How to Build CRM AI That Sales and Marketing Teams Want to Use

“Another AI prompt popped up, but it’s suggesting I follow up with a lead I closed last week.” That’s the kind of frustration frontline sellers and service reps are voicing as AI capabilities flood their CRM platforms.

On paper, AI promises to transform customer engagement, boost productivity, and make revenue teams faster and smarter. But in practice, adoption remains shallow and skepticism runs deep.

The issue isn’t the technology. It’s trust.

With more than 1,500 CRM platforms in the U.S. alone, the competition for user trust and adoption is fierce. However, AI capabilities won’t differentiate a system if no one actually uses them. If AI insights don’t feel relevant, timely, or accurate, users ignore them. Even the most advanced AI-powered CRM systems can fail to deliver impact if sellers and customer success teams don’t perceive their value.

Unlocking AI for CRM

AI-infused CRM platforms are designed to guide better decisions, such as flagging at-risk deals, suggesting next-best actions, or forecasting outcomes with precision. But too often, these insights land without context.

A recent survey found that 67 percent of enterprise revenue leaders don’t trust the data behind their AI systems. Sellers feel the same. When trust is lacking, reps fall back on what they know: intuition, sticky notes, and spreadsheets. That’s a dangerous disconnect for any organization counting on AI to accelerate revenue or improve customer retention.

CRM leaders can’t afford to assume AI adoption will just “click.” Without a deliberate effort to build trust, AI will remain underutilized, regardless of its technical potential.

Using Feedback to Fuel Adoption

Reps aren’t rejecting AI because they’re anti-technology. They’re rejecting it because it doesn’t reflect the reality of how they work. Instead of providing strategic guidance, AI prompts often feel like nagging reminders or vague commands, such as “send this email” or “update this field.” These often just add noise rather than clarity.

Worse, the black-box nature of some systems leaves reps in the dark. They don’t know how the recommendation was generated, which data it used, or whether it takes their current deal stage into account. To them, it feels less like enablement and more like micromanagement.

When reps don’t trust AI, they don’t use it. And when they don’t use it, the entire CRM strategy suffers.

Providing Context to Power Confidence

The most successful CRM AI deployments have one thing in common: Revenue Context. AI is only as good as the information it’s given and the clarity it provides. That’s where revenue context comes in. It refers to the unified view of buyer and seller interactions, team cadences, and workflows that give AI the ability to reason, not just react.

Revenue Context empowers AI to deliver more than just action—it delivers meaning. By connecting the dots between engagement, timing, and outcomes, AI offers insights sellers can trust.  When sellers trust it, they use it - and that confidence leads to adoption.

Without this foundation, AI in CRM remains disconnected and superficial. With it, AI transforms into a trusted guide—relevant, timely, and aligned to how revenue teams succeed.

Leading Change with Connected Teams

Building AI trust isn’t about tweaking algorithms. It’s about transforming how CRM systems are designed, deployed, and used. Here’s how sales, marketing, and customer success leaders can bridge the gap:

Align revenue and tech leadership: CIOs and CROs (or heads of sales, marketing, and CX) must jointly own the success of CRM AI. Alignment ensures tools are both technically sound and operationally relevant.

Train AI on local data: Reps don’t want generic playbooks. They want insights grounded in their accounts, products, and pipeline history. Aligning CRM systems with a company’s specific market, customers, and sales motions increases both relevance and adoption.

Embed AI into daily workflows: Whether it’s pipeline reviews, QBRs, or service case escalations, AI should be part of existing cadences, not another dashboard to check. When AI is part of the workflow - not a detour from it—teams engage, adopt, and act with confidence.

Make it explainable: Transparency drives trust. Sellers are far more likely to act on guidance when they understand the reasoning behind it—and can see the results it delivers.

Invest in RevOps and enablement roles: Many companies are hiring consultants who are AI experts, or creating roles like Revenue Architects, to manage adoption. These specialists translate AI capabilities into usable workflows, build trust through clarity, and drive change at scale.

Escaping the Endless CRM Pilot Loops

Too many AI initiatives in CRM get stuck in “pilot purgatory.” They start with promise, only to fizzle out due to poor adoption. Reps revert to spreadsheets. Managers lose faith in the forecasts. Budget gets burned with no ROI.

Avoiding that fate means embedding AI at the core of CRM—not as an add on, but as a fundamental capability. Achieving that takes more than technology; it demands new habits, intentional design, and a shared commitment to building and sustaining user trust.

Moving from AI Doubt to Revenue Outcomes

The CRM platform already sits at the heart of customer and revenue orchestration. AI has the potential to supercharge it, but only if it’s trusted.

GTM leaders who deliver relevant, transparent insights build that trust. By tailoring insights to actual workflows and delivering real context, leaders will unlock the full power of AI for their teams. They’ll enable reps to move faster, act smarter, and engage customers more effectively.

AI in CRM won’t succeed because it’s cutting-edge. It will only succeed if it works for the people who use it.

Kris Melville is vice president of revenue marketing at Clari, a transformational leader with a proven ability to turn ideas into results and inspire global teams to drive business growth. Experienced across Fortune 100 companies and startups, fostering creativity, empowering talent, and delivering exceptional outcomes, Melville is known for building high-performing teams that exceed ambitious goals, while cultivating a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.