Outreach Tops Forrester Wave — September 2026

Outreach secured the strongest third-party validation of the period, earning a Leader placement in the Forrester Wave for Revenue Orchestration (Q3 2026) with the highest possible score in 15 of 22 criteria and the top Current Offering score among 12 vendors evaluated. The company also integrated with Anthropic's Claude Sales plugin, letting Claude answer account, deal and forecast questions from Outreach data, and listed on Salesforce AgentExchange for private offers. These moves followed a broader pattern: 18 news items and 64 social posts across the monitored set this period, with partnerships appearing across Outreach, Apollo.io, ZoomInfo, Lusha, Seamless.AI and Instantly.

Clay raised $115M in Series D funding at a $7.1B valuation led by Wellington Management, announced September 9, 2026. The company also posted a broad open-role slate led by GTM and engineering leadership, signaling organizational build-out across product and revenue. Apollo.io appointed Mark Sieglock as Chief Product Officer and opened its first dedicated EMEA partnerships role, while adding Agentic Loops to Professional and Organization tiers and shipping Form Builder. Salesloft consolidated its brand under a single 'Salesloft' identity on September 1, 2026, ending the 'Clari + Salesloft' dual framing and rewriting its LinkedIn about text and homepage around 'The Leading Predictive Revenue System.'

Lusha reframed its homepage around AI prospecting and shipped Waterfall Enrichment on Pro plans and above, reversing earlier 'no waterfalls' messaging. The company also added a Gong revenue-intelligence integration to its marketplace. Seamless.AI launched native apps in ChatGPT and Claude for real-time prospecting, embedding its verified B2B data inside the LLM apps buyers already use. ZoomInfo listed its MCP Server on Cursor Marketplace as a GTM context layer, shipping 14 skills and covering 100M companies and 500M contacts. For teams tracking competitive moves across these channels, marketing intelligence provides a structured view of how these product and partnership signals connect.

Apollo.io launched Agents to automate prospecting and sequencing, delivering proactive recommendations via Slack and reinforcing its 'one connected GTM system' pitch. The company also added Agentic Loops to Professional and Organization tiers and shipped Form Builder, which had previously been listed as 'Coming soon.' Apollo was named Flagship Data Partner for Salesforce's Hunter Agent, with early access available and general availability planned for November. The company reported 8 insights this period, the highest among monitored competitors, and its homepage now leads with 'Grow revenue with one connected GTM system' and a three-layer framing of data, intelligence and execution.

Outreach integrated with Anthropic's Claude Sales plugin, letting Claude answer account, deal and forecast questions from Outreach data. The company is also hiring a Director of Applied Science and Engineering and Staff/Senior Applied Scientists for Knowledge Graphs & AI, based in Hyderabad, pointing to a per-tenant knowledge-graph build feeding the platform's reasoning. Outreach listed on Salesforce AgentExchange for private offers, claiming to be the first revenue orchestration platform available there. These moves sit alongside its Forrester Wave Leader placement and IDC MarketScape recognition.

Lusha added Waterfall Enrichment to fill missing email and phone fields, checking additional sources when Lusha lacks a work email or phone, billed per successful match and available on Pro plans and above. The company also added a Gong revenue-intelligence integration to its marketplace and reframed its homepage around 'B2B Data and AI Prospecting for GTM Teams and AI Agents,' citing 290M+ verified contacts, 29M+ companies and 26 buying signals refreshed weekly. ZoomInfo listed its MCP Server on Cursor Marketplace, shipping 14 skills and covering 100M companies and 500M contacts. Seamless.AI launched native apps in ChatGPT and Claude for real-time prospecting. For teams evaluating how these MCP and agent integrations compare, ZoomInfo vs Lusha breaks down the data-layer differences.

Outreach, Apollo.io, Lusha, Salesloft and Clay led activity this period, with 8, 6, 5, 4 and 3 insights respectively. Outreach's Forrester Wave Leader placement and Claude integration strengthen its enterprise revenue-orchestration position, while Apollo.io's Agentic Loops and Agents launch extends its agentic automation layer. Lusha's Waterfall Enrichment and Gong integration push verified B2B data into revenue-intelligence workflows. Salesloft consolidated its brand under a single identity and ran dual webinar series to push Clari-integrated workflows. Clay's $115M Series D at a $7.1B valuation gives it capital to expand upmarket.

Among the broader set, Artisan added seven rival-comparison posts to its conquesting blog between September 17-20, 2026, targeting Outreach, Salesloft, HubSpot and adjacent tools. Instantly launched a Solution Partners Program with recurring commissions and five new AI agents for partnerships, hiring and fundraising. ZoomInfo listed its MCP Server on Cursor Marketplace. Cognism ranked highest in the G2 Europe Regional Grid for Sales Intelligence with a G2 score of 88 and 759 verified European reviews. Seamless.AI launched native apps in ChatGPT and Claude. lemlist unveiled a new brand and 'The only platform you need for outbound' messaging on September 23, 2026. Reply.io added 'AI & MCP' and integration sections to its homepage. Gong launched an Industry Expansion team targeting Financial Services. Clari and Salesloft united under a single Salesloft brand, with Clari.com redirecting on 9/15/26. Aviso changed its homepage hero CTA to 'Talk to Ava.' Nektar expanded comparison pages to Cirrus Insight and Match My Email. Groove's product page began redirecting on 9/15/26 amid the Clari-Salesloft merger. Backstory added homepage messaging against DIY CRM and LLM tool stacks. Amplemarket published a buyer guide on AI lead generation tools. 11x launched a new technical blog. For a deeper look at how Outreach and Instantly compare on outbound execution, Outreach vs Instantly covers the key differences.

Several competitors showed limited public activity this period. Attention, Ebsta, Falkon, Forecastable, Jiminny, Revenue.io, Scratchpad, Terret and Weflow each had minimal or no new insights, with most showing only one or two ad anomalies and no significant product, partnership or personnel announcements.

Watch whether Apollo.io's Salesforce Hunter Agent partnership reaches general availability in November as planned, and whether the Agentic Loops capability drives measurable expansion revenue in Professional and Organization tiers. Apollo's first dedicated EMEA partnerships hire and Director-level alliances roles signal a channel push beyond direct sales, which could reshape how it competes with ZoomInfo and Cognism in European deals. Apollo's rating sits at 4.32 with a declining trajectory across 440 cumulative reviews, a signal worth tracking against its product velocity.

Watch Outreach's knowledge-graph hiring in Hyderabad and whether the per-tenant reasoning layer translates into differentiated agent capabilities. Outreach's rating dropped 1.00 versus its 4-week average (5 to 4), and its webpage change rate spiked +66.7% week-over-week, suggesting active positioning work. The company also launched 3 new campaigns in the last 4 weeks. Salesloft's rating improved 1.00 versus its 4-week average and it posted 1 viral post this week with 100% direct mentions, indicating strong message resonance. Salesloft's webpage change rate spiked +100% week-over-week.

Watch Lusha's Waterfall Enrichment adoption and whether the per-match credit model drives pricing pressure or customer friction. Lusha's rating sits at 4.75 with an improving trajectory across 277 cumulative reviews. Clay's $115M Series D and broad hiring slate point to continued scaling, though its insight volume dropped 23 versus the prior period (26 to 3). Instantly's insight volume dropped 18 (21 to 3), ZoomInfo's dropped 16 (18 to 2), Cognism's dropped 15 (16 to 1), and Salesloft's dropped 13 (17 to 4). These declines may reflect pipeline gaps or reduced public activity rather than strategic retreat. For a closer look at how Instantly's autonomous agent launch fits into the broader outbound automation trend, see the Instantly autonomous AI sales agent report.