Sales Teams Figured Out AI. Marketing Is Next.

The one thing you need to know in AI today | AI-Ready CMO

Salesforce published its State of Sales 2026 report (pdf), surveying over 4,000 sales professionals worldwide. The headline finding is that AI agents are the #1 growth tactic for sales teams this year. 87% of sales organizations are already using AI. 54% have deployed AI agents, and nearly 9 in 10 plan to by 2027.

As our reader following this space, none of this should surprise you. The more interesting story is how companies react to these changes.

Everyone is productive. Time to show the money.

For the past two years, every AI vendor has sold the same pitch: save time, do more with less, free up your team from busywork. Salesforce's own data supports it: agents are expected to cut prospect research time by 34% and content creation by 36%. Fine.

But here's what's shifting: sales leaders are realizing that productivity is a terrible success metric for AI because AI will blow past any productivity target you set.

Of course it's faster. It's software.

Futurum Research found that "productivity…