The Modern Salesperson Is Becoming a Data-Entry Clerk
New Pipedrive research finds that nearly four times as many sales professionals are focused on logging work as closing deals, with Gen Z bearing the heaviest overtime burden
Pipedrive, the easy and intelligent CRM for small and medium-sized businesses, today released its CRM Trends Report 2026, revealing that despite years of advances in CRM software and AI, administrative work continues to dominate the modern sales role.
The survey of 1,000 U.S. sales and marketing professionals found that nearly four times as many respondents are focused on logging calls, emails, and meetings as advancing prospect conversations and closing deals, while 42% say non-revenue-generating tasks consume at least 40% of their day. On top of this, it’s clear that AI has yet to meaningfully reduce this burden. Fourteen percent of professionals whose CRM includes AI capabilities never use them: 8% because they don’t know the features exist, and 6% because they choose not to use them.
“The world’s most expensive data-entry clerks are salespeople,” said Joe Futty, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Pipedrive. “We hired them to build relationships and close deals, yet too many spend more time feeding software than speaking with customers. That’s not a people problem, it’s a software problem.”
