email, and the mix of their tasks did not change [24]. In an online experiment, 453 professionals given a chatbot finished writing tasks in 40% less time, with output rated 18% higher [25]. At a consumer goods company, among 791 professionals working on new product ideas, one person with AI matched a two-person team without it [26]. And in Denmark, a study that linked surveys of 25,000 workers in 11 occupations, marketing and customer support among them, to official records found no effect on earnings or recorded hours two years after chatbots arrived, ruling out effects larger than 2% [27].

**For a B2B seller working in a CRM, we found no controlled study.** What is published is of three kinds. One is a software company's account of its own sales force: 9.4% more revenue per seller and 20% more won deals for a group of sellers using its assistant, with no control group described [28]. Another is a peer-reviewed survey of sales representatives at one health-care company, where those who used generative AI more also reported a more effective sales process, more efficient administration and better sales results; the answers are self-reported and from one firm [29]. The third is what sales leaders say: 89% of 100 leaders whose teams already use agents report a positive effect on sales growth [30], and 83% of sales teams with AI report revenue growth against 66% of teams without [13]. None of the three separates what AI did from which teams chose to use it.

The controlled studies agree on one more thing: the gain is uneven. It went to the newer agents in support [10], to the strongest in telephone sales [22] and to the middle in coaching [23]. Who gains depends on which part of the work the AI takes over.

## Where do companies start, by size?

**Smaller firms start further back.** The surveys above asked people who already work in a sales team and already use a CRM. Official statistics show how many firms that leaves out. In the European Union in 2025, 24.7% of small enterprises used CRM software against 65.4% of large ones, and 41.1% against 88.7% used ERP software [11]. In the same year 17% of small enterprises and 55% of large ones used an AI technology [12].

**Figure 8. Small firms trail large ones by 38 to 48 points, in CRM, ERP and AI alike**

EU enterprises using business software and AI, by size

| Measure | Small | Large |
| --- | --- | --- |
| CRM software | 24.7% | 65.4% |
| ERP software | 41.1% | 88.7% |
| Any AI technology | 17% | 55% |

Share of enterprises using each in 2025. Small is 10 to 49 persons employed, large is 250 or more; enterprises with fewer than 10 are not surveyed. CRM and ERP software [11]; AI [12]. Shares are rounded to one decimal place.

In the United States, 18% of firms used AI in at least one business function between November 2025 and January 2026. Weighted by employment the share was 32%, which suggests that larger firms use it more [17].

Generative AI has shortened the distance. In a survey of over 5,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in seven countries in late 2024, 31% used it, and 65% of those said it had improved their employees' performance. Among those not using it, 57% said it did not suit their work, 54% named copyright, legal or regulatory concerns, and 50% a lack of skills [31]. Among EU enterprises that had considered AI and not taken it up, the most common reason was a lack of expertise, named by 70.9% [12].

For a company without a CRM, the first question may not be which AI its CRM has, but whether its customers and deals are in one place at all.

## So what do sellers need?

Read together, the evidence gives five answers, in the order a seller would meet them.

- **The records kept for them** Logging calls, emails and meetings is where 38% say most of their time goes, and it is the first thing they ask AI for [2].
- **The research done and a first draft written** It is what sellers already use AI for [7], and where the measured time savings are [24, 25].
- **A look before anything is done in their name** About one in six would go without it [3]. A little control is enough to make people use an imperfect system [19].
- **A line they can move** Trust differs by task, by role and with experience [4, 8]. One switch for a whole team fits none of the three.
- **Customers and deals in one place first** 14% say an agent could act on their sales data as it is [3], and one small EU enterprise in four uses a CRM at all [11].

## What this does not show

- **A third of the sources are vendor surveys.** Ten of the 31 were run or paid for by companies that sell to the people they asked. We sell business software too. Read their numbers, and our reading of them, with that in mind.
- **People described their own time.** Every figure on how a week is spent is self-reported. Nobody measured it.
- **Editions are not a trend.** The 2022, 2024 and 2026 surveys asked different people in different countries.
- **The trust figures answer different questions.** The band of 10% to 24% comes from four surveys that asked four groups four things. It shows where the answers fall, not a single measure.
- **Task by task, sellers were not asked.** The split between what AI may do alone and what stays with people is from knowledge workers in general, and the usage data is mostly software engineering.
- **The controlled evidence is near selling, not on it.** Support, consumer telephone sales and online retail were tested against a comparison group. We found no such study of B2B sellers working in a CRM.
- **Two samples are small.** The question closest to ours, whether a seller would let an agent act unreviewed, was put to 220 people, and the source gives no country and no dates. The survey of sales leaders asked 100.
- **By size of company, there is a gap.** No source compares sellers in small and large companies on what they would hand over.
- **The smallest firms are missing.** The EU figures cover enterprises with 10 or more persons employed. Companies of one to nine are not in them.
- **Two studies are older than today's AI.** The experiment on control over an algorithm is from 2018 and the one on an AI coach from 2021. They are here for what they show about people, not about current models.

## What we build from this

Each need below is one the evidence names. Beside it is what SalexHub does about it today, with the page that shows it. Where we have nothing to show, the row says so.

| The need | What SalexHub does today | Where to see it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Records that keep themselves | Tell the Agent what was agreed on a call, and it writes each task on the customer's record with who does it and by when. | [Set up the tasks after a call](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/tasks-after-a-call.md) |
| A first draft, not a blank page | The Agent drafts the first reply to a new request from the deal. You edit it if you like, and send it from your own address. | [Reply to a new request](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/reply-to-a-request.md) |
| A look before anything is done in your name | A change the Agent proposes arrives as a card that shows what will change. You say yes or no, and an email can be edited on its card before it goes. | [The Agent](https://salexhub.com/product/agent.md) |
| A line that follows the risk | How far the Agent goes on its own has four steps: ask every time, edit records, edit and send, full autonomy. Changes to who sees and does what, and bulk exports, wait for a person at every step. | [Stay in control](https://salexhub.com/solutions/stay-in-control.md) |
| Different trust for different people | The Owner sets how far the Agent may go for the whole organization, a narrower limit for a role, and a different one for a named person. Anyone can narrow it for one conversation. | [Autonomy and approvals, in the docs](https://salexhub.com/docs/agent/autonomy.md) |
| A record of what it did | Each change is written on the record and in the conversation, marked as approved by you or run without a click. Undo takes back the record changes of one answer, and the audit log keeps each act, including what was refused. | [Control and audit](https://salexhub.com/platform/control.md) |
| A named person where the blame would land | You set the largest discount and who approves above it. The Agent drafts within the limit, and a quote over it waits for the person the rule names. | [Hold quotes with a big discount for approval](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/discount-approval.md) |
| Customers and deals in one place first | Bring companies, contacts, deals and activities in from a spreadsheet or your old CRM. You see how many rows are ready, with look-alikes flagged, before anything is written, and one action takes the import back. | [Bring your customers in](https://salexhub.com/use-cases/bring-customers-in.md) |
| Proof in numbers | We have not measured what the Agent saves in a seller's week. Until we do, we make no claim about it. | Nothing to show yet |

## References

1. Salesforce. [The Productivity Gap: New Survey Shows 9 in 10 Sellers Are Betting on AI and Agents To Help](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/state-of-sales-report-announcement-2026/). Salesforce News, State of Sales, 7th edition, 3 February 2026. Vendor survey. 4,050 sales professionals in 22 countries, surveyed from August to September 2025.
2. Pipedrive. [The modern salesperson is becoming a data-entry clerk](https://www.pipedrive.com/en/newsroom/the-modern-salesperson-is-becoming-a-data-entry-clerk). Pipedrive newsroom, CRM Trends Report 2026, 4 August 2026. Vendor survey. 1,000 sales and marketing professionals in the United States who use a CRM, surveyed online in June 2026.
3. Firmable. [The agent-ready revenue team](https://firmable.ai/resources/blog/the-agent-ready-revenue-team/). Firmable blog, 9 September 2026. Vendor survey. 220 B2B sales professionals, from frontline sellers to senior leaders. Country and dates are not stated.
4. Salesforce. [77% of Workers Trust an Autonomous AI Future. Humans Are Critical to Getting There.](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/autonomous-ai-research/). Salesforce News, 26 June 2024. Vendor survey. Nearly 6,000 full-time knowledge workers in nine countries, surveyed online with YouGov from 20 March to 3 April 2024.
5. Bluevine. [AI is everywhere in small business, but most owners say it's not delivering](https://www.bluevine.com/blog/small-business-ai-trends-report-2026). Bluevine blog, 2026 Small Business AI Trends Report, 15 July 2026. Vendor survey. 942 owners of US businesses with 2 to 249 employees, surveyed by Centiment from 7 to 9 April 2026. Unweighted.
6. Workday. [AI Agents Are Here, But Don't Call Them Boss](https://newsroom.workday.com/2025-08-12-New-Workday-Global-Research-AI-Agents-Are-Here-But-Dont-Call-Them-Boss). Workday newsroom, 12 August 2025. Vendor survey. 2,950 full-time decision-makers and software implementation leaders in three regions, surveyed by Hanover Research in May and June 2025.
7. CaptivateIQ. [Sales Reps Trust AI to Write Their Emails. They Don't Trust It to Run Their Pipeline.](https://www.captivateiq.com/multiplier/stories/sales-reps-trust-ai-to-write-their-emails-they-dont-trust-it-to-run-their-pipeline). CaptivateIQ Multiplier, on the 2026 State of Sales Report, 4 September 2026. Vendor survey. 500 sales people in software, manufacturing, financial services, automotive and technology. The report page gives no country and no dates.
8. Anthropic. [Measuring AI agent autonomy in practice](https://www.anthropic.com/research/measuring-agent-autonomy). Anthropic Research, 18 February 2026. Company research. Sessions with the company's own coding agent, and the actions of agents built on its models by developers.
9. Fang, Yuan, Zhang, Donati and Sarvary. [Generative Artificial Intelligence and Sales Productivity: Field Experiments in Online Retail](https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2026.00623). Management Science, published online ahead of print, 6 November 2026. Peer-reviewed study. Shoppers and products on one cross-border online retail platform, in randomized field experiments of seven uses of AI in 2023 and 2024.
10. Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond. [Generative AI at Work](https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v140y2025i2p889-942..html). The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(2), pages 889 to 942, 2025. Peer-reviewed study. 5,172 customer-support agents at one company.
11. Eurostat. [E-business integration](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=E-business_integration). Statistics Explained, 2025 data, extracted in May 2026. Official source. EU enterprises with 10 or more persons employed.
12. Eurostat. [Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Use_of_artificial_intelligence_in_enterprises). Statistics Explained, 2025 data, extracted in December 2025. Official source. EU enterprises with 10 or more persons employed; 157,000 of 1.53 million were surveyed.
13. Salesforce. [Salesforce Report: Sales Teams Using AI 1.3x More Likely to See Revenue Increase](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/sales-ai-statistics-2024/). Salesforce News, State of Sales, 6th edition, 25 July 2024. Vendor survey. 5,500 sales professionals in 27 countries, surveyed from 8 March to 18 April 2024.
14. Salesforce. [New Research Reveals Sales Reps Need a Productivity Overhaul](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/sales-research-2023/). Salesforce News, State of Sales, 5th edition, 8 December 2022. Vendor survey. 7,775 sales professionals in 38 countries, surveyed from 24 August to 30 September 2022.
15. Pew Research Center. [U.S. Workers Are More Worried Than Hopeful About Future AI Use in the Workplace](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/02/25/u-s-workers-are-more-worried-than-hopeful-about-future-ai-use-in-the-workplace/). Washington, D.C., 25 February 2025. Independent survey. 5,273 employed adults in the United States, surveyed from 7 to 13 October 2024.
16. Anthropic. [Anthropic Economic Index report: Cadences](https://www.anthropic.com/research/economic-index-june-2026-report). Anthropic Research, 26 June 2026. Company research. Conversations with the company's own assistant, sampled between 10 April and 10 June 2026.
17. Bonney, Breaux, Dinlersoz, Foster, Haltiwanger and Pande. [The Microstructure of AI Diffusion: Evidence from Firms, Business Functions, and Worker Tasks](https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2026/adrm/CES-WP-26-25.html). US Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies, Working Paper CES-26-25, April 2026. Working paper. US firms in the AI supplement of the Business Trends and Outlook Survey, November 2025 to January 2026.
18. Shao, Zope, Jiang, Pei, Nguyen, Brynjolfsson and Yang. [Future of Work with AI Agents: Auditing Automation and Augmentation Potential across the U.S. Workforce](https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06576). arXiv:2506.06576, version 3, 2025, revised February 2026. Working paper. 1,500 workers in 104 occupations, asked about 844 tasks.
19. Dietvorst, Simmons and Massey. [Overcoming Algorithm Aversion: People Will Use Imperfect Algorithms If They Can (Even Slightly) Modify Them](https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2643). Management Science, 64(3), pages 1155 to 1170, 2018. Peer-reviewed study. Participants in three forecasting studies with money at stake.
20. Gillespie, Lockey, Ward, Macdade and Hassed. [Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence: A global study 2025](https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/ai-and-technology/trust-attitudes-and-use-of-ai.html). The University of Melbourne and KPMG, 2025. Independent survey. More than 48,000 people in 47 countries, surveyed from November 2024 to mid January 2025. Led by a university, with a consulting firm.
21. Gallup. [Rising AI Adoption Spurs Workforce Changes](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/704225/rising-ai-adoption-spurs-workforce-changes.aspx). Gallup Workplace, 12 April 2026. Independent survey. 23,717 employees in the United States, surveyed from 4 to 19 February 2026.
22. Jia, Luo, Fang and Liao. [When and How Artificial Intelligence Augments Employee Creativity](https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2022.0426). Academy of Management Journal, 67(1), pages 5 to 32, 2024. Peer-reviewed study. 3,144 customers and 40 sales agents at one telemarketing company selling credit cards, in a field experiment.
23. Luo, Qin, Fang and Qu. [Artificial Intelligence Coaches for Sales Agents: Caveats and Solutions](https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242920956676). Journal of Marketing, 85(2), pages 14 to 32, 2021. Peer-reviewed study. Sales agents in a series of randomized field experiments.
24. Dillon, Jaffe, Immorlica and Stanton. [Shifting Work Patterns with Generative AI](https://www.nber.org/papers/w33795). NBER Working Paper 33795, May 2025, revised November 2025. Working paper. 7,137 knowledge workers at 66 firms, in a six-month randomized field experiment.
25. Noy and Zhang. [Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh2586). Science, 381(6654), pages 187 to 192, 14 July 2023. Peer-reviewed study. 453 college-educated professionals, in a preregistered online experiment.
26. Dell'Acqua, Ayoubi, Lifshitz, Sadun, Mollick, Mollick, Han, Goldman, Nair, Taub and Lakhani. [The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI and Teamwork](https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2025.20702). Organization Science, 37(4), pages 1217 to 1242, 2026. Peer-reviewed study. 791 professionals at one consumer goods company, in a preregistered field experiment.
27. Humlum and Vestergaard. [Still Waters, Rapid Currents: Early Labor Market Transformation under Generative AI](https://www.nber.org/papers/w33777). NBER Working Paper 33777, May 2025, revised March 2026. Working paper. About 25,000 workers at 7,000 workplaces in 11 occupations in Denmark, surveyed in late 2024 and linked to official records.
28. Microsoft. [How we measured the business impact of Copilot on sales at Microsoft](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365copilotblog/how-we-measured-the-business-impact-of-copilot-on-sales-at-microsoft/4402144). Microsoft 365 Copilot Blog, 11 April 2025. Company research. The company's own sales organization. No control group is described.
29. Rodriguez, Deeter-Schmelz and Krush. [The impact of generative AI technology on B2B sales process and performance: an empirical study](https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim-02-2025-0097). Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 40(10), pages 2013 to 2027, 2025. Peer-reviewed study. Sales representatives at one health-care company, by online survey. Self-reported.
30. Oliver Wyman. [Agentic AI's impact on sales growth is getting real](https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2026/jun/agentic-ai-drives-sales-growth-productivity.html). Oliver Wyman Insights, with proSapient, June 2026. Vendor survey. 100 sales leaders at companies already using agents in sales, asked through an expert network. Countries and dates are not stated.
31. OECD. [Generative AI and the SME Workforce: New Survey Evidence](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/generative-ai-and-the-sme-workforce_2d08b99d-en.html). OECD Publishing, 5 November 2025. Official source. Over 5,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom, surveyed in late 2024.

Eurostat data are reused with the source acknowledged. Where a share is rounded, the caption of its figure says so.

Generative AI and the SME Workforce: New Survey Evidence © OECD 2025, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Its numbers are restated here in our words.

Agentic AI's impact on sales growth is getting real. Source: Oliver Wyman.

No source listed here took part in this piece, and none endorses SalexHub or its products.

### Kinds of evidence in this piece

- Peer-reviewed study (8): Published in a journal after review by other researchers.
- Official source (3): Statistics or rules published by a public authority.
- Working paper (4): Research released before peer review.
- Independent survey (3): A survey by an organization that sells nothing to the people it asked.
- Company research (3): A company's study of its own data.
- Vendor survey (10): A survey run or paid for by a company that sells to the people it asked.

## Changes

- 11 November 2026: First published.

## Cite this piece

SalexHub (2026). A clerk before a co-pilot. https://salexhub.com/research/a-clerk-before-a-co-pilot

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