The latest State of Sales Report from Salesforce draws the following conclusion: Sales teams in Germany will increasingly rely on AI and AI agents to achieve their goals by 2026. This is because they face rising customer expectations that they must meet with limited resources. Time-consuming administrative processes represent the biggest obstacle to productivity. AI and AI agents are expected to help resolve these bottlenecks: 88 percent of German sales managers who already use AI agents confirm that they are crucial for doing their jobs better. By increasing productivity, sales teams gain the freedom to build customer relationships and drive growth.

“AI agents provide real relief here”

“Sales teams are under enormous pressure: they must meet ever-higher customer expectations with limited resources while simultaneously driving growth,” says Alexander Wallner, Head of Germany and CEO of Central Europe at Salesforce. “AI agents provide real relief here—as intelligent support that takes over administrative tasks and frees up time to focus on what really matters: building strong customer relationships. For German companies, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to remain at the global forefront.”

Sales teams are increasingly relying on AI agents throughout the entire sales cycle

Among the key findings of Salesforce’s latest State of Sales Report are the following points: First, AI adoption has taken hold in German sales organizations: 91 percent already use some form of AI for tasks such as new customer acquisition, forecasting, lead scoring, or drafting emails. Second, German sales representatives who use AI report tangible added value: 92 percent say AI deepens their understanding of customers. 89 percent believe it reduces stress at work. Third, the use of AI agents is growing rapidly: 59 percent of German sales representatives have already used AI agents; 39 percent plan to do so by 2027. Once fully implemented, they expect time savings of 34 percent when researching potential customers and 33 percent when drafting emails.

Cold calling is the least popular part of the job

For 40 percent of German sales representatives, cold calling is the least favorite part of their job. At the same time, the effort required to fill a sales pipeline exceeds the resources of sales teams. Although employees spend nearly an entire workday per week on new customer acquisition, 32 percent report that they do not have sufficient capacity to adequately fulfill this task. To close this capacity gap, 60 percent of German sales professionals use AI for customer acquisition, and another 38 percent plan to do so in the future. Globally, as many as 92 percent of respondents who use AI agents confirm that these agents effectively support their acquisition efforts.

Top performers—that is, sales representatives who have significantly increased revenue year-over-year—are 1.7 times more likely to rely on AI agents for customer acquisition than colleagues whose revenue remained stable or declined year-over-year.

Data hygiene is key to better AI utilization

Nearly half of German sales managers who use AI (44 percent) confirm that isolated systems are hindering their AI initiatives. 72 percent prioritize data cleansing (removing duplicates, correcting errors or gaps, standardizing formats for different systems) to get more out of AI. In this context, 77 percent of top performers place a high value on data hygiene, compared to 54 percent of less successful employees.

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