Have you asked AI with web search to research a prospect before a call?

Assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity can read a company's site and recent news and give you a short brief with sources, in about a minute.

Have you used a tool like Clay or Apollo to fill in a whole prospect list at once?

Instead of looking up each contact, these tools add emails, job titles and company details to every row of a list in one go and can drop the bad fits.

How to automate it

How to automate “research prospects and accounts before reaching out”

Here are 2 ways to spend less time on this, best first. Each comes with steps you can follow today and, for AI fixes, a prompt to copy.

30 min

typically, every day

60%

of the time can be automated

Easy

to set up

Fix 1 of 2

AIBest fix

Have AI write a one-page account brief before you reach out

A research-capable AI reads the company site, recent news and job posts and gives you a short brief with a hook for your first message.

Typically saves about 50% of the time5 min to set up

1Open an AI assistant with web search (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or Copilot).
2Paste the prompt with the company and contact.
3Check the two most important facts against the linked sources.
4Save the brief to the CRM account so nobody repeats the work.

Prompt to copy

Research [COMPANY NAME] ([WEBSITE]) for a sales conversation with [CONTACT NAME, TITLE]. We sell [WHAT YOU SELL] to [WHO IT HELPS]. Give me: 1) what the company does in two sentences, 2) any news, funding, hiring or leadership changes in the last six months, 3) three likely problems we could help with, tied to evidence, 4) one opening line for my first message. Link a source for every fact and say clearly if you could not find something.

Tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Microsoft Copilot · Perplexity · LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Fix 2 of 2

Automation

Enrich and clean lists automatically instead of by hand

Clay, Apollo, ZoomInfo and similar tools fill in emails, titles, company size and tech used for a whole list at once, and can flag bad fits.

Typically saves about 60% of the time2 h to set up

1Pick the tool your team already pays for (Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clay, Cognism, Lusha or HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence).
2Upload or connect your list and choose the fields you need.
3Add a filter that drops contacts outside your target profile.
4Push the clean list straight into your CRM or sequence tool instead of a spreadsheet.

Tools: Clay · Apollo · ZoomInfo · Cognism · Lusha · HubSpot Breeze Intelligence

Quick wins

Have you tried…

Have you asked AI with web search to research a prospect before a call?: Assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity can read a company's site and recent news and give you a short brief with sources, in about a minute.
Have you used a tool like Clay or Apollo to fill in a whole prospect list at once?: Instead of looking up each contact, these tools add emails, job titles and company details to every row of a list in one go and can drop the bad fits.

Who does this task

Roles in our library that list this as one of their common tasks. Each guide covers the rest of that role’s week.

Sales Development Rep (SDR / BDR)Account Executive

HourLeak · the 8-minute work audit

How many hours does this cost you?

The free 8-minute check works out where your week goes and gives you your top fixes. The team scan does the same for everyone and adds it up, so you know which leaks to fix first.

Take the free check Scan my team, $49

Answers are anonymous. Leaders only see team totals.