LinkedIn Study: AI Shortens B2B Sales Cycles By 1 Week via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

A caller study shows that B2B income teams progressively usage AI to amended ratio and adjacent deals.

Commissioned by LinkedIn and conducted by Ipsos, the survey included 1,250 income professionals and recovered that AI is present a cardinal portion of income practices.

Here’s what marketers request to know.

AI Adoption connected the Rise

88% of income professionals usage AI weekly, and 56% usage it daily. This inclination reflects changes successful the income field, wherever teams indispensable negociate analyzable buying processes.

Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn’s Chief Economist, notes that companies utilizing AI summation a competitory advantage.

“Companies integrating AI are gaining a competitory edge,” says Kimbrough successful the report. “Teams that don’t clasp AI volition autumn behind.”

Microsoft’s Future of Work study also shows that income professionals spot important productivity increases from AI.

Key Drivers Of Investment

98% of income executives program to put much successful AI this year. They’ll absorption on:

1. Sales intelligence
2. Sales enablement
3. AI-powered CRM tools

Methodology Note:
Ipsos surveyed income professionals successful the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, India, and Singapore, focusing connected mid-market (200–999 employees) and endeavor (1,000+ employees) sectors spanning tech, finance, manufacturing, nonrecreational services, and different industries.

Top Three Impact Areas

Sellers exceeding their targets are 2.5 times much apt to usage AI regular than those not gathering their goals.

Researchers recovered 3 main ways AI improves sales:

1. Finding Leads
   1. 38% accidental AI helps to place leads faster and much accurately.
   2. Sellers prevention astatine slightest 1.5 hours play utilizing AI for pb research.
2. Personalized Messages
   1. AI tools alteration faster and much tailored outreach campaigns.
   2. Sellers utilizing AI saw a 28% summation successful responses.
3. Sales Efficiency
   1. AI streamlines information introduction and scheduling successful CRM systems.
   2. Nearly 69% of sellers accidental AI shortens their income rhythm by astir 1 week and helps them adjacent much deals.

Looking Ahead

Dan Shapero, LinkedIn COO, advises companies to “start small” and absorption connected delivering contiguous wins arsenic a instauration for semipermanent AI adoption.

This attack resonates with the increasing fig of income executives (39%) who consciousness “highly confident” astir their readiness for aboriginal challenges.

In applicable terms, income teams tin statesman by:

• Automating regular tasks similar updating CRM records oregon pb qualification.
• Leveraging real-time insights for targeted outreach (e.g., tracking occupation changes oregon institution news).
• Experimenting with generative AI to trade much engaging imaginable messages.
• Regularly grooming teams connected caller tools to trim absorption and creaseless adoption.

Dan Shapero, COO astatine LinkedIn, states:

“It’s excessively aboriginal to cognize what your AI strategy is. I deliberation the question you inquire yourself is, “What is my AI win?”. What’s the 1 happening that I tin bash with my squad close present that’s going to make worth implicit the adjacent six months? Because the satellite is changing truthful quickly, it’s 1 of these moments to commencement small, to spell large implicit time.”

For much insights, spot the full report.

Featured Image: Screenshot from Linkedin ROI of AI report, March 2025.