AI Assistance in Sales Jobs Hits 7.2% of Work Hours, Tracker Shows

Generative AI now assists 7.2% of work hours in U.S. sales jobs, the highest since tracking began in late 2024, with adoption accelerating sharply in recent quarters.

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The share of work hours supported by generative AI in sales roles has fluctuated considerably over the past seven quarters. Starting at 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2024, the proportion jumped to 5.18% by early 2025 before dipping to 4.96% in the second quarter and falling further to 3.5% by the third quarter of that year. The metric recovered to 4.35% in late 2025, climbed to 4.93% in the first quarter of 2026, and then surged to the current 7.2% reading in the second quarter of 2026. This latest figure represents a doubling from the year-earlier period and a 46% increase from the previous quarter.

The survey methodology tracks how sales workers use generative AI by asking employed respondents who used the technology during the prior week to report how many workdays they used it—one day, more than one, or every workday—and how much time they spent actively using it on those days, with options ranging from less than 15 minutes to more than four hours per day. According to the researchers—Alexander Bick, Adam Blandin, and David Deming—the bracketed responses create a lower and upper bound on assisted hours when combined with data on days worked and actual hours worked last week, and the series reports the midpoint of those two bounds. For workers who didn't use generative AI, assisted hours are zero by construction.

The rise in AI-assisted work hours reflects the speed at which generative AI tools are being integrated into everyday sales tasks. The data comes from the Real-Time Population Survey, a nationally representative online labor market survey of working-age adults in the United States, and the findings appear in the researchers' study "The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI," published in Management Science in 2026. The fluctuations in adoption rates suggest that use patterns aren't linear—sales professionals appear to be experimenting with AI tools, adjusting their workflows, and finding new applications over time. The sharp uptick in the most recent quarter indicates that after a period of relatively modest growth, AI assistance is now accelerating in sales environments, potentially driven by improved tool capabilities, better integration with existing systems, or growing comfort among workers with the technology.

The current trajectory suggests that AI assistance in sales occupations will continue expanding as workers discover more use cases and tools become more sophisticated. The 7.2% figure, while still representing a small minority of total work hours, demonstrates that generative AI has moved from experimental adoption to routine use for a meaningful segment of the sales workforce. Organizations and workers alike will need to navigate how this technology reshapes sales processes, skill requirements, and productivity expectations in the quarters ahead. Sales professionals may face pressure to master tools that competitors are already leveraging, while firms must balance automation benefits against the relationship-building skills that define effective selling.