Using AI for Cold Calling: Best Practices 2026 - The GTM with Clay Blog
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Using AI for Cold Calling: Benefits, Tips, and Tools
Cold calling gets a bad rap among prospects and SDRs alike. LinkedIn's research shows that 63% of sales pros consider it the "worst part of their job," which doesn't come as a surprise. It's a numbers game, and getting the numbers to work for you can be tough.
Using AI for cold calling can be an excellent way to make this task more enjoyable for SDRs while minimizing negative responses from prospects. The right AI solution can help you uncover abundant data you can use to personalize interactions for better results and save a considerable amount of time.
Take our workflow as an example. We've used AI to fully automate a four-step campaign for our outbound sequences, which made the outreach process far smoother.
There are several ways to leverage AI in cold calls, which we'll cover in this guide alongside the tips for getting the most out of it. We'll then show you a few tools worth checking out to help you find the best one for your needs. 🙌
TL;DR
- AI cold calling tools automate pre-call research, lead qualification, script personalization, and post-call analysis so SDRs can focus on converting prospects.
- The biggest gains come from data enrichment: richer prospect data means more personalized calls and higher conversion rates.
- Choosing the right platform requires evaluating feature scope, pricing flexibility, CRM integrations, and ease of use.
- AI supports your SDRs but shouldn't replace them. Critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and final call decisions should stay with your team.
What Is AI Cold Calling?
AI cold calling relies on AI-enabled tools to automate various tasks related to your inbound and outbound calls. Such tools leverage technologies like machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and speech synthesis to take over different activities and free up more time for your SDRs.
Depending on the specific features, AI cold calling software can have numerous use cases, most notably:
That being said, some aspects of cold calling are easier to automate than others. For example, streamlining data enrichment and call analysis is much easier than automating the actual calls. While you can find an AI sales call bot, the technology can't fully replace your SDR and it shouldn't. The whole purpose of AI is to support your team so that they can hit targets faster and with less effort.
One of the key ways this happens is through robust data collection that allows for more personalized sales calls. AI tools for cold calling can analyze comprehensive data, including buying signals, to help you tailor your messaging to the prospect's behavioral and other data and make calls more effective.
Still, this is far from the only benefit of AI cold calling. Even though the technology is still relatively new, it can support your sales process in many ways.
Why You Should Use AI for Sales Calls
Supporting your sales calls with AI offers various benefits, such as:
To enjoy these benefits fully, it's not enough to pick any random tool and build your workflow around it. You need a methodical approach to supplementing cold calling with AI.
How To Use AI for Cold Calling: 5 Best Practices
To get the most out of AI cold calling, follow these tips:
Choose Your Platform Wisely
Your AI cold-calling workflow will entirely depend on your selected solution, so you should weigh your options carefully to find the right one. To narrow down your choices, you first need to evaluate your current workflow and determine what specific areas you want AI to handle.
For example, you may want to automate your pre-calling workflow, in which case you need a platform with the following features:
Similarly, if you want to analyze and improve the effectiveness of your calls, you can prioritize features like conversational intelligence and real-time assistance.
Besides your platform's features and applications, you should consider the following factors:
Create a Smooth Transition
Transitioning from traditional to AI-powered cold calling is a considerable endeavor, which might overwhelm your SDRs if you don't take a methodical approach. 😮💨
To avoid workflow disruptions, create the necessary sales enablement documentation before switching to an AI tool. You should also conduct detailed sales training covering all the relevant aspects of your new cold-calling workflows.
As soon as you pick an AI tool, start developing the necessary resources and training materials. If you choose a robust platform that overhauls the cold-calling process, introduce it gradually to avoid overwhelming your team and impacting their productivity.
Make Sure Your SDRs Are in Charge
As powerful as AI cold-calling tools may be, they lack some essential skills, such as:
AI tools can't be held accountable for any decisions, so it's best to leave the crucial ones to your team members. Over-reliance on AI at any point of your outreach process can backfire, so use your chosen tool for its main purpose: supporting your SDRs and helping them close more efficiently.
For example, while an AI tool can help qualify leads, your SDRs should call the final shots when prioritizing them. Similarly, it's best to leave the actual call to a human while AI assists them through feedback and guidance.
Monitor and Refine Your Strategy
Successful AI implementation doesn't happen overnight, so you'll need to set up a tracking system to monitor progress and adjust your strategy as needed. 🔍
The first step is to identify the KPIs you should track, which can include the following:
You likely already track various relevant metrics, so you can compare them before and after AI implementation to quantify the impact of your solution on the sales process.
As you oversee your AI-enabled workflow, look for areas of opportunity and new tasks you can automate. Use these insights to further finetune your automation strategy and minimize mundane work.
Think Beyond Cold Calling
Some AI tools can automate specific aspects of cold calling while streamlining other sales activities. For example, platforms oriented toward pre-call automation help you collect abundant user data, which you can also use in email campaigns.
When selecting a platform, see if you can apply its features to other processes in your sales cycle to get the most value. Generative AI tools can be particularly helpful here as they can produce content beyond call scripts, such as:
Best AI Cold Calling Software To Check Out
Seeing as AI cold calling is a comprehensive concept, we selected a few tools that automate different aspects of it to help you find the most fitting one.
To create our list, we reviewed popular platforms to zero in on the most effective options and gathered feedback from our extensive community of sales pros and industry experts. We also checked out the reviews of different solutions to asses their real-life performance.
Our research resulted in four tools worth considering:
Clay
Clay is a robust sales automation tool that comes with several AI features that can streamline your cold calls. The first one is Claygent, a capable AI researcher and assistant that helps you uncover plenty of prospect data you can leverage in your calls.
You can ask Claygent virtually anything about people and companies, such as:
Once you uncover the data you need, you can use Clay's OpenAI integration to create effective call scripts that include all the information necessary to foster strong relationships from the get-go. You can harness the power of ChatGPT to create and edit text, complete prompts, and use AI to perform various other tasks that can simplify sales calls.
Clay's integration goes beyond cold calling to help you streamline other outreach activities. For example, you can analyze and generate images for your outreach emails.
Want to see Clay's OpenAI integration in action? Check out this video:
Speaking of emails, you can use Clay's AI message writer to create an engaging, personalized email in seconds. It pulls the data Clay collects to create hyper-personalized messages, whether follow-ups or cold emails. 📨
You can use Clay's AI features for free thanks to the robust free plan. If you wish to upgrade, you can choose between four paid tiers:
✔️ AI-powered pre-call research
✔️ Automated script generation
✔️ AI message writer
✔️ Free plan
Dialpad
Dialpad is a comprehensive solution that weaves AI into sales engagement and customer outreach. It comes with a few useful AI tools, such as:
A particularly useful feature is AI Playbooks, which helps SDRs identify and implement the most effective scripts with high conversion potential. The platform also offers real-time Assist Cards to help with objection handling as the sales call happens, reducing the risk of missed opportunities. 💯
Dialpad doesn't offer a free plan, though you get a 14-day free trial of your chosen plan to see its capabilities first-hand. The AI Sales suite offers three monthly plans to choose from:
You can get a discount with annual billing, which ranges between 11% and 14% depending on your selected tier.
✔️ Real-time sales assistance
✔️ Comprehensive sales analytics
✔️ AI sales coaching
Aircall
Similar to Dialpad, Aircall is an AI-enabled dialer for inbound and outbound calls. As for the outreach aspect, it's equipped with several functionalities that streamline sales call workflows.
Aircall lets you either upload a list of contacts or use its AI to find it directly on a prospect's website. You can use the so-called Power Dialer to compile a list of numbers and call them in a single click to streamline the workflow and avoid interruptions.
Other notable AI-powered features of Aircall include the following:
Aircall offers three plans you can choose from:
Keep in mind that if you want to use the AI features, you'll need to buy them as add-ons for an additional $9 per license. Advanced analytics are also excluded from the plans, so you need to buy them for $15 per license.
✔️ Automated phone number discovery and dialing
✔️ AI summaries of previous sales conversations
✔️ Advanced call reviews and analytics
Gong
Gong is a solid solution if your main goal is to support cold calling with robust analytics. It leverages AI throughout the cold-calling process to help with various tasks, most notably:
The platform also provides auto-dialing and AI-generated call summaries, removing a considerable amount of manual work from your calls. You also get a comprehensive dashboard with performance analytics to stay on top of the team's progress in real time. 📈
Much like Clay, Gong offers personalized email generation to help expand your outreach efforts beyond calls. You can use it for a multi-channel strategy to boost your conversion rates.
Unfortunately, the platform doesn't make pricing information publicly available, so there's no way of knowing how much these features will cost unless you get a quote. You need to provide your team size and preferred use cases, and Gong's team will reach out with details.
There's also no information about a free trial, though you can book a live demo or take a product tour to see Gong in action.
✔️ AI-powered sales forecasting
✔️ Call analysis for script recommendations
✔️ Personalized email generation
Common Issues With Cold-Calling AI Software
When choosing an AI cold-calling solution, you should be mindful of the pitfalls that many solutions come with. You may stumble upon solutions with one or more of the following issues:
As you browse different options, you'll see there's typically a trade-off between sufficient features, flexible and justifiable pricing, and additional functionalities that automate your sales workflow. If you need a well-rounded solution that supports you throughout the sales cycle, Clay might be your best bet.
What Makes Clay the Right Solution
As you saw, Clay covers various tasks related to cold calls, such as:
It's particularly useful if you're looking for pre-call automation as it removes many manual tasks from the process and frees up more time for your SDRs to convert prospects.
At the same time, Clay comes with flexible pricing without long-term commitments, so you won't overspend on process automation. Thanks to various data credit options, you can tailor Clay to your needs to get the most out of every single dollar you invest. 💲
All of this already makes Clay a highly appealing solution, and it's far from the platform's only benefit.
Improve the Effectiveness of Sales Calls With Next-Level Data Enrichment
Besides AI-powered features, Clay excels at one of the most important outreach tasks: data enrichment. It integrates with over 50 data providers to help you uncover all the prospect data you need, such as:
Armed with this data, you can execute more effective sales calls and build rapport with prospects from the get-go. The best part is that all this data is accessible directly from Clay without the need to create separate accounts and juggle multiple contracts.
This is thanks to waterfall enrichment, an advanced approach to data collection that gets you the data you need in three steps:
Don't have a lead list yet? No problem. Clay lets you build one from scratch by finding people and companies, after which you can score leads to prioritize those with the highest conversion potential. 🦾
You can also use the Clay Chrome extension for a more hands-on approach to enrichment. Open a page, fire up the extension, and you can pull data automatically or map it manually for more flexibility.
All of these features have made many users fall in love with Clay. Here's what one of them had to say:
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AI cold calling?
AI cold calling uses AI-enabled tools to automate tasks related to inbound and outbound sales calls. These tools apply technologies like machine learning, natural language processing, and speech synthesis to handle activities such as pre-call research, lead qualification, script personalization, call transcription, and post-call analysis.
How does AI help with call personalization?
AI tools collect and analyze prospect data, including buying signals, professional history, and behavioral data, so SDRs can tailor their messaging before picking up the phone. Platforms like Clay use Claygent to research prospects at scale and then generate personalized call scripts using that data automatically.
How does AI cold calling work step by step?
The typical workflow runs in three phases: pre-call (lead enrichment, qualification, and script generation), during the call (real-time assistance, objection handling prompts, and sentiment analysis), and post-call (transcription, summary generation, and performance analytics). The specific features available depend on the platform you choose.
Is AI cold calling legal?
Using AI to support human SDRs on calls (research, scripting, transcription, coaching) is generally permissible. Fully automated AI voice agents making unsolicited calls are subject to regulations including the TCPA in the US and similar frameworks in other regions. Always consult legal counsel before deploying automated outbound calling at scale.
Create Your Free Clay Account
If you want to uplevel your cold calling, email outreach, and various other sales workflows, you can get started with Clay in three steps:
For more information about Clay's features and useful tutorials, feel free to explore Clay University. You can also join the platform's Slack community of sales pros and other experts to see the results others are getting. If you want to get regular product updates and outreach tips for tightening your campaigns, sign up for Clay's newsletter.
💡 Keep reading: Want to learn more about automating your sales process with AI? Check out these articles:
Cold calling gets a bad rap among prospects and SDRs alike. LinkedIn's research shows that 63% of sales pros consider it the "worst part of their job," which doesn't come as a surprise. It's a numbers game, and getting the numbers to work for you can be tough.
Using AI for cold calling can be an excellent way to make this task more enjoyable for SDRs while minimizing negative responses from prospects. The right AI solution can help you uncover abundant data you can use to personalize interactions for better results and save a considerable amount of time.
Take our workflow as an example. We've used AI to fully automate a four-step campaign for our outbound sequences, which made the outreach process far smoother.
There are several ways to leverage AI in cold calls, which we'll cover in this guide alongside the tips for getting the most out of it. We'll then show you a few tools worth checking out to help you find the best one for your needs. 🙌
TL;DR
- AI cold calling tools automate pre-call research, lead qualification, script personalization, and post-call analysis so SDRs can focus on converting prospects.
- The biggest gains come from data enrichment: richer prospect data means more personalized calls and higher conversion rates.
- Choosing the right platform requires evaluating feature scope, pricing flexibility, CRM integrations, and ease of use.
- AI supports your SDRs but shouldn't replace them. Critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and final call decisions should stay with your team.
What Is AI Cold Calling?
AI cold calling relies on AI-enabled tools to automate various tasks related to your inbound and outbound calls. Such tools leverage technologies like machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and speech synthesis to take over different activities and free up more time for your SDRs.
Depending on the specific features, AI cold calling software can have numerous use cases, most notably:
That being said, some aspects of cold calling are easier to automate than others. For example, streamlining data enrichment and call analysis is much easier than automating the actual calls. While you can find an AI sales call bot, the technology can't fully replace your SDR and it shouldn't. The whole purpose of AI is to support your team so that they can hit targets faster and with less effort.
One of the key ways this happens is through robust data collection that allows for more personalized sales calls. AI tools for cold calling can analyze comprehensive data, including buying signals, to help you tailor your messaging to the prospect's behavioral and other data and make calls more effective.
Still, this is far from the only benefit of AI cold calling. Even though the technology is still relatively new, it can support your sales process in many ways.
Why You Should Use AI for Sales Calls
Supporting your sales calls with AI offers various benefits, such as:
To enjoy these benefits fully, it's not enough to pick any random tool and build your workflow around it. You need a methodical approach to supplementing cold calling with AI.
How To Use AI for Cold Calling: 5 Best Practices
To get the most out of AI cold calling, follow these tips:
Choose Your Platform Wisely
Your AI cold-calling workflow will entirely depend on your selected solution, so you should weigh your options carefully to find the right one. To narrow down your choices, you first need to evaluate your current workflow and determine what specific areas you want AI to handle.
For example, you may want to automate your pre-calling workflow, in which case you need a platform with the following features:
Similarly, if you want to analyze and improve the effectiveness of your calls, you can prioritize features like conversational intelligence and real-time assistance.
Besides your platform's features and applications, you should consider the following factors:
Create a Smooth Transition
Transitioning from traditional to AI-powered cold calling is a considerable endeavor, which might overwhelm your SDRs if you don't take a methodical approach. 😮💨
To avoid workflow disruptions, create the necessary sales enablement documentation before switching to an AI tool. You should also conduct detailed sales training covering all the relevant aspects of your new cold-calling workflows.
As soon as you pick an AI tool, start developing the necessary resources and training materials. If you choose a robust platform that overhauls the cold-calling process, introduce it gradually to avoid overwhelming your team and impacting their productivity.
Make Sure Your SDRs Are in Charge
As powerful as AI cold-calling tools may be, they lack some essential skills, such as:
AI tools can't be held accountable for any decisions, so it's best to leave the crucial ones to your team members. Over-reliance on AI at any point of your outreach process can backfire, so use your chosen tool for its main purpose: supporting your SDRs and helping them close more efficiently.
For example, while an AI tool can help qualify leads, your SDRs should call the final shots when prioritizing them. Similarly, it's best to leave the actual call to a human while AI assists them through feedback and guidance.
Monitor and Refine Your Strategy
Successful AI implementation doesn't happen overnight, so you'll need to set up a tracking system to monitor progress and adjust your strategy as needed. 🔍
The first step is to identify the KPIs you should track, which can include the following:
You likely already track various relevant metrics, so you can compare them before and after AI implementation to quantify the impact of your solution on the sales process.
As you oversee your AI-enabled workflow, look for areas of opportunity and new tasks you can automate. Use these insights to further finetune your automation strategy and minimize mundane work.
Think Beyond Cold Calling
Some AI tools can automate specific aspects of cold calling while streamlining other sales activities. For example, platforms oriented toward pre-call automation help you collect abundant user data, which you can also use in email campaigns.
When selecting a platform, see if you can apply its features to other processes in your sales cycle to get the most value. Generative AI tools can be particularly helpful here as they can produce content beyond call scripts, such as:
Best AI Cold Calling Software To Check Out
Seeing as AI cold calling is a comprehensive concept, we selected a few tools that automate different aspects of it to help you find the most fitting one.
To create our list, we reviewed popular platforms to zero in on the most effective options and gathered feedback from our extensive community of sales pros and industry experts. We also checked out the reviews of different solutions to asses their real-life performance.
Our research resulted in four tools worth considering:
Clay
Clay is a robust sales automation tool that comes with several AI features that can streamline your cold calls. The first one is Claygent, a capable AI researcher and assistant that helps you uncover plenty of prospect data you can leverage in your calls.
You can ask Claygent virtually anything about people and companies, such as:
Once you uncover the data you need, you can use Clay's OpenAI integration to create effective call scripts that include all the information necessary to foster strong relationships from the get-go. You can harness the power of ChatGPT to create and edit text, complete prompts, and use AI to perform various other tasks that can simplify sales calls.
Clay's integration goes beyond cold calling to help you streamline other outreach activities. For example, you can analyze and generate images for your outreach emails.
Want to see Clay's OpenAI integration in action? Check out this video:
Speaking of emails, you can use Clay's AI message writer to create an engaging, personalized email in seconds. It pulls the data Clay collects to create hyper-personalized messages, whether follow-ups or cold emails. 📨
You can use Clay's AI features for free thanks to the robust free plan. If you wish to upgrade, you can choose between four paid tiers:
✔️ AI-powered pre-call research
✔️ Automated script generation
✔️ AI message writer
✔️ Free plan
Dialpad
Dialpad is a comprehensive solution that weaves AI into sales engagement and customer outreach. It comes with a few useful AI tools, such as:
A particularly useful feature is AI Playbooks, which helps SDRs identify and implement the most effective scripts with high conversion potential. The platform also offers real-time Assist Cards to help with objection handling as the sales call happens, reducing the risk of missed opportunities. 💯
Dialpad doesn't offer a free plan, though you get a 14-day free trial of your chosen plan to see its capabilities first-hand. The AI Sales suite offers three monthly plans to choose from:
You can get a discount with annual billing, which ranges between 11% and 14% depending on your selected tier.
✔️ Real-time sales assistance
✔️ Comprehensive sales analytics
✔️ AI sales coaching
Aircall
Similar to Dialpad, Aircall is an AI-enabled dialer for inbound and outbound calls. As for the outreach aspect, it's equipped with several functionalities that streamline sales call workflows.
Aircall lets you either upload a list of contacts or use its AI to find it directly on a prospect's website. You can use the so-called Power Dialer to compile a list of numbers and call them in a single click to streamline the workflow and avoid interruptions.
Other notable AI-powered features of Aircall include the following:
Aircall offers three plans you can choose from:
Keep in mind that if you want to use the AI features, you'll need to buy them as add-ons for an additional $9 per license. Advanced analytics are also excluded from the plans, so you need to buy them for $15 per license.
✔️ Automated phone number discovery and dialing
✔️ AI summaries of previous sales conversations
✔️ Advanced call reviews and analytics
Gong
Gong is a solid solution if your main goal is to support cold calling with robust analytics. It leverages AI throughout the cold-calling process to help with various tasks, most notably:
The platform also provides auto-dialing and AI-generated call summaries, removing a considerable amount of manual work from your calls. You also get a comprehensive dashboard with performance analytics to stay on top of the team's progress in real time. 📈
Much like Clay, Gong offers personalized email generation to help expand your outreach efforts beyond calls. You can use it for a multi-channel strategy to boost your conversion rates.
Unfortunately, the platform doesn't make pricing information publicly available, so there's no way of knowing how much these features will cost unless you get a quote. You need to provide your team size and preferred use cases, and Gong's team will reach out with details.
There's also no information about a free trial, though you can book a live demo or take a product tour to see Gong in action.
✔️ AI-powered sales forecasting
✔️ Call analysis for script recommendations
✔️ Personalized email generation
Common Issues With Cold-Calling AI Software
When choosing an AI cold-calling solution, you should be mindful of the pitfalls that many solutions come with. You may stumble upon solutions with one or more of the following issues:
As you browse different options, you'll see there's typically a trade-off between sufficient features, flexible and justifiable pricing, and additional functionalities that automate your sales workflow. If you need a well-rounded solution that supports you throughout the sales cycle, Clay might be your best bet.
What Makes Clay the Right Solution
As you saw, Clay covers various tasks related to cold calls, such as:
It's particularly useful if you're looking for pre-call automation as it removes many manual tasks from the process and frees up more time for your SDRs to convert prospects.
At the same time, Clay comes with flexible pricing without long-term commitments, so you won't overspend on process automation. Thanks to various data credit options, you can tailor Clay to your needs to get the most out of every single dollar you invest. 💲
All of this already makes Clay a highly appealing solution, and it's far from the platform's only benefit.
Improve the Effectiveness of Sales Calls With Next-Level Data Enrichment
Besides AI-powered features, Clay excels at one of the most important outreach tasks: data enrichment. It integrates with over 50 data providers to help you uncover all the prospect data you need, such as:
Armed with this data, you can execute more effective sales calls and build rapport with prospects from the get-go. The best part is that all this data is accessible directly from Clay without the need to create separate accounts and juggle multiple contracts.
This is thanks to waterfall enrichment, an advanced approach to data collection that gets you the data you need in three steps:
Don't have a lead list yet? No problem. Clay lets you build one from scratch by finding people and companies, after which you can score leads to prioritize those with the highest conversion potential. 🦾
You can also use the Clay Chrome extension for a more hands-on approach to enrichment. Open a page, fire up the extension, and you can pull data automatically or map it manually for more flexibility.
All of these features have made many users fall in love with Clay. Here's what one of them had to say:
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AI cold calling?
AI cold calling uses AI-enabled tools to automate tasks related to inbound and outbound sales calls. These tools apply technologies like machine learning, natural language processing, and speech synthesis to handle activities such as pre-call research, lead qualification, script personalization, call transcription, and post-call analysis.
How does AI help with call personalization?
AI tools collect and analyze prospect data, including buying signals, professional history, and behavioral data, so SDRs can tailor their messaging before picking up the phone. Platforms like Clay use Claygent to research prospects at scale and then generate personalized call scripts using that data automatically.
How does AI cold calling work step by step?
The typical workflow runs in three phases: pre-call (lead enrichment, qualification, and script generation), during the call (real-time assistance, objection handling prompts, and sentiment analysis), and post-call (transcription, summary generation, and performance analytics). The specific features available depend on the platform you choose.
Is AI cold calling legal?
Using AI to support human SDRs on calls (research, scripting, transcription, coaching) is generally permissible. Fully automated AI voice agents making unsolicited calls are subject to regulations including the TCPA in the US and similar frameworks in other regions. Always consult legal counsel before deploying automated outbound calling at scale.
Create Your Free Clay Account
If you want to uplevel your cold calling, email outreach, and various other sales workflows, you can get started with Clay in three steps:
For more information about Clay's features and useful tutorials, feel free to explore Clay University. You can also join the platform's Slack community of sales pros and other experts to see the results others are getting. If you want to get regular product updates and outreach tips for tightening your campaigns, sign up for Clay's newsletter.
💡 Keep reading: Want to learn more about automating your sales process with AI? Check out these articles:
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