Sales teams are expected to know their customers inside and out. Not just who they are, but what matters to them, what pressures they are under, and where the opportunities really exist.
Researching prospective and existing customers is a key part of successful sales. Traditionally, that meant a lot of browser tabs, note-taking (think scrappy lists, post-it notes, beer mats, napkins, back of a receipt…), and copying into Salesforce later, if it made it into Salesforce at all.
In this article, I am going to walk you through Sales Account Research in Salesforce. We will look at what it does, why it is useful, how to set it up, and how you can tailor it to match the way your business thinks about accounts. Think of this as a practical guide to turning external research into something actionable, without ever leaving Salesforce.
What Is Salesforce Sales Account Research?
Sales Account Research is the latest part of Salesforce Account Plans, a way to manage account strategy, related goals, and stakeholder involvement directly in Salesforce.
Sales Account Research is a generative AI-powered feature designed to help sales teams gather external company insights, initiating the research directly from an account or account plan record within Salesforce. Instead of hunting for information elsewhere, Salesforce brings relevant research to you and presents it in a structured, usable way.
Out of the box, it can generate insights such as an overview of the company, competitive strengths and weaknesses, industry trends, key performance indicators, strategic priorities, and main competitors.
The research is sourced from the web, expanded into readable summaries, and includes citations so users can see where the information came from. Once generated, the content can be reviewed, edited, rewritten to match your tone, and selectively saved back to fields on the account or account plan.
- First, select your desired research area, then click “Research”. Note that you can see when the information was researched!
- The research will be displayed and can be expanded to read more.
- You can view the sources cited and used.
- The output can be edited by clicking on the pencil icon.
- You can upvote or downvote a response using the thumbs-up/thumbs-down, which will help train the large language model.
Once you are happy with the research, you are able to update the relevant fields (more on mapping below). You can choose to include all or some.
Top Tip: When you save the most recently generated research, any historical data in those fields will be overwritten!
Sales Account Research comes with seven research topics out-of-the-box:
- Company Overview
- Competitive Strengths
- Competitive Weaknesses
- Industry Trends
- Key Performance Indicators
- Strategic Priorities
- Top Competitors
Each out-of-the-box research area maps to an Account or Account Plan field.
| Research Area | Object | Field |
|---|---|---|
| Company Overview | Account | Description |
| Competitive Strengths | Account Plan | Competitive Strengths |
| Competitive Weaknesses | Account Plan | Competitive Weaknesses |
| Industry Trends | Account Plan | Industry Trends |
| Key Performance Indicators | Account Plan | KPIs |
| Strategic Priorities | Account Plan | Strategic Priorities |
| Top Competitors | Account Plan | Competitors |
Benefits of Using Sales Account Research
The most obvious benefit is time. Research that might have taken an hour can be generated in seconds, giving sales reps more time to actually engage with customers. It also improves consistency. Everyone starts with the same structured view of an account rather than relying on individual research habits.
Another big advantage is context. Because the insights live directly on the account or account plan, they are visible to the wider team. That means better handovers, stronger collaboration, and more informed conversations. Over time, this helps teams move from reactive selling to more strategic account growth.
How to Set Up Sales Account Research
The setup of Sales Account Research is simple.
- Before turning anything on, make sure Einstein Generative AI is enabled in your org.
- If you plan to use Account Plans, those should be enabled as well to get the most value.
- From Setup, search for Account Research and open the settings page.
- Enable Data Cloud and then switch on Account Research itself.
- Next, you need to add the Record Research standard component to your Account Lightning record page.
- Use Object Manager to open the Account object, go to Lightning Record Pages, edit the page you want, and drag the component onto the layout. Save and activate the page.
- If your team uses Account Plans, repeat the same process for the Account Plan object.
- Finally, assign the Research Records permission set to the users who should be able to run research and save results. Without that permission, they will see the component but not be able to use it fully.
How to Customize Sales Account Research
Every business asks different questions, and this is where customization really shines. Salesforce provides seven standard research topics, but admins can create their own using Prompt Builder.
Start in Setup by opening Prompt Builder. Look for an existing prompt template with a record research type and use it as a starting point.
Save it as a new template, give it a unique name, and update the instructions to reflect the insight you want to generate. You can keep the same data sources and model while changing the focus of the research.
Once the instructions are updated, map the output to a specific field on the Account or Account Plan. Preview the results using a real record and refine the wording until the output matches your expectations. When you are happy, activate the prompt. Your new research topic will then appear as an option in the Account Research component for users to run.
Considerations
As with most Salesforce features, there are some considerations to be aware of before you start playing:
- Sales Account Research is designed for business accounts only, so it will not work with person accounts.
- It is not available in Government Cloud environments.
- Users must have edit access to the relevant fields, and those fields must be on the page layout in order for results to be saved.
- Be mindful of field mappings when creating custom research topics. Only one research template should write to a given field, and custom topics cannot share a field with a standard topic.
- Usage consumes generative AI requests, so it is worth keeping an eye on adoption and usage patterns.
- The Agentforce for Sales add-on license or Agentforce 1 Sales Edition is required to access the Account Research feature and related permission sets.
Security
Sales Account Research uses Salesforce’s built-in AI safety and security controls, which are designed to protect sensitive data when generative AI is running. These controls are part of what Salesforce calls the Einstein Trust Layer, and they help make sure information is handled responsibly and securely.
One of those protections is data masking. This means certain sensitive details, like names, can be hidden from the AI so they are not exposed or used inappropriately. While this is great for security, it does come with a trade-off. If the company name is masked, Sales Account Research does not know which company to look up, so it cannot run the research at all.
Final Thoughts
I’m a big fan of the Account Plans functionality in Salesforce, and Sales Account Research feels like a natural and valuable extension of it. The standout benefits are the speed at which meaningful research can be completed and the fact that all insights live directly within Salesforce, rather than being scattered across external tools or documents.
That said, it’s disappointing that this capability requires a Sales add-on license or Agentforce 1 Sales Edition. Given how foundational account research is to modern selling, this is a feature that would deliver significant value to all sales teams and feels like it should be standard in a digital-first world.
With a straightforward setup and robust customization options, Sales Account Research can be tailored to match how your organisation thinks about and segments accounts. When used thoughtfully, it elevates research from a background task to a strategic advantage, embedded directly into the platform where sales teams already work every day.
Resources
- Sales Account Research
- Sales Account Research Overview
- Turn On Sales Account Research
- Salesforce Account Plans: The New Feature Your Sales Users Will Love
