Fix the AI gap between sales and marketing

From: Selling Signals Newsletter

Date: October 30, 2025

Oct 30, 2025

Every team is talking about AI, but far fewer are actually using it effectively

The Marketing AI Institute’s 2023 State of Marketing AI Report found that the biggest barriers to adoption aren’t budget or access but education and understanding. In fact, 64% of marketers say they lack proper AI training, and 56% cite a lack of understanding or awareness as the reason they’re hesitant to embrace it. Without a clear strategy or confidence in the tools, even the most advanced platforms fall flat.

Lack of education and training is the top barrier to the adoption of AI. (Source: State of Marketing AI Report 2023)

On the sales side, Seismic’s State of AI in Enablement Report paints a similar picture. Despite optimism about AI’s potential to transform go-to-market strategies, only 50% of respondents said their organizations currently use AI in enablement, while 38% said no, and 12% were unsure. The encouraging part? Of those already using AI, 82% plan to expand their investment within the next year.

The lesson is clear: Enthusiasm for AI is high, but execution is lagging. Until teams bridge the gap between adoption and application, AI will remain more of a promise than a practice.

Marketing Signals

🔍 What’s Holding AI Adoption Back in Marketing? [New Data] — Explores the latest insights into AI adoption barriers for marketers (lack of training, awareness, strategy) and practical steps to overcome them.

🔍 Generative AI Has Entered the “Run” Phase of Marketing Adoption — Highlights that 72% of marketers now identify GenAI as the most important consumer trend and reveals how adoption has moved from experimentation to execution.

📝 The Winning Mindset Powering Top Marketers — Explores how fewer than 1 in 5 marketers are in the AI-leader category and outlines the “focus on maximizing advantages” (FOMA) mindset that separates high performers.

Marketing Movement

Turning overload into alignment

We’ve reached peak AI hype. Every platform promises smarter campaigns, faster insights, and effortless personalization, yet most marketing teams still feel stuck. The problem isn’t access to technology. It’s adoption that actually sticks.

The Marketing AI Institute’s 2023 report highlights why. According to this report, 64% of marketers say they lack proper AI training, 56% admit they don’t fully understand how AI fits into their work, and 44% cite the absence of a clear strategy as a major barrier.

Add to that 38% who say their teams lack the right talent and 36% who express mistrust of AI, and you get a clear picture: the tools are here, but the readiness isn’t.

Too many teams are chasing tools instead of clarity, layering one platform on top of another until the stack becomes more confusing than helpful. “AI adoption” looks great in the quarterly report, but day to day, most marketers are still using AI for surface-level tasks instead of strategic insight.

The AI in B2B Marketing Report: Lessons from the Frontline backs this up. According to this report, despite near-universal enthusiasm for AI, there’s roughly a 40% gap between how important marketers say AI is and how mature their actual practices are. It’s a sign that while teams recognize AI’s potential, few have embedded it meaningfully into their strategy or workflows.

It’s time to reset the narrative.

AI should be a bridge, not a burden. When applied intentionally, it can connect data, strengthen messaging, and free marketers to focus on creativity, storytelling, and customer understanding. The key isn’t more automation; it’s smarter collaboration.

The next generation of marketing leadership will belong to teams that align around shared purpose, not shared platforms. Those who integrate AI with intention will finally turn overload into real, lasting alignment. And this can be done by combining human empathy with machine intelligence.

Sales Signals

🔧 AI Is Transforming Productivity, but Sales Remains the New Frontier — While AI is driving major productivity gains across industries, sales teams are still catching up. Early adopters report win-rate improvements of up to 30% as they integrate AI into prospecting, forecasting, and workflow automation.

📊 The State of AI: How Organizations are Rewiring to Capture Value — McKinsey’s global survey finds that 72% of organizations now use AI in at least one business function, with marketing and sales among the top adopters. However, scaling beyond isolated use cases remains the biggest challenge to realizing enterprise-wide value.

🎯 Why Successful Agentic AI Adoption Begins With Honesty and Good Data — How “agentic AI” systems are beginning to autonomously execute B2B sales tasks like lead nurturing and follow-ups. This signals a new era of intelligent automation that depends on trust, transparency, and robust first-party data to succeed.

Sales Action

From AI adoption to real alignment

AI is no longer a futuristic idea in sales. It’s already here, embedded in CRMs, prospecting tools, and forecasting platforms. But adoption without intention isn’t progress.

According to Bain & Company’s 2025 Technology Report, AI has become one of the most powerful productivity drivers in business, yet sales remains one of the least mature areas of adoption. Early adopters that have implemented AI into their sales workflows have seen win-rate improvements of up to 30%, but most teams are still in pilot phases, struggling to translate potential into performance.

Similarly, McKinsey’s 2025 report on Gen AI found that only 19% of B2B companies have fully implemented generative AI use cases in sales, while another 23% are still in progress. This underscores how enthusiasm far exceeds execution. The tools exist, but the habits, training, and trust required to make them stick are lagging.

It’s time to move from AI adoption to AI enablement.

True enablement means helping sales professionals use AI to do what they already do best — connect, listen, and close — but with greater precision.

That starts with small, measurable actions:

Use AI analytics to identify which accounts are most likely to convert, not just who opened an email.
Let AI summarize call notes and surface objections that marketing can turn into better messaging.
Ask your team which tools feel useful versus redundant, and trim the tech clutter that slows you down.

AI’s greatest value in sales isn’t automation for automation’s sake. It's an amplification of human insight. The best sales reps will be those who blend data-driven intelligence with empathy and adaptability, knowing when to lean on AI and when to lean in as a person.

As we enter this next phase, remember that adoption is only half the story. The real advantage comes when your tools, team, and conversations start speaking the same language that builds trust, not just pipelines.

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Mixed Signals

Marketing is sprinting ahead, eager to prove the value of AI. Campaigns are automated, dashboards glow green, and engagement metrics look promising. “We’re operating smarter than ever,” they say.

Meanwhile, the sales department is running on a different track. “Smarter for who?” they ask. Their inboxes overflow with notifications from new tools, their CRMs are bloated with AI-generated insights, and yet their daily work feels harder, not easier. Conversations with prospects haven’t gotten any more human, just more scripted.

→ Translation: Marketing hears data. Sales hears customers.

Marketing’s AI reports on open rates, impressions, and lead scores. Sales’ AI pushes call summaries, sentiment tags, and deal forecasts. Both are listening, but to different frequencies.

Marketing optimizes for patterns, and the sales team reacts to emotion. Marketing believes AI is improving efficiency. Sales believes that it’s eroding connections.

Both teams think they’re aligned because they’re using the same technology, but they’re not speaking the same language.

Here’s the truth: Alignment isn’t about having the same tools, but sharing the same context.

To bridge the gap, create joint enablement sessions where marketing explains how AI insights inform strategy, and sales shares what actually resonates with customers. Establish one shared “source of truth” for insights, a space where marketing’s data meets sales’ interpretation.

AI should enhance collaboration, not complicate it. When marketing and sales use AI as a mutual translator and not as a divider, strategy becomes clearer, messaging becomes sharper, and customer interactions become more authentic.

Because real alignment doesn’t happen when everyone adopts AI. It happens when everyone understands what it’s actually saying.

Meet Our Writer

Bianca Caballero

Senior Staff Writer

Bianca has spent the past four years helping businesses strengthen relationships and boost performance through strategic sales and customer engagement initiatives. Drawing on her experience in field sales and territory management, she transforms real-world expertise into actionable insights that drive growth and foster lasting client partnerships.