Eight tools per rep is a tax no sales leader can afford. Here’s how 350 of your peers are consolidating their stacks and deploying a ‘digital workforce’ to scale without the headcount headache.
Every conversation I have with sales leaders lately turns to agentic AI and the opportunity it represents for businesses. While the excitement is there, what’s often missing from these conversations is the ‘how-to’ element learned by those who’ve moved from optimism to implementation. It’s easy to make predictions about what AI agents could change, but I would argue it’s more important to understand the systems that should scaffold AI use so businesses can truly drive results.
Every two years, we survey thousands of sales professionals globally to understand what’s working, what’s not, and where the smartest teams are placing their bets. This year, we spoke to 4,050 sales pros, including 350 from here in Australia and New Zealand. The findings are clear: the winning teams aren’t just using AI, they’re simplifying their tech stacks and unifying their data so AI actually has something to work with.
If you’re a sales leader in Australia or New Zealand, this matters to you. The data paints a clear picture: while 94% of sales leaders with AI agents say they’re critical for meeting business demands, 42% of sales reps report they’re overwhelmed by tech sprawl and hamstrung by siloed data.
This isn’t just a productivity drag. It’s a major business and talent risk. The cost of doing nothing is seeing your top performers missing targets, or worse, burn out on admin because they’re too busy managing tools to get back to what they do best: actually selling.
The Problem: Tech Sprawl and Data Silos Are Limiting Sales Teams
A statistic in the report that gave me pause was that only 34% of sales teams globally use a single, unified platform. The rest are juggling an average of eight standalone tools.
In practice, this means that sales reps aren’t actually spending their days selling. They’re jumping between systems, manually entering data, and trying to source information that should already be connected. Our research shows that sellers spend more than half their time on non-selling work like data entry and prospecting.
Another key blocker the report emphasised: when your data is siloed across multiple systems, AI can’t access the context it needs to be truly useful. Data and analytics leaders estimate that 19% of their data is inaccessible, and most believe their most valuable business insights are inside that inaccessible 19%.
The user experience implications are dire. When sales reps are forced to toggle between eight different tools, the friction compounds. “Toggle tax” isn’t just inefficient, it’s cognitive overload that impacts your team’s job satisfaction and performance.
Sales experts weigh in on the State of Sales in Australia & New Zealand
Our research shows that reps are overwhelmed by too many tools, and lack of advancement opportunities (often tied to hitting targets they can’t reach due to these barriers) is the top reason sales reps want to change jobs. The teams solving this are creating unified user experiences where reps work from a single interface with all the context they need. The result is faster onboarding, higher productivity and better talent retention.
The reality is that AI implementation fails when a foundation of unified data and simplified systems isn’t there. But I’m seeing local businesses tackle this head-on. Here’s how two ANZ companies got their foundations right.
Geocon: From Manual Grind to Instant AI-Powered Sales
I’m incredibly impressed by Geocon. As one of Australia’s leading property developers, they faced a problem many growing businesses know well: their sales and service teams were drowning in manual work. Case routing for defect management took 6.5 hours. Sales reps spent valuable time manually qualifying leads instead of building relationships with serious buyers. The speed to engage leads with a generic introduction from a rep was up to 1-3 days. Case routing for defect management took 6.5 hours. The issue wasn’t a lack of customer interest, it was a lack of capacity and unified systems to handle it all efficiently.
By consolidating onto a unified platform and deploying Agentforce, Geocon addressed both challenges. Their soon-to-launch lead qualification agent will communicate with potential customers in a human, conversational way – gathering information on their purchase timeline, budget and location preferences. The expected speed to engage leads would be reduced to 5-10 minutes with the agent at scale. Because people are usually assessing multiple properties at once, speed and depth of connection is core to reps winning sales. Geocon’s ultimate goal is for the agent to build a full profile of the lead, ready for a human sales rep and have it prioritise prospects so reps only spend time with serious buyers.
It’s not only about automating tasks, though that of course lets real estate sales reps focus on high-touch, human communication. Using an AI agent changes Geocon’s capacity model and fuels scalability. As their business grows, the agent scales instantly – no recruitment timelines, no training periods, no additional overhead. For property developers operating in a cyclical market where demand can spike unpredictably, this kind of elastic capacity is transformative. The unified platform makes it possible: because all customer data flows through one system, the agent can access everything it needs to scale intelligently, not just process more volume.
Geocon redefines home-buying journey with Agentforce
See how Geocon is constructing a new standard for efficiency and service within property management.
Funlab: Consolidating Data to Personalise at Scale
You’ve likely visited a Funlab venue like Holey Moley or Strike Bowling. With 80+ locations, they faced a massive challenge: siloed channels, disconnected teams and fragmented data were making it nearly impossible to deliver the high standard of hospitality they’re known for.
Funlab’s solution was to unify everything on Salesforce, creating a shared 360-degree view of every guest. By integrating their booking platform with Agentforce Sales, booking data now flows seamlessly across sales, service, marketing and on-site staff.
When a customer books a function, Agentforce Sales triggers automated communications like confirmations and reminders. Sales and venue teams can add notes and guest requests to a centralised record.
While there are clear efficiency gains to be made, it’s more importantly about making people feel welcome. Agentforce enables Funlab to deliver the kind of service that ensures guests become regulars.
Funlab enhances the guest experience and cuts manual processes by 50%
See how the company behind brands such as Strike Bowling and Holey Moley drives engagement and growth.
The Pattern: Foundation First, AI Second
What Geocon and Funlab have in common is that, yes, they’re using AI successfully, but that’s only possible because they built the right foundation first.
They consolidated fragmented tools onto unified platforms. They cleaned up their data and broke down silos. They gave AI the context it needs to work: real-time access to customer information, operational workflows and business logic.
The Agentic Enterprise Opportunity Ahead
In our market, we know that every minute and every dollar has to work harder. In 2026, agentic AI is how we can bridge those critical skills gaps. It’s about deploying a limitless digital workforce that can handle the heavy lifting of prospecting and inquiries so your team can focus on closing without needing immediate, massive increases in headcount.
The teams that win this year won’t be the ones with the most tools. They’ll be the ones with the best data and smartest AI strategy, not just because they feel like they “should have one”, but because it solves business problems and drives revenue.
I encourage you to explore the full State of Sales report, which dives deeper into these trends, with insights from 350 ANZ sales professionals and proven strategies from local companies already seeing results. Whether you’re leading a team of five or 500, the practical guidance on trimming your tech stack and deploying AI that actually works is something every ANZ leader needs right now.
Explore further
- Read the full State of Sales report
- Learn more about how Geocon is transforming sales and services with AI agents in our State of Sales webinar
- Watch the sales transformation at SEEK
- Turn it into action: Get the Sales Leader’s Playbook to Driving Growth with AI
