The Top Sales Trends For 2026
In today’s article, James Donohoe, Business Applications Account Manager at Storm, discusses some of the key sales trends he expects to dominate in 2026.
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As technology continues to evolve and AI usage continues to rise, 2026 promises to be an interesting year for sales teams. Teams that embrace new technologies and modernise sales processes will unlock new productivity gains, elevate customer engagement, and drive competitive edge. However, successful AI adoption will require businesses to rethink their existing data environments. Below, we explore some of the key trends we expect to see in sales this year and offer a practical perspective on how to prepare your sales team for what’s coming.
Cleaning up CRM Data
Across industries, companies are investing in AI-enabled selling tools, from predictive lead scoring to automated engagement prompts. Yet, the value derived from these tools may be limited if the underlying CRM data is inconsistent, incomplete, or duplicated. CRM systems are often the core repository of customer and prospect data, so without a current, clean, and organised dataset, AI-powered insights risk being inaccurate and misleading.
For this reason, we expect organisations to focus heavily on CRM data readiness throughout 2026. Teams that want to better prepare for AI usage should consider carrying out a full CRM clean-up that includes:
Consolidation and deletion: Unifying accounts to ensure a single source of truth and removing any duplicate records.
Standardising data formats: Enforcing consistent field values for key properties such as lifecycle stage, industry, and location.
Ongoing maintenance: Regular auditing and checks to keep data current and compliant with governance standards.
This trend isn’t about one-off cleanups - it’s about embedding data hygiene as an ongoing discipline so that AI tools have high-quality inputs to work from. Organisations that do this well will benefit from more accurate AI predictions, improved segmentation, and higher seller trust in system-generated recommendations.
Selling with AI Agents
In 2026, sales technology is moving beyond basic automation. Rather than simply executing predefined rules, agentic AI systems can reason, prioritise, and act across multi-step workflows. These agents are autonomous components that interpret CRM data, make decisions, and initiate actions on behalf of sellers, fundamentally shifting how sales operations are executed. Agentic AI goes beyond automation and provides decision-oriented and goal-driven intelligence embedded within the sales stack.
Gartner predicts that 40% of enterprise applications will include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, and CRM is no exception. Microsoft has been at the forefront of bringing agentic AI into sales workflows through Dynamics 365 Sales. The pre-built AI agents are designed to augment seller productivity, reduce manual effort, and improve pipeline quality. For example:
Sales Qualification Agent
One of the most transformative agentic features in Dynamics 365 Sales is the Sales Qualification Agent. This agent autonomously evaluates inbound leads by:
Researching leads across available data sources.
Prioritising opportunities based on intent signals and fit.
Summarising insights to assist sellers in decision-making.
Drafting personalised outreach messages, ready for sellers to review and send.
The impact is that sales teams can respond faster to high-potential leads, reduce manual qualification effort, and focus their time on conversations that matter.
Sales Research Agent
Another emerging capability, the Sales Research Agent, goes deeper into account intelligence by analysing company profiles, recent news, buying signals, and relationship history. This agent surfaces actionable context that sellers would otherwise have to gather manually. This enriches discovery calls, helps personalise engagement, and accelerates trust building with prospects.
These agents are not generic chatbots, but specialised AI workers embedded directly into sales workflows and tightly integrated with CRM data and seller actions. As these capabilities mature, sellers will increasingly lean on agentic AI to reduce administrative load and improve conversion outcomes.
In 2026, we predict that data readiness, agentic AI, and integrated intelligence will define modern selling success. Organisations that clean and govern their CRM data today are laying the groundwork for AI-driven workflows that will yield significant returns tomorrow. Adopting agentic AI strategically will empower sales teams, streamline operations, and elevate buyer experiences.
For organisations that want to get ahead in 2026, the objective is clear. Align your data foundation with your AI goals, embrace agentic innovation, and transform your sales operations into a competitive advantage. If you would like to learn more about how D365 Sales can help you better prepare for what’s to come this year, get in touch today.
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