How to Choose an AI Sales Agent

Outbound, inbound or inside your CRM?

Most AI sales agents do one of three jobs well. Start with the one that costs your team the most time.

• Outbound. The agent works like a sales development rep (SDR): it builds a list of people who fit your target, writes to each one and follows up until they reply or drop off.
• Inbound. The agent answers the people who come to you: it greets website visitors, replies to form fills, answers product questions and books a meeting with the right rep.
• Inside your CRM. The agent works on the deals you already have: it ranks prospects, updates opportunities from calls and emails, and preps reps before meetings.

For outbound, these are the agents built for the job:

They overlap, so look at how each one is set up. Artisan sells Ava, an AI BDR that runs email and social campaigns and books meetings for your reps. Ami asks for your website, then picks the audience, writes the outreach and keeps changing what isn’t working. 11x pairs its outbound SDR with voice and chat agents that call back and qualify inbound leads. If you’re down to those two names, 11x vs Artisan puts them side by side.

Does it find the leads, or do you bring them?

If you don’t already have a good list, pick an agent that brings its own contact data. If you do, make sure it can work from yours.

The outbound agents above all come with their own database of companies and contacts, so the agent can build a list from a description of who you sell to. Artisan’s comes enriched with company and contact details. Ami pulls contacts that match your target and watches for signals like hiring, funding and job changes.

If your best leads are already in your CRM, check that the agent can work them too. Artisan runs campaigns that re-engage existing and churned contacts in your CRM, and 11x lists plays for closed-lost deals and lead reactivation. People who already know you are often the cheapest pipeline you have.

Whose inbox sends the emails?

Never let an agent send cold email from your main company domain. If a campaign gets flagged as spam, the damage lands on every email your team sends.

Good outbound agents handle this for you:

• Separate mailboxes. 11x sets up managed Gmail mailboxes for you, with domain setup, warmup and monitoring included.
• Deliverability checks. Ami includes deliverability checks and mailbox warmup.
• Volume you can see. Each plan names how many people the agent will contact, so you can start with one small segment.

Ask any agent you’re considering: which domain sends, who sets up the mailboxes, and what happens when bounce or spam rates climb.

Does it work with your CRM?

If your team lives in Salesforce, start with Agentforce. If not, pick an agent with a two-way sync to the CRM you use.

Agentforce is Salesforce’s own agent platform. For sales, it ranks prospects using intent signals, researches them across Salesforce, call recordings and the web, writes outreach, answers inbound leads on your website and books meetings with real calendar availability. It also updates deal stages and next steps from calls and emails, and sends prospect lists and account briefs into Slack.

The catch: it’s a platform you set up, not a ready-made rep. It’s at its best when your customer data is already in Salesforce. Elsewhere, look for a sync that runs both ways. Ami syncs two ways with HubSpot and connects to Salesforce, and 11x lists bi-directional CRM sync, so replies and meetings land where your reps already look.

How do you want to pay?

AI sales agents use three pricing models: pay per use, a yearly plan sized by volume, or a quote after a demo. Know which one you’re signing up for before you compare prices.

• Pay per use. AiSDR charges for each person prospected, with no monthly fee and no sales call to start. Agentforce has two pay-as-you-go options: Flex Credits, drawn down with each action an agent takes, or a price per conversation for customer-facing agents. Salesforce also lets you start with Agentforce for free through Salesforce Foundations.
• Per seat. Agentforce also sells per-user add-ons for Sales, Service and Field Service that give employees unmetered agent use.
• A yearly plan. 11x publishes a starting price for its Growth plan, billed annually, with custom plans above it. Artisan builds a plan around how many leads you want contacted each month and prices it after a demo.

Prices change, so each card above shows the current one and links the maker’s page. For a fair comparison, work out the cost for one qualified meeting, not one email.

Is Agentforce worth it?

Agentforce is worth it if your sales team already runs on Salesforce and has someone who can set it up. It reads your deal data, works where your reps already are and keeps the CRM up to date without manual entry.

It’s a harder sell if you just want outbound meetings next month. A dedicated outbound agent comes with its own leads, mailboxes and campaigns ready to run, while Agentforce gives you building blocks: prebuilt actions you customize. The two can work together: an outbound agent finds new people, and Agentforce works the pipeline once a deal is in Salesforce.

When does it hand off to a person?

A good sales agent handles the routine replies and hands hot leads to a rep fast, with the whole conversation attached.

Look for three things:

1. Approval before launch. You see the list and the first messages before anything goes out.
2. Clear rules for replies. Ami answers easy questions and reroutes harder ones. Agentforce lets you set guardrails for when and how it reaches out.
3. A clean handoff. Booked meetings and interested replies land with a rep, with the research and the thread included.

If your inbound is mostly questions from existing customers rather than buyers, you may want a customer support agent instead. Large companies that want voice and chat agents built and run for them can look at OpenAI Presence.

A quick way to decide

Run the same small campaign on two agents and keep the one that books meetings you’d actually take. Pick one segment you know well, give both agents the same target and the same offer, and let them run.

Then read the emails they sent, not just the dashboard. Would you have sent them yourself? Did the replies get answered well? Did the meetings fit your buyer? Not sure you need an agent at all, or just a writing tool? Start with AI agent vs chatbot.