Is the AI sales automation market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▼ Shrinking
- Visits, year on year
- -38%
- Visits, last six months
- -41%
- Name searches vs October 2025
- -13%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 20 AI sales automation sites I track (DataForSEO estimates) and how often people in the US search for them by name (Google Ads). In September 2026 they got about 1.2 million visits.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 406% in a year while another lost 72% of its visits. See who grew and who shrank, the visits month by month and the name searches, plus what I expect for October 2026.
AI sales automation market demand: key numbers, September 2026
Four numbers for September 2026. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 20 tracked sites. Tap one for the detail below.
- Visits from Google1.2Mvisits-38% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US104Ksearches-13% vs October 2025
- Top five sites72.3%of visitsfastest grower: Salesforge
- Expected in October1.1Mvisitslikely 978K to 1.3M
- The AI sales automation market is shrinking as of September 2026.
- The 20 AI sales automation sites RankDude tracks got 1,174,580 visits from Google search in September 2026, 38% fewer visits than in September 2025.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 104,050 times in September 2026, 13% fewer searches than in October 2025.
- The five most-visited AI sales automation sites get 72.3% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing AI sales automation site over the year: Salesforge, +406% (21.7K to 110K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: Smartlead, -72% (46.3K to 13.2K visits a month).
- Forecast for October 2026: about 1.1M visits, likely between 978K and 1.3M.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 15 October 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting AI sales automation sites than a year ago?
Down 38% on a year ago; down 9% on August 2026
No. The 20 tracked AI sales automation sites got 1,174,580 visits from Google search in September 2026. That is 38% fewer visits than in September 2025, and 9% fewer visits than in August 2026.
The highest month of the last two years was October 2024, with 4,571,702 visits; September 2026 is 74% below it. In the US, visits were 419,812, down 33% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to AI sales automation sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
1.2M
-38.3% on a year ago
United States, this month
420K
-33.1% on a year ago
Two-year high
4.6M
October 2024
US share of visits
35.7%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
Visits are lower than a year ago and lower than in August 2026, so the fall is still going. Name searches (-13%) and Google Trends interest in the term (-20%) fell too, so people are less interested, not just finding these sites less often.
2.Are people searching for AI sales automation sites by name?
Down 13% on October 2025; 104K name searches a month in the US
Fewer than before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted AI sales automation sites 104,050 times in September 2026, 13% fewer searches than in October 2025. Someone who searches a site’s name already knows it, so this is the clearest sign of people coming back on purpose. The term “ai sales automation” itself gets about 260 US searches a month (Google Ads, 12-month average).
USName searches a month for AI sales automation sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched AI sales automation sites by name, searches a month
Apollo.io40.5K a month
Salesloft18.1K a month
Seamless.AI9.9K a month
Instantly8.1K a month
Smartlead6.6K a month
lemlist4.4K a month
Miles explains
Name searches are down, so fewer people are coming back on purpose. Better Google rankings will not fix that.
3.Which AI sales automation sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 72.3% of all visits; the ten most-visited hold 91.3%
The five most-visited AI sales automation sites get 72.3% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: Salesforge, from 21,715 to 109,914 visits (+406%). Steepest fall: Smartlead, from 46,291 to 13,163 visits (-72%).
Growing fastest, year on year
Salesforge110K visits+406%
Amplemarket8.8K visits+73%- Seamless.AI230K visits+3%
Falling fastest, year on year
- Smartlead13.2K visits-72%
Klenty (SDRx)7.9K visits-69%
Reply.io24.2K visits-67%
Nooks21.1K visits-65%
Clay178K visits-65%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.