Clay Scales GTM Engineering and Salesloft Unifies Predictive Revenue — May 2026
Clay scales its workforce to 375 employees and launches Claygent Builder to automate autonomous research workflows for GTM teams. Salesloft formalizes its repositioning as a unified predictive revenue entity following the Clari merger and the deployment of its Sally AI concierge.
Clay scales to 375 employees and launches Claygent Builder while Salesloft deploys Sally AI to unify predictive revenue workflows for 4,000 organizations.
Key Findings
- Clay hires 33 new staff in April and launches Claygent Builder — signaling a shift toward high-scale enterprise operations.
Source: Clay · globenewswire.com · , Clay · clay.com · , Clay · clay.com ·
Clay— Clay Current State: Strategic Partnerships with Lusha and Enigma for Enhanced Data Depth“Buy data from 150+ providers in one place”
- 150+
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 98%
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 85%
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Clay— Clay Current State: Bulk Enrichment for Salesforce with 10M+ Record Capacity“Enrich more than 50K records at once”
- 10M+
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 50K
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 1,000
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Clay— Clay Current State: $100M ARR Milestone with 200% Enterprise Net Revenue Retention- $100M
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 200%
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- $3.1B
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- Salesloft deploys Sally AI Concierge — moving beyond chat to interpret buyer intent across the Clari-Salesloft ecosystem.
Source: ZoomInfo · benzinga.com · , Clay · clay.com · , Lusha · lusha.com ·
ZoomInfo— ZoomInfo Features JPMorgan Analyst Coverage as a Top Enterprise AI Application-Layer Play“JPMorgan sees ZoomInfo rallying more than 214%... The common thread? All three are increasingly embedding AI directly into enterprise workflows”
- 214% upside
($11 - $3.50) / $3.50 = 214.2%
Baseline: Trading around $3.50 a share
Confidence: verified
Clay— Clay Current State: Bulk Enrichment for Salesforce with 10M+ Record Capacity“Enrich more than 50K records at once”
- 10M+
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 50K
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 1,000
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Lusha— Lusha Maintains R&D and Enterprise Sales Hiring Focus in Tel Aviv and Boston“Customer SupportHQHRMarketingProduct AnalyticsR&DSales”
- 6 roles
Count of: Data Engineer, Data Infra Tech Lead, R&D Director, Senior Backend Developer, Senior BI Data Engineer, Senior Data Analyst
Baseline: verbatim list of R&D roles in careers portal
Confidence: verified
- 3 roles
Count of: Mid-Market & Enterprise AE, SMB AE, Solutions Engineer
Baseline: verbatim list of Sales roles in careers portal
Confidence: verified
- Apollo.io launches a ChatGPT application — embedding GTM intelligence directly into OpenAI's interface for lead generation.
Source: Cognism · youtube.com · , Seamless.AI · seamless.ai · , Lusha · tipranks.com ·
Cognism— Cognism Cognism Thought Leadership Addresses Intent Signal Integrity and Security Bot Interference“On this week's Sales Signals podcast, Conran Design Group 's Naomi Wallis joins Shivan Pillay to explore... managing false intent signals”
“It's the security bots who are scanning everything that give you a false open rate.”
Seamless.AI— Seamless.AI Conducts High-Level Marketing Recruitment for Demand Generation and Search“Product Marketer - Remote US... Senior Director of Demand Generation - Remote US... Sr. Paid Search Manager”
- 3
Count of: Product Marketer, Senior Director of Demand Generation, Sr. Paid Search Manager
Baseline: Roles listed under Marketing category on careers page
Confidence: verified
Lusha— Lusha Partners with Scalestack for AI GTM Orchestration and Launches Claude AI Connector“Lusha also announced a partnership with Scalestack to embed its B2B data into an AI-driven, agentic workflow engine”
“native connector for Anthropic’s Claude AI extend Lusha’s reach across more than 3,000 applications”
- 300M+ profiles
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: verified
- 40M+ companies
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: verified
- 98%
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: verified
- Artisan achieves viral engagement with its Ava 2.0 campaign — using aggressive messaging to drive 5x outreach capacity for users.
Source: ZoomInfo · linkedin.com · , Clay · clay.com · , Cognism · g2.com ·
ZoomInfo— ZoomInfo Operates Native Integration with Nooks for AI-Powered Sales Dialing“Our newest integration with Nooks is live! Now, when your reps dial through Nooks, they can work with verified ZoomInfo data.”
Clay— Clay Current State: $100M ARR Milestone with 200% Enterprise Net Revenue Retention- $100M
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 200%
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- $3.1B
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Cognism— Users Report Migrating to Cognism for Superior EMEA Data and Competitive US Pricing“Apollo didn't have much of data available for US Leads”
“Better, more accurate EU data and more competitive pricing”
- 3 reports
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 2 reports
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- Instantly reaches 1 million users and launches SuperSearch Signals — surfacing 5.8M weekly intent triggers to compete with data providers.
Source: ZoomInfo · linkedin.com · , Cognism · youtube.com · , Cognism · g2.com ·
ZoomInfo— ZoomInfo Operates Native Integration with Nooks for AI-Powered Sales Dialing“Our newest integration with Nooks is live! Now, when your reps dial through Nooks, they can work with verified ZoomInfo data.”
Cognism— Cognism Cognism Thought Leadership Addresses Intent Signal Integrity and Security Bot Interference“On this week's Sales Signals podcast, Conran Design Group 's Naomi Wallis joins Shivan Pillay to explore... managing false intent signals”
“It's the security bots who are scanning everything that give you a false open rate.”
Cognism— Cognism User Feedback Identifies Geographic Data Gaps in Italy, APAC, and Middle East“We do battle a little with contact details in Italy. It's a little bit more sparse than the contact details we use in the United Kingdom.”
“finding complete contact information in Asia Pacific can be difficult.”
“I struggle to find much wrong with the service.”
- ZoomInfo integrates with Perplexity AI via MCP — ensuring verified direct dials are accessible within third-party AI research environments.
Source: ZoomInfo · linkedin.com · , ZoomInfo · linkedin.com · , ZoomInfo · benzinga.com ·
ZoomInfo— ZoomInfo Operates Native Integration with Nooks for AI-Powered Sales Dialing“Our newest integration with Nooks is live! Now, when your reps dial through Nooks, they can work with verified ZoomInfo data.”
ZoomInfo— ZoomInfo Narrates GTM Data Foundation Strategy via 'Context Layer Tapes' Campaign“Over the next 8 weeks, we're dropping a wave of new resources. Backed by a seven-figure research investment... The Context Layer Tapes is the first piece of it.”
- Seven-figure research investment
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: verified
- 8-week series
directly extracted from source — no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: verified
ZoomInfo— ZoomInfo Features JPMorgan Analyst Coverage as a Top Enterprise AI Application-Layer Play“JPMorgan sees ZoomInfo rallying more than 214%... The common thread? All three are increasingly embedding AI directly into enterprise workflows”
- 214% upside
($11 - $3.50) / $3.50 = 214.2%
Baseline: Trading around $3.50 a share
Confidence: verified
Clay vs Apollo.io in 2026
Clay is aggressively scaling its workforce, adding 33 hires in April alone to reach an estimated 375 employees. The company appointed Constantinos Yenis as its first VP of GTM Engineering, a role specifically designed to replace manual sales tasks with automated agents. This organizational shift coincides with the launch of Claygent Builder, a natural language tool that allows teams to construct and version-control AI agents for free across all tiers. Clay also deepened its ecosystem investment through regional Clay Cup competitions in London and a flagship SCULPT 2026 festival in San Francisco.
Apollo.io is countering this infrastructure-heavy approach by embedding its intelligence into existing user workflows. The company launched a dedicated ChatGPT application in the OpenAI Store, allowing users to search, enrich, and sequence leads without leaving the chat interface. Apollo.io also formalized team-level add-on pricing of $119/month for its advanced dialer and inbound tools, aiming to monetize high-volume SDR teams independently of seat licenses. To assert market leadership, Apollo.io launched an out-of-home billboard campaign in San Francisco branding itself the #1 revenue engine.
Salesloft Sally AI and Instantly SuperSearch Signals launch 2026
Salesloft deployed Sally, an AI concierge built on the 1mind platform, to orchestrate contextual intent across GTM workflows. Sally functions as an agentic layer that interprets buyer signals to provide real-time guidance and automated next steps within the Clari-Salesloft Predictive Revenue System. To support this technical pivot, Salesloft appointed Brian Benfer as CRO and Rajesh Krishnaswami as CTO, bridging the gap between AI engineering and market execution. However, Salesloft faces potential reputation risk following a security breach at its acquired subsidiary, Drift, which affected over 700 organizations.
Instantly launched SuperSearch Signals, surfacing 5.8 million weekly B2B buying intent triggers including funding rounds and executive hires. This move transforms Instantly from an execution-focused cold email tool into a direct competitor for intent data incumbents. Additionally, Instantly reached a milestone of 1 million users, validating its market position through a massive credit giveaway and the launch of Instantly Academy to educate users on AI orchestration. 11x released updated performance benchmarks for its Alice SDR agent, claiming a 50% reduction in cost-per-lead and an 80% lift in qualified opportunity conversion.
Why companies are switching from Outreach to Salesloft or ZoomInfo
Salesloft is successfully displacing Outreach and HubSpot, with users citing superior workflow intuition and day-to-day rhythm as primary drivers for migration. Outreach is attempting to mitigate churn by solidifying its Salesforce alliance as an initial AgentExchange partner and launching a bidirectional ServiceNow integration to expand its execution layer beyond traditional CRMs. Despite these moves, some enterprise accounts report a performance gap in Salesloft’s forecasting and call recording modules compared to Gong, representing a persistent vulnerability for the platform.
ZoomInfo is documenting a pattern of customer migration from RocketReach and Apollo.io, specifically highlighting its 90% mobile number accuracy as a key differentiator. To maintain its data dominance, ZoomInfo launched Audience to Ads in GTM Studio, enabling real-time synchronization between intent signals and advertising platforms like LinkedIn and Google. ZoomInfo also maintains a native connector with Perplexity AI via the MCP standard, ensuring its 500M+ contacts are accessible in AI research environments.
Artisan vs Amplemarket in 2026
Artisan is gaining ground by displacing legacy tools like Apollo and Dripify, with enterprise case studies for SumUp and CookUnity showing lead costs as low as $45. While Artisan’s Ava agent provides a 5x increase in outreach capacity, users have flagged clunky UI friction and an autonomy gap where agents struggle with consultative, off-script replies. Artisan also participated in Y Combinator’s Future of Sales event alongside LinkedIn leadership to reinforce its market position. Amplemarket is targeting this same segment with aggressive 231-point feature audits comparing its platform to Instantly and Cognism.
Amplemarket pivoted toward Sales Orchestration with a new visual no-code automation engine called Workflows, which allows teams to build branched logic for tasks like closed-lost revival. Cognism, Lusha, and Seamless.AI remained quiet this period with limited public activity. This silence contrasts with the high-velocity updates from the rest of the cohort, as incumbents and new entrants alike race to automate the end-to-end sales cycle.
Frequently Asked Questions
What were Clay's major GTM updates in May 2026?
Why are companies switching from Apollo.io and RocketReach to ZoomInfo?
How does Artisan's AI SDR compare to Salesloft's new AI features?
What new intent data features did Instantly and Apollo.io release?
How is Salesloft restructuring its leadership for AI in 2026?
Methodology & Sources
IndustryLens reports are generated from live, multi-source competitive monitoring. Every figure below references the data and coverage that produced this analysis — disclosed for full reader and AI auditability.
Monitored Competitors
This report tracks 12 key players in the B2B GTM and sales intelligence space: 11x, Amplemarket, Apollo.io, Artisan, Clay, Cognism, Instantly, Lusha, Outreach, Salesloft, Seamless.AI, and ZoomInfo.
Insight Volume
Analysis is based on 50 verified competitive insights captured during the reporting period, categorized by product updates, brand shifts, and customer sentiment.
Coverage Period
The data and trends reflected in this report cover the period of May 1, 2026, to May 31, 2026.
Data Sources
Intelligence is gathered from a multi-channel mix including Google/Meta/LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn and Instagram social activity, YouTube content, G2 and Capterra peer reviews, Google News, and direct website monitoring.
Coverage Gaps
While 12 competitors are monitored, this period saw limited public activity or significant updates from Cognism, Lusha, and Seamless.AI compared to high-activity peers like Salesloft and Apollo.io.
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