AI data enrichment: what teams need to know in 2025

What is AI data enrichment?

AI data enrichment for sales is the process of using artificial intelligence to automatically refine and enhance prospect and customer datasets to improve accuracy and actionability. 

By leveraging the power of AI, data enrichment tools fill in missing contact details, fix mistakes, update outdated information, and combine multiple internal and external data sources — like your CRM, LinkedIn, and your contact database.

As a result, AI data enrichment helps sales teams improve personalization, segment lead lists more granularly, and ultimately convert more prospects into paying customers.

AI data enrichment use cases

AI-powered data enrichment tools can transform the way your business operates. For sales teams in particular, the technology can be a game-changer due to how many different ways it helps reps sell more effectively.

Here are some of the more powerful ways you can use AI data enrichment to enhance existing data and achieve better business outcomes:

• Auto-completing contact records. AI data enrichment can automatically add missing information — job titles, phone numbers, and social media profiles, for example — to incomplete records. It can also fill in missing information by analyzing signals and context while adapting over time as it learns what’s most important to your team and reprioritizing accordingly.

• Real-time lead enrichment. Leveraging AI, the technology can enrich incoming leads right when they fill out a form, qualifying them instantly and routing them to the right rep based on persona or territory. The tech goes beyond basic demographic and firmographic information by incorporating engagement data and intent data signals into each record.

• CRM deduplication. By some estimates, as much as 30% of the data that lives in your CRM is duplicate. Using AI tools, you can automatically deduplicate your data beyond what’s possible with traditional methods; AI can leverage historical patterns and relationship mapping to find duplicates traditional tools might miss, giving you exceptionally clean data.

• Contact tracking. AI monitors publicly available data about new jobs, new roles, and press releases, identifies changes, and automatically updates corresponding records. As a result, reps will know right away when power users, champions, and folks with decision-making authority change jobs — and can reach out to the warm lead immediately.

• Email personalization. When you use AI data enrichment to optimize your contact data, it’s much easier to generate highly personalized emails based on enriched data, historical interactions, and each prospect’s unique interests. Over time, the AI’s personalization logic improves as it learns which types of messages resonate the most.

Benefits of AI data enrichment

The data enrichment market is projected to explode from $7.55 billion in 2025 to $16.72 billion by 2034. 

In large part, this is due to the emergence of AI and the transformative benefits it delivers, like:

• Better leads. By enriching contact data with relevant insights in real time, AI helps better qualify prospects, enabling reps to focus on the leads most likely to convert.
• Better personalization. AI data enrichment, coupled with generative AI writing tools like LeadIQ Scribe, helps reps send more relevant personalized emails at scale.

• Increased efficiency. By automating manual research and tedious data-entry tasks, AI data enrichment enables reps to reclaim hours of time each week which they can then use to focus more on closing deals. When the average rep spends less than 30% of the workweek actually selling, that’s a huge deal.

• Improved targeting. With more robust contact data, AI helps reps build more accurate audience segments. This, in turn, improves sales and marketing campaign outcomes through more precise data-driven targeting.

• Real-time agility. AI continuously updates contact records whenever new customer data becomes available. As a result, reps are always working with the most current information — even when prospects change jobs or leave companies — which increases operational agility.

Top 3 AI data enrichment providers

Now that you have a better idea about what AI data enrichment is, how to use it, and why more and more teams are leveraging the technology, let’s dig a little deeper and explore some of the best AI data enrichment tools on the market today.

1. LeadIQ

G2: 4.2 out of 5 stars (1,093 reviews)

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LeadIQ is a contact data provider and sales intelligence platform that offers tools designed to accelerate sales prospecting workflows by automatically capturing contact information from the web, LinkedIn, and other sources and instantly enriching those leads. With LeadIQ, sales teams can build quality prospect lists, track buying signals continuously, and personalize outreach at scale using generative AI — all without breaking a sweat.

LeadIQ features:

• Capture contact data in just a few clicks and automatically sync it to your CRM to accelerate prospecting workflows and eliminate manual data-entry errors
• On-demand data enrichment tools that update CRM records with demographic and firmographic data automatically
• Generative AI writing partner, LeadIQ Scribe, enables reps to personalize outreach at scale by creating multiple messages in a few clicks and picking the best one
• Automatic contact and champion tracking to keep tabs on key accounts and identify ideal times to reach out to them after they switch jobs or get promoted 

LeadIQ pros:

• Personalize outreach at scale using prospect-specific data, firmographic information, company news, and more
• Comprehensive contact data, including EMEA contact data, enabling reps to sell internationally with confidence
• Robust integrations with tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, and Gong
• White-glove customer support with live chat, robust documentation, product walkthroughs, video tutorials, and more
• Easy implementation for rapid ROI, evidenced by winning G2’s top implementation awards five years in a row
• Feature-packed product roadmap, with LeadIQ bringing new AI-powered sales capabilities to market with a platform that keeps pace with your team’s needs

LeadIQ cons:

• Not good for small startups or small teams (but we do have a free Chrome extension!)
• Works best with tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Salesforce, HubSpot, Salesloft, and Outreach

2. Clay

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G2: 4.9 out of 5 stars (154 reviews)

‍Clay is a data enrichment and outreach automation tool that helps go-to-market teams improve CRM hygiene and update contact information using AI, automation, and more than 130 data sources.

Clay features:

• Source accounts from hundreds of millions of records across regions, industry, sizes, and more, and find companies closely related to your ideal customer profile using AI to narrow in on the best targets
• Leverage customizable AI-powered lead scoring tools that enable reps to prioritize account lists based on the attributes that are most important to them
• Use AI agents that research prospects so you don’t have to and report back, saving reps hours upon hours of time previously spent on manual research they can then reinvest in relationship-building and selling

Clay pros:

• Improve CRM hygiene by sending prospect data through Clay’s data providers and AI agents to make your CRM data more accurate and actionable
• Integrations with tons of sales and marketing tools, including HubSpot, Gong, Clearbit, Salesforce, and LeadIQ
• Use a library of community-built Claybooks to enrich contact data automatically (e.g., finding and verifying mobile phone numbers using email addresses)

Clay cons:

• Advanced features only available on premium tiers, which may be too expensive for budget-conscious teams (starts at $134/month when billed annually)
• Users report complex implementation and steep learning curves when starting out

3. Zoho DataPrep

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G2: 4.2 out of 5 stars (12 reviews)

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Zoho DataPrep is a self-service data preparation tool and extract, transform, load (ETL) platform that uses AI-powered enrichment and cleansing to transform unorganized raw data into actionable information. 

Zoho DataPrep features:

• Create automated data pipelines and schedule imports and exports in just a few clicks
• Smart data cleaning tools that enable users to prep data without any complex coding
• Integrates with over 70 different data sources to consolidate raw data, shatter silos, and automatically identify errors to create a single source of truth

Zoho DataPrep pros:

• Works best with other Zoho products — including Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics and Zoho Creator — making it an ideal solution for teams that use the Zoho suite
• Leverage AI to conduct keyword and sentiment analysis of customer feedback across email, support tickets, social media comments, and DMs to understand your audience’s pain points better
• 15-day free trial, along with a free tier, so you can test the platform with confidence to find out whether it is the right fit

Zoho DataPrep cons:

• Learning curve for advanced functionality, which may delay potential ROI
• Relatively new platform without tons of user reviews; may lack enough social proof for certain teams

How to evaluate AI data enrichment providers

Unlocking the full power of AI data enrichment isn’t as simple as deploying any solution and expecting incredible outcomes. 

By doing your due diligence and following these steps, you can increase the chances the tool you ultimately choose helps your business soar to new heights.

Step 1: Identify needs for a data enrichment tool

Kick things off by clearly defining what you hope to accomplish with AI data enrichment tools. 

Are you most interested in enriching your CRM records or routing better-quality leads to each rep? Do you need more robust EMEA contact data? Are you looking to target a specific industry? Are you hoping to add specific types of data — like technographics — to your CRM?

Once you determine what you’re setting out to achieve, you’ll be in a much better position to evaluate tools based on how well they support your goals.

Step 2: Identify potential providers

After your team understands and is aligned on your goals, start researching your options to find out which tools specialize in the functionally you need. 

Look for providers with proven track records and battle-tested AI capabilities — not a vendor that decided to simply splash a new buzzword on their website. 

Of course, you’ll also want to ensure any potential options integrate with your tech stack.

At the end of this step, you should have a shortlist of vendors that offer the features, integrations, and use cases you need.

Step 3: Run a test and compare results

Talk is cheap, so you’ll need to test each solution you’re considering to make sure it can actually do what its maker says it can. 

Legit providers will let you test data of at least 100 different companies for free to give you a good idea of what you might be getting into. While some vendors will let you test even more data, that’s probably overkill at this stage in the journey.

Pro tip: Speak to a vendor directly during this part of the process to get a better idea of what their customer support is like. And bring a template CSV file and a master list of true data to share with each provider on your shortlist so you can send it over and see what comes back.

Step 4: Look at pricing

The best tool in the world won’t be too helpful if you can’t afford it. 

That said, investments in AI data enrichment are investments in your company’s long-term financial well-being, so you shouldn’t pinch pennies.

Also, don’t forget you can use more than one tool to improve data quality even more. 

If you find out that data testing results are similar across two different vendors but one is considerably more expensive, it could be smart to create a drip system where leads are enriched by the first provider and, if any information is missing, further enriched by the pricier one. 

It’s an easy way to keep costs in check while learning as much as you can about your prospects.

Step 5: Evaluate vendor reputation and support

Just because this might be your first time using AI data enrichment tools doesn’t mean you need to start with a blank slate. 

Spend time reading customer reviews, case studies, and forum posts about customer support. 

At the end of the day, a tool is only as good as the company behind it, so this isn’t a step you can afford to skip.

Step 6: Pick a provider & the integrate AI enrichment service

At long last, your work is done, and it’s time to pick a provider, or maybe more than one! 🎉

Choose a vendor that best fits with your data goals, budget, and team workflows; the best partner will offer additional features beyond enrichment so you get a bigger bang for your buck.

After finalizing your picks, make sure they’re smoothly integrated with other tools in your stack — including your CRM, marketing automation platforms, and other sales tools — to maintain a single source of truth and eliminate manual data entry. 

Once deployed, set up ongoing enrichment schedules and monitor performance over time to ensure everything stays on track.

Test drive LeadIQ’s AI-powered data enrichment today!

AI-powered data enrichment capabilities can accelerate your sales team’s efforts by ensuring they’re spending as much of their time engaging high-quality prospects as they can. 

By equipping your reps with automatic, AI-powered data enrichment tools, you can reduce the amount of time each of them spends on manual research while giving them a stronger pipeline filled with accurate, up-to-date insights they can use to engage more prospects on a deeper, more personal level.

Here at LeadIQ, we’re driven by helping teams like yours unleash their full potential. 

Our AI data enrichment capabilities speak for themselves — we use them every day! — and we’re constantly adding new AI-powered features to our solution to help reps prospect more efficiently.

But don’t just take our word for it. 

‍Take our platform for a test drive today to learn more about why today’s leading sales orgs can’t live without LeadIQ.

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