Skip to main content

AI Sales Agent

The AI Sales Agent is an outbound prospecting agent. Key capabilities:

  • Finds qualified leads that match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

  • Writes personalized cold emails for each prospect

  • Creates complete multi-step outreach campaigns

  • Continuously optimizes messaging based on replies

  • Fills the pipeline while you focus on closing deals

Plan requirements: 5 credits per lead. Learn how to get more credits ->

Create AI Sales Agent

Step 1: Create the Agent

  • Navigate to Agents from the left sidebar

  • Click "+ Create New"

  • Select AI Sales Agent

Step 2: Set Up in Instantly AI

You will be redirected to Instantly AI to configure your AI Sales Agent.

  • Quick setup: Share your website, company details, or a brief, and Instantly AI will build the agent for your final review.

  • Dynamic setup: Review each step and build the agent together, including your business details, offers, competitors to benchmark against, and target audience (ICP). Before moving on to selecting your target audience, you’ll have the opportunity to confirm your positioning. Once your audience is confirmed, review the draft.

Step 3: Review the Draft

Instantly AI will generate a draft of the Sales Agent for you to review. Click the arrow icon to review the following:

  • Who to reach: Review the target audience and ideal customer profile (ICP).

  • What to offer: Review the offer and value proposition the agent will use in its outreach.

  • Writing guidance: Review the messaging instructions for the agent

  • Optional research angles: Review the research angles the agent can use when crafting outreach.

  • Competitors: Review the competitors identified for benchmarking and positioning.

Check the box to review and agree to the AI Agent Terms. You can then make changes directly in the chat or proceed to create the agent.

Once confirmed, your AI Sales Agent will be created in a paused state.

  • Click Open to review the AI Sales Agent in the right panel.

  • Click the arrow icon to open the agent in full-page view in the current tab.

You can also create an AI Reply Agent to help handle incoming replies.

Review Settings Before Launch

Memory

Business Details

  • Business Details: Tell the AI about your company so it can personalize outreach.

  • Competitors: Manage competitors and how your business compares.

  • Business Offers: Define what your business offers to help the AI craft relevant messages

    • Each offer is a free-text description of a product, service, or value proposition

    • Multiple offers can be created and individually toggled active or inactive

    • Only active offers are used by the AI sales agent when generating outreach

    • Offers can be created, edited, duplicated, and deleted

Customer Profiles (ICP — Ideal Customer Profile)

Defines the target audience the Al sales agent should prospect. Multiple ICPs can be created and activated/deactivated independently. Each ICP contains:

  • Profile Name: Label for this ICP (e.g., "Enterprise SaaS CTOs")

  • Problems solved: Pain points this ICP experiences that your product addresses

  • Key Benefits: Specific value your product delivers to this ICP

  • USP: Unique selling proposition for this ICP

  • Customer goals: What this ICP is trying to achieve

  • Success stories: Relevant case studies or testimonials

  • Keywords (include/exclude): Keywords to target or avoid when finding leads

  • Company size: Filter by size (0–25, 25–100, 100–250, 250–1K, 1K–10K, 10K–50K, 50K–100K, >100K)

  • Industry: Industries to target

  • Job title (include/exclude): Job titles to include or exclude from prospecting

  • Location (include/exclude): Include or exclude specific cities or regions for this profile.

Guidance Rules

  • Custom instructions that direct how the AI Partnership agent writes emails and communicates with prospects.

  • Create new rules or add predefined rules

  • Maximum 10 guidance rules per AI Partnership agent

  • Useful for: enforcing short emails, requiring specific CTAs, avoiding certain topics, maintaining brand voice

Settings

AI Settings

  • Non-Autopilot (Default setting): Requires manual approval via Activity Feed before finding more leads or sending any emails.

  • Autopilot: When enabled, the AI agent acts fully on its own. Activities are automatically approved. Configure your Memory (Business Offers, Customer Profiles, Guidance Rules) fully before enabling Autopilot Mode, and enable it after a few days once you're happy with the results.

  • Find Leads Automatically: Automatically discover and enrich new leads based on your ICP.

  • Prioritize leads with buying signals: The agent puts companies showing signs they may be ready to buy first (raising funding, launching a product, updating pricing, etc.). If there aren't enough of them, it fills the rest of your daily target with other matching leads. Like in Lead Finder, each selected signal found on a lead adds 1 credit, and signals with no data are free.

Accounts to Use

Select one or more email sending accounts (or account tags) for the AI sales agent to use. Accounts can be selected individually or by tag group.

Schedule & Limits

Daily Sending Limit:

  • Minimum: 10 emails/day

  • Maximum: 10,000 emails/day

  • Default: 10 emails/day

Note: This daily limit for AI Sales Agent controls both the number of emails sent and the number of leads enriched per day -> they share the same cap. To send or enrich more, you can increase the limit.

Sending Schedule:

  • Start time (default: 00:00): Beginning of the sending window

  • End time (default: 23:59): End of the sending window

  • Timezone (default: Etc/GMT+12): Timezone for the schedule

  • Sending days (default: Mon–Fri): Saturday and Sunday are off by default

Basic Deliverability

Settings

Default

Description

Disable Open Tracking

On

Avoids tracking pixels in emails, which improves deliverability

Enable ESP Matching

On

Matches the lead's email provider to improve inbox placement

Prioritize New Leads

On

New leads are contacted before older ones in the queue

Text-based Opt-Out

On

Automatically append a plain-text unsubscribe line to every email

Slack Integration

Connect a Slack account to receive notifications about agent activity (emails sent, leads found, etc).

Resume AI Sales Agent

Before resuming the AI Sales Agent, clear any actions that require your approval in the Activity Feed. Once all pending actions are cleared, resume the agent to contact leads.

Make sure you have sufficient credits to enrich leads(5 credits per lead in the AI Sales Agent). Learn how to get more credits here ->

Live Feed & Analytics

  • Leads Found: Total number of leads the agent has discovered and added to your list for outreach.

  • Emails Sent: Total number of emails the agent has sent to leads in the selected period.

  • Replies: Total number of replies received, with the reply rate (replies divided by emails sent) shown alongside.

  • Opportunities: Number of qualified opportunities the agent has identified, with the estimated revenue total alongside.

  • AI Sales Agent Performance Chart: Daily email activity in the last 7 days

Activity Feed

Shows real-time actions taken by the AI sales agent. In Non-Autopilot mode, actions require manual approval or rejection.

  • Click the “Recommended Prospects” activity to review and approve or reject actions to enrich leads.

  • Click the “Email Drafts” activity to review lead details and research sources. Edit, approve, or reject the email generated for each lead. You can click the email copy to edit it.

  • The email will be scheduled for sending after you approve it. Once an email is approved, you cannot edit the email copy.

  • Click the three dots next to each activity type to approve or reject all actions in bulk.

Autopilot Suggestion

When the AI Sales Agent performs well and meets the following criteria, you’ll see a 'Keep the momentum going' suggestion in the Activity Feed, prompting you to switch the agent to Autopilot mode:

  • At least 100 leads contacted

  • At least 3 unique replies, excluding automatic replies

  • At least 3 days since the first email was sent

  • A bounce rate of 3% or less, calculated based on the number of leads contacted

Agent Statuses

  • Learning: The AI sales agent is learning, preparing, or waiting for manual approval in Activity Feed.

  • Active: The AI sales agent is running.

  • Paused: The AI sales agent is paused. No emails are sent

  • Draft: The agent has not been fully configured or activated yet

Manage Leads

Manage leads generated by the AI Sales Agent in the Leads tab:

  • Filter leads

  • Sort leads by Ascending (A→Z) or Descending (Z→A) order

View sending activities

  • Go to the Leads section of your AI Sales Agent

  • Click on the lead you want to check

  • Switch to the Activities tab in the right panel to view all lead activities

Download/Delete leads

  • Go to CRM -> Leads

  • Click Filters -> AI SDR

  • Select your target AI Sales Agent

  • Click the checkbox to select leads

  • Once leads are selected, the "Row actions" button appears in the top-right corner

  • Click "Row actions" to open the actions menu

  • Click Download selected or Delete selected

Common Issues & FAQ

AI sales agent is not finding or contacting leads

  • AI sales agent status is Active (not Paused or Draft)

  • If Find Leads Automatically is disabled, the AI sales agent will not find leads automatically

  • At least one sending account is selected under Accounts to Use

  • At least one Business Offer and one Customer Profile are marked active in Memory

  • The Daily Sending Limit has not already been reached - 10 per day by default. Once you increase the limit, click the 'Finding Prospects' activity to approve finding more leads

  • Click the 'Email Drafts' activity to approve or reject the sequence email generated for each lead for sending.

  • The current time falls within the configured Sending Schedule

AI sales agent in Autopilot mode is not sending emails automatically

  • Autopilot Mode is toggled On in Settings → AI Settings

  • Daily sending limit(10 per day by default): Once hit, no more emails are sent, and no more leads are generated until the next day

  • The AI sales agent has sufficient Instantly credits remaining(5 credits per lead).

AI sales agent sent emails on the weekend

Edit the Sending Schedule in Settings → Schedule & Limits and uncheck Saturday and Sunday.

AI sales agent stopped sending after a few days

  • For non-autopilot mode: You'll need to manually approve or reject the leads in the Activity Feed. Once approved, the AI sales agent will start sending within its schedule

  • Daily sending limit(10 per day by default): Once hit, no more emails are sent until the next day. Once you increase the limit, click the 'Finding Prospects' activity to approve finding more leads

  • Approve sequence emails: Click the 'Email Drafts' activity to approve or reject the sequence email generated for each lead for sending.

  • Instantly credits: You may be out of credits(5 credits per lead). Upgrading your Instantly Credits plan to get more credits, and the AI sales agent will start adding more leads to contact within a few minutes

  • The sending account may have been deactivated or hit its own limits

How do I improve email quality?

  • Add or refine Guidance Rules (up to 10) with specific writing instructions

  • Provide detailed Business Offers with clear value propositions

  • Fill in all ICP fields, including Problems Solved, Benefits, USP, and Customer Goals

Related Articles
Did this answer your question?