Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how businesses run, impacting everything from sales to customer service. In customer relationship management, AI CRM tools automate tasks, offer deeper customer insights, streamline interactions and more.
In this article, you’ll learn about the AI features of the top CRM tools to help you find the best fit for your company. You’ll also discover how AI enhances your CRM and how to use it to drive success in every part of your business.
What can AI do for you in a CRM?
AI helps you understand and manage customer relationships by drawing valuable insights from customer data. Unlike manual methods, AI quickly processes large data sets, revealing trends and patterns you might miss. It can learn about your audience and streamline client interactions more precisely than non-AI tools.
Using AI CRM tools, you can analyze patterns, predict customer behavior and automate repetitive tasks. AI algorithms turn complex customer data into clear action plans, helping you engage effectively and boost customer retention. With real-time adaptation to new data, AI delivers more accurate behavior insights than basic automation tools.
Here’s what AI can do for you in a CRM:
Automate routine tasks. AI handles repetitive tasks like data entry and scheduling, freeing up your time to focus on building relationships and closing more deals.
Predict customer behavior. AI can analyze past interactions to forecast future actions. It examines historical data to identify patterns and trends, helping you anticipate customer needs.
Enhance personalization. AI can automatically personalize messaging by recognizing customer preferences. It examines customer behavior and demographics to craft tailored communications.
Improve lead scoring. AI tools can rank leads by potential. They assess data patterns and highlight leads that are more likely to convert, making sales activities more efficient.
Optimize marketing campaigns. AI helps you refine strategies through deeper insights. It analyzes campaign data to adapt targeting and reach the right audience.
Provide customer support. Conversational AI chatbots offer quick, 24/7 service. They handle common queries using natural language processing (NLP), enabling helpful customer communication.
Analyze customer sentiment. AI can gauge mood by evaluating social media and emails. It scans for sentiment, helping you understand your brand’s public perception.
Monitor sales patterns. AI spots trends in sales data. It reviews historical and real-time data to guide strategic changes for better sales performance.
Create sales and marketing content. Generative AI in CRM can create content quickly, streamlining customer interactions.
7 best AI CRM tools to drive sales
Choosing the right AI CRM tool can significantly impact your sales success. Here are the seven best AI CRM systems in terms of features, ease of use and pricing.
1. Pipedrive CRM: best overall
Pipedrive is a user-friendly CRM that streamlines sales processes, offering powerful AI features for predicting deal success, automating routine tasks and drafting personalized messages.
Known for its visual sales pipeline, Pipedrive’s AI-aided CRM helps you track deals and manage tasks efficiently. The intuitive platform is effective for small businesses looking to enhance their customer relationship management.
Pipedrive’s AI features include:
Pipedrive feature | What it does |
A sales intelligence tool that offers personalized tips to enhance your sales strategy – like suggesting the best time to contact leads. Eliminates guesswork, letting your team focus on impactful connections. | |
AI email writer and summarization tool | Drafts follow-up emails and summarizes conversations, saving time. It also helps you analyze sentiment, gauge a customer’s readiness to buy and have more consistent interactions. |
Tailored AI app recommendations | AI-powered Marketplace search engine suggests app integrations based on your workflow needs. Ensures you have the right tools to operate, improving your tech stack. |
AI deal summarization and lead scoring | Pipedrive Pulse provides overviews of ongoing deals. It highlights deals most likely to close so your team can prioritize them for the best chance of securing a sale. |
Seamless integration with AI apps | Connects with AI-powered tools like Google Workspace and Quil AI Note-taker to ensure smooth data flow without manual input. AI integrations create a cohesive ecosystem, reducing errors and enhancing productivity. |
Pipedrive pricing
Pipedrive offers five plans to suit every business size, ranging from the $14 Essential plan to the $99 Enterprise option (per month when billed annually). Pipedrive also provides a free 14-day trial to test the CRM before choosing a paid plan.
Note: To access Pipedrive’s AI-powered Sales Assistant, sign up for the Professional or higher plans.
Who Pipedrive is best for
Pipedrive’s AI CRM is suitable for startups and small businesses that need a simple yet powerful tool to manage sales pipelines. Its intuitive design and AI features help companies optimize sales efforts without being overwhelmed.
Pipedrive is also valuable for large companies. Its scalable platform accommodates growing sales teams, while advanced CRM customization and Marketplace integrations ensure it meets the diverse needs of any enterprise.
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2. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is a CRM tool for businesses looking to connect their customer service, sales and marketing processes. Its capabilities suit large enterprises, including educational institutions and healthcare providers.
HubSpot’s AI features include:
HubSpot feature | What it does |
Breeze | Breeze Copilot is an in-app AI companion. Other features include Breeze Agents – AI algorithms that perform various sales, marketing and service tasks. |
AI content strategy | Suggests content topics based on SEO trends, helping you attract the right audience. |
Generative AI | Drafts emails, social media captions and messages to save you time. |
Automates customer interactions through chatbots for quick support. | |
AI-powered lead scoring | Prioritizes contacts by assessing customer engagement levels and guides outreach strategy. |
Predictive analytics | Analyze past data to forecast future trends and plan more strategically. |
Email personalization | Tailors emails to recipient behavior for more engaging communication. |
HubSpot pricing
HubSpot’s basic tools are free for up to two users, while its three paid plans offer different feature sets, ranging from $20 per month per seat to $4,300 monthly for seven seats.
Note: Some of Hubspot’s AI features, including Breeze Copilot, are available with Hubspot’s free CRM. For advanced AI capabilities, you must sign up for Hubspot’s premium plans or add Breeze Intelligence to your subscription for a $50 monthly charge.
Who HubSpot is best for
HubSpot’s feature sets target large organizations, exceeding the immediate needs of smaller businesses and startups. Smaller companies might also find HubSpot to be beyond their budget.
3. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a customizable CRM tool for managing your sales, marketing and customer support efforts. The software also uses predictive sales and intelligence to aid business decisions.
Zoho CRM’s AI features include:
Zoho CRM feature | What it does |
Zia AI assistant | Automates tasks and provides predictive sales insights and alerts to optimize decision-making. |
Zia Voice commands | Lets you perform actions with simple voice commands for user convenience. |
Sentiment analysis | Analyzes customer emotions in emails and calls for proactive customer service. |
AI-driven workflows | Automates complex tasks, saving time and reducing manual errors. |
Email and call automation | Automates follow-ups and sales calls for consistent communication. |
Zoho CRM pricing
Zoho CRM also has a free edition for teams of three. Paid plans without AI functionality start at $14 per user per month with the Standard package. You’ll need at least the Enterprise edition at $40 per user per month to access Zoho CRM’s AI features. At $52 per month, the Ultimate plan provides extended AI features like increased data enrichment records.
Who Zoho CRM is best for
Zoho CRM caters to mid-sized companies seeking a CRM that supports business scaling. While its features manage complex operations, teams needing a more streamlined approach may require a tool with stronger sales pipeline management.
4. Salesforce CRM
Salesforce’s CRM platform has tools and app integrations for large enterprises with big budgets, such as financial services institutions and multinational corporations.
Salesforce’s AI features include:
Salesforce AI feature | What it does |
Einstein Copilot | Conversational AI delivers predictive insights and recommendations, helping you make data-driven decisions and sales forecasts. |
Einstein Voice | Lets users interact with the CRM via voice commands, improving accessibility. |
Agentforce | Provides AI agents that summarize customer support cases and build knowledge bases for your human agents. |
AI document processing and data entry | Captures structured and unstructured data directly from emails, documents and other communications to minimize manual input and save time. |
AI-powered analytics | Analyzes datasets to identify trends and sales opportunities. |
Salesforce pricing
Salesforce offers pricing plans for different business needs, ranging from the Starter Suite at $25 per user per month to Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited plans costing up to $330 monthly.
Note: Many Salesforce AI features require you to purchase add-ons starting from $50 per user per month. For advanced AI solutions, you must contact Salesforce’s sales department for a custom quote.
Who Salesforce is best for
Salesforce is useful for large enterprises that need a customizable CRM with scalability options. It supports complex business processes and strategic management, so smaller companies may find its features and pricing unsuitable.
5. Freshworks CRM
The Freshworks CRM focuses on service capabilities and engagement tools for quick responses and omnichannel customer support.
Freshworks CRM’s AI features include:
Freshworks AI feature | What it does |
Freddy AI | Provides AI-powered insights and automated responses to support decision-making and customer interactions. |
Predictive contact scoring | Helps identify high-value prospects by analyzing data patterns. |
AI-powered chatbots | Deliver quick support and automated customer responses across multiple channels. |
Voice assistant | Allows voice commands for task management and updates. |
Sentiment analysis | Monitors customer communications to gauge mood and response quality. |
Freshworks CRM pricing
Freshworks offers three tiers, starting with Growth at $9 per user per month.
To access the Freddy AI features, you’ll have to sign up for the Pro or Enterprise level at $39 and $59 per user per month, respectively.
Who Freshworks CRM is best for
Freshworks appeals to customer-facing SMB sectors seeking a simple CRM without extensive setup or training. Larger enterprises might seek more scalability than what Freshworks provides.
6. Trello: best for creative teams
Trello is a project management tool that uses a visual board and card system to manage tasks. Its basic features make it a simple CRM for teams to collaborate on and coordinate work projects.
Trello’s key AI capabilities include:
Trello AI feature | What it does |
Automation with Butler | Automates repetitive tasks and workflows without coding. |
AI-generated communication | Generates, summarizes and spell-checks communications content. |
Atlassian Intelligence | Lets you ask Trello to brainstorm ideas for any prompt or scenario, like content marketing ideas or sales tactics. |
AI-powered organization | Automatically identifies and organizes action items from notes and creates to-do checklists. |
Trello pricing
Trello offers a free tier with essential project management features suitable for small teams. The Standard plan is $5 per user per month, the Premium plan is $10 and the Enterprise plan costs $17.50 with added features for large organizations.
Note: You’ll need the Premium plan and above to access Trello’s AI features.
Who Trello is best for
Trello supports teams that need a straightforward project management solution with light CRM capabilities. Its AI features focus on streamlining communication and task management, prioritizing workflow efficiency. Businesses requiring deeper data analysis or full CRM functionalities may need additional tools – for instance, a Pipedrive-Trello integration to streamline data and tasks across both platforms.
7. Notion
Notion combines note-taking, task management and collaboration on a customizable platform. Teams can manage projects and simple customer relationships in a unified workspace.
Notion’s AI features include:
Notion AI feature | What it does |
AI-generated coding and text creation | Creates text content or custom code using Notion’s AI assistant. |
Automatic card filling | Analyzes to-do lists and tasks and automatically populates cards with the next best actions. |
AI-powered recommendations | Provides quick answers and recommendations for Notion and integrated apps. |
Summarize PDFs | Analyzes and summarizes PDF documents for swift scanning. |
Notion pricing
Notion offers a free personal plan for individuals. Companies can choose from three paid subscription tiers starting from $10 per user per month.
Note: To access Notion’s AI tool, you’ll need to add it to your workspace for $8 per member per month.
Who Notion is best for
Notion is useful for freelancers, educators and creatives who need a flexible, all-in-one workplace to manage information and collaborate. While it’s powerful for project management, companies with sales-focused or customer-related needs will want a dedicated CRM solution like Pipedrive.
3 AI CRM use cases
Check out these three examples of AI in action to see how it can improve your business operations.
1. Starting a targeted marketing campaign
Your marketing team is planning a campaign to boost sales for a new product. Using an AI outreach tool like lemlist, it gains insights into key prospects. The software helps identify the most suitable customer segments, suggesting the best engagement times and channels.
Next, the team uses Pipedrive’s AI email generator to send personalized emails tailored to each recipient’s preferences.
It leverages email analytics software to monitor engagement metrics like open rates and click-throughs, adjusting strategies in real time.
After the campaign, the team integrates Mailchimp with Pipedrive. Mailchimp’s AI-powered insights help improve future campaigns and recommend follow-up actions to boost engagement.
2. Boosting sales performance
Your sales team aims to enhance conversion rates and boost overall sales performance. Sales reps leverage Pipedrive’s AI lead scoring to prioritize deals likely to close and focus on the most promising prospects.
Pipedrive’s AI Sales Assistant gives your reps personalized lead management tips, including the best times to contact leads and suggestions for tailoring sales pitches.
The team also uses Pipedrive’s AI email generator to draft personalized follow-up emails and keep leads warm.
Throughout the sales process, your salespeople use Pipedrive’s AI deal summaries in Pulse to get a clear snapshot of ongoing deals, helping them identify key next steps and predict roadblocks.
Finally, as the team closes deals, they use the AI Sales Assistant sales intelligence feature to get performance reports. These reports highlight which tactics worked well and show where the company can improve, making future sales efforts more effective.
3. Improving customer satisfaction
Your customer support team aims to improve response times and service quality. First, reps leverage Pipedrive’s Chatbot to automate responses to common inquiries and offer immediate solutions around the clock.
As tickets come in, the team integrates an AI customer support tool like Zendesk to analyze and prioritize customer issues by urgency and complexity, routing critical inquiries to human agents.
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Your team quickly reduces wait times and customer churn by freeing up support agents to address urgent tickets.
Observing each agent’s performance and overall customer satisfaction, the team can refine processes to enhance customer experiences and consistently deliver high-quality service.
What should you look for in AI CRM tools?
Not all CRM platforms offer the same level of AI capabilities, so here are eight key features to help you choose the best AI-driven CRM solution. While not all use AI, they work alongside your CRM’s AI functionality to enhance efficiency.
Automation capabilities. Look for tools that can automate routine tasks like data entry and scheduling. Automation saves time and reduces manual errors, letting your team focus on high-value activities.
Customer insights. Use AI CRM software that provides deep insights into customer behavior and preferences. For example, predictive analytics can anticipate future trends and behaviors, helping create more targeted engagement strategies.
Personalization features. Your CRM should include AI that enables personalized experiences. For example, Pipedrive creates dynamic email content and targeted communications based on customer preferences.
Integration options. Check that your CRM integrates with your business’s other tools, including email platforms, marketing automation tools and social media marketing software. Seamless integration ensures data flows smoothly between apps.
User-friendly interface. Your CRM should be intuitive and easy to learn. Look for solutions with a straightforward interface, guided CRM onboarding and a solid knowledge base.
Scalability. Select a tool that can grow with your business. A scalable solution like Pipedrive supports an increasing number of users and CRM data as your company expands.
Robust reporting. Generating detailed reports and sales dashboards helps track KPIs for sales, evaluate campaign effectiveness and improve sales and marketing processes.
Security and compliance. Choose a CRM that complies with data protection regulations and offers robust security features to protect sensitive customer information.
Final thoughts
Choosing the right AI-powered CRM can streamline workflows, enhance customer insights, personalize interactions and more. With this technology is becoming increasingly powerful, now is the perfect time to invest in and master these transformative tools.
Pipedrive can show you the impact of AI functionality firsthand. Start a 14-day free trial and harness Pipedrive’s AI features to optimize your sales processes and strengthen customer relationships.
