Daniel Saks
Chief Executive Officer
Enter AI agents – a new generation of intelligent tools that turn plain English instructions into highly targeted, qualified lead lists. Instead of manually building boolean queries or clicking through endless filters, you simply describe your ideal customer in natural language, and the AI does the rest. For example, one platform suggests queries like “Show me C-suite contacts in Dallas who have emails, but exclude admins” – and returns a verified list of results within seconds(4). No spreadsheets, no manual data scrubbing. Just instant, AI-curated leads that match your criteria. It’s a game-changer for sales and marketing teams: early adopters report compressing days of work into minutes and significantly improving lead quality.
In this blog, we’ll explore 5 of the best AI-driven agents that can interpret plain English and deliver ready-to-use leads. These solutions leverage advanced natural language processing, live data signals, and automation to eliminate grunt work and help you find your next customer faster. First up is Landbase, an innovator pioneering “agentic AI” for autonomous audience building.
Landbase is the first agentic AI platform purpose-built for fully autonomous audience discovery and qualification. In plain terms, Landbase allows you to find your next customers just by describing them – no complex filters or coding required. Simply input a prompt like “cybersecurity startups in North America hiring for sales leadership after a Series B”, and Landbase’s AI (called GTM-2 Omni) will interpret your request, search its vast data, and output a curated list of prospects that fit. The entire process – which used to take weeks of research – now happens in one step. Landbase’s agentic AI and real-time signals automate what once took weeks in manual list-building, compressing intent to data to outreach into a single workflow.
Key Features:
Landbase’s model is designed to drive usage with zero friction. The core natural-language audience builder is free to use, with up to 10k contact exports per search and unlimited searches. There are no credits or seat licenses required to start – anyone can go to the website and start pulling lists immediately. For those who need more, Landbase monetizes through add-ons and enterprise plans: a paid Offline AI Qual option (human-verified enrichment for ultra-accurate data), and an Enterprise tier with custom signals, API access, CRM integrations, and dedicated support. Because the onboarding requires no sign-up and no up-front contracts, Landbase sees massive prompt volume from users, which in turn feeds continuous model training for GTM-2 Omni. It’s a virtuous cycle: the more users freely build audiences, the smarter the AI gets, benefiting everyone.
Landbase’s agentic approach has delivered impressive early results. Teams report being able to create target lead lists 4–7× faster than with traditional data vendors or manual research. One pilot saw an 80% reduction in manual list-building costs, thanks to Landbase automating what used to require large research teams. Contact accuracy remains extremely high (often >90% verified emails) due to the AI’s signal checks and human QA fallback. Most importantly, these higher-quality, timely leads convert better – initial campaigns have seen 2–4× lift in conversion rates when using Landbase-qualified leads versus generic database lists. Users frequently note that Landbase eliminates weeks of manual research and filtering. It compresses the entire go-to-market targeting process into a single AI-driven interaction, freeing up sales reps to spend more time actually engaging prospects instead of hunting for them.
Another standout in this space is Persana AI, which takes a similar plain-English approach to lead generation. Persana is known for its SalesGPT feature – essentially an AI assistant that lets you generate precise lead lists using natural language descriptions. The idea is to remove the technical barrier from prospecting. Instead of building filters, you just describe the kind of leads you want in plain English. SalesGPT reads your intent, turns it into a smart query behind the scenes, and delivers a clean, enriched lead list in seconds(3). In other words, Persana acts like a virtual SDR that understands your ideal customer criteria and does the heavy lifting for you.
Persana’s strength comes from combining AI with a robust data engine. The platform aggregates data from 75+ different sources(3) – including public web data, third-party providers, and its own user base – in a “waterfall enrichment” process to ensure you get as much accurate information as possible on each lead. It employs what Persana calls “Quantum Agent” technology – AI agents working around the clock to continuously qualify leads and add missing details (like tech stack info or decision-maker contacts) to your lists(3). This means when you run a query like “VPs of Engineering at fintech companies in Europe”, Persana not only finds relevant people, but also appends context (e.g. company funding stage, recent hiring sprees, etc.) to help you prioritize and personalize outreach.
Key Capabilities:
One of the notable advantages of Persana is its focus on usability. It’s designed so that even non-technical users (startup founders, solo sales reps) can plug it in and start seeing results. The interface is conversational and straightforward – you don’t need to know how to construct complex boolean logic. This approach has earned Persana a broad user base (the company claims over 10,000 teams use it). Moreover, Persana is backed by Y Combinator and has rapidly added features, indicating strong momentum in the AI-for-sales space.
Persana’s users have shared impressive outcomes. We already mentioned one founder’s “3 minutes vs 3 weeks” success story. Another company credited Persana with helping them book 75% more meetings by automating lead research and outreach personalization. Because Persana’s AI does the data grunt work, sales teams can redirect time into actual selling – whether that’s making calls or creative prospect engagement. The net result is often a faster-moving top of funnel. Persana’s blend of multi-source data + AI reasoning can dramatically cut down the time to find and connect with the right prospects. For organizations that want to supercharge their outbound without hiring an army of researchers, Persana AI is a compelling option.
Lead411 is a well-established B2B contact data provider that has recently introduced a powerful AI Search Assistant to modernize how users find leads. Historically, Lead411 provided a database with robust filtering, but the new assistant flips the script to a conversational, ask-and-answer model. The premise is simple: “Goodbye filters, hello results.” Instead of spending 20+ minutes layering filters in ZoomInfo or Apollo (a process many of us know is tedious), users can “simply type what they’re looking for — in plain English — and get instant results.”(4) The AI understands the query, searches Lead411’s data, and returns a refined list of companies or contacts that meet the criteria.
For example, you might ask Lead411: “Show me C-Suite contacts in the Dallas area who have emails, but exclude anyone with an ‘Admin’ title.” In a legacy tool, that would require multiple filter fields and careful Boolean logic; in Lead411’s AI Assistant, that single sentence is enough to produce a clean list of Dallas-area executives with verified email and phone info(4). Within seconds, the system interprets your intent and delivers exactly what you asked for, with all the data points filled in.
Why it stands out:
From a results standpoint, Lead411’s modernized approach is about quality and quantity. Their database is large (100M+ contacts) and with the AI layer, you extract value from it much faster. Especially for teams that already valued Lead411’s data accuracy, the AI Assistant makes that data far more accessible. It essentially removes the learning curve – new reps can find leads as effectively as veterans, just by describing their needs.
The AI Search Assistant is available to all Lead411 subscribers on certain plans (Ignite/Blaze tiers, as they call them). It plugs into the existing Lead411 platform, so you can seamlessly save the leads you find, export them, or sync with your CRM. If you’re comparing with incumbents: the ease-of-use and high accuracy are Lead411’s selling points. Unlike, say, ZoomInfo which might require training to master filters, Lead411’s tool feels intuitive from day one(4). This can shorten ramp-up time for new team members and encourage more consistent prospecting because the “heavy lifting” (finding the right contacts) isn’t so heavy anymore.
In summary, Lead411 has taken a big step in bringing AI to B2B data. It marries a rich contact database with a conversational AI front-end, which is a trend we’re seeing more broadly but executed particularly well here. For users, the outcome is simple: you spend less time searching and more time connecting. If accuracy and ease are top priorities – and you don’t want to fuss with complicated search builders – Lead411’s AI Assistant is definitely one of the best solutions to consider.
Leadsforge markets itself as the “#1 Search Engine to Find the Best Leads,” and it lives up to that tagline by providing a chat-based prospecting experience. Think of Leadsforge as ChatGPT specifically tuned for lead generation: you enter a description of your ideal customer, and it returns a list of matching prospects with contact details. It’s a conversational AI lead finder that consolidates multiple data sources in the background so you don’t have to.
Using Leadsforge is straightforward. When you log in, you’re greeted by a chat prompt that might say: “Please describe your ideal customer. You can mention their industry, size, location, etc.”(5). You then literally chat your criteria. For example, you might type: “Marketing managers at tech companies that are publicly funded and based in the USA.”The AI will parse that and within moments give you something like: “Found 1,453 profiles matching your description.”(along with filters it applied)(5). You can then ask it to refine further or go ahead and fetch the contacts. In essence, you describe your ICP as if chatting, and Leadsforge “finds the leads” for you.
Key Highlights:
Leadsforge is especially useful for sales teams or agencies that need to quickly build targeted lists for outreach without investing in multiple tools. Because it’s conversational and multi-source, even a small team can act with the firepower of an entire data research department. It’s also great for scenario-based prospecting – e.g., “find companies similar to X” or “find followers of [competitor]’s company page” – which the AI can handle by using specialized data (Leadsforge even has options to input a list of companies and find lookalikes, or to turn a competitor’s social media followers into leads(5)). These are advanced tactics that traditionally would require piecing together several tools or scripts, but the AI can execute them with a simple instruction.
One thing to note: as of now, Leadsforge is in a pre-launch/beta phase with a waitlist. Early users are testing it with generous free credits, and feedback is being used to refine the AI. So, while the results are promising – e.g., users love the ease of “just describe who you want and boom, there they are” – the platform is rapidly evolving. The company behind it (Salesforge) is integrating it into a suite that includes email outreach, suggesting you’ll be able to go from finding leads to emailing them in one workflow.
Leadsforge’s multi-source strategy really stands out – by pulling data from 75+ sources in one place and using AI to research and verify leads, it saves users from having to do any manual digging(5). If you’re “tired of messy tools and bad data,” as their site puts it, this unified approach is compelling.
In summary, Leadsforge exemplifies the next generation of lead tools where the interface is as simple as chatting, but the back-end is doing very sophisticated work (aggregating, enriching, validating). It’s like having a personal prospecting concierge. For organizations that want cutting-edge ease-of-use and are willing to try a newer solution, Leadsforge is definitely one of the best AI agents to turn plain requests into qualified leads.
While not a traditional “plain English query” tool from the ground up, Clay is a powerful platform that deserves inclusion for its use of AI agents in lead generation workflows. Clay is known as an automation and enrichment platform – it connects to over 100+ data providers and services and lets you build custom workflows to find and enrich leads(6). With Clay, you might start with a list of companies or names (or use Clay to generate one via integrations), and then use its AI-driven agents to research and append all kinds of data. The standout feature here is Clay’s AI agent called “Claygent.”
Claygent is described as an AI research agent that can browse the web and scrape data like a human researcher, but at machine speed. You can literally ask Claygent questions about a company or person, and it will go fetch answers from the web – for example, “Does this company have any job postings for data engineers?” or “Find me the contact email on their About page.” It operates within Clay’s spreadsheet-like interface to populate answers in structured format. In practice, Claygent can be used to qualify leads or gather hard-to-find nuggets of info automatically, which would otherwise require manual Googling. This is incredibly useful for enrichment: once you have a basic list of target accounts, Claygent can fill in the blanks by visiting websites, LinkedIn, news, etc., and pulling back things like hiring news, recent awards, tech stack details, and more.
Key strengths of Clay:
Suppose you want to generate a list of leads with very specific criteria – say, “VPs of Marketing at SaaS companies using Stripe, with headcount 50-200, that have announced funding in the past 6 months.”With Clay, you might approach this by pulling a list of SaaS companies from a database, filtering those that use Stripe (Clay can check technographic data via built-in providers), then filtering for recent funding (Clay can query a funding database or even crawl news), and finally finding the VP of Marketing at each (Clay can search LinkedIn or use its own contact database). This multi-step logic can be set up in a single Clay workflow, and the AI components ensure even things like “recent funding” or finding the right contact can be done intelligently. The outcome is a highly tailored lead list that meets complex criteria – something that very few single tools could do without custom coding. Clay essentially lets you script your ideal lead-gen process in natural language and with drag-and-drop blocks, with AI agents handling the web research parts.
One stat from Clay’s case studies: a user noted “We have tripled our enrichment rate with Clay’s combination of data providers… pulling signals and triggers, so SDRs can focus on selling”(6). Another said Clay saved hours per week that were previously spent on manual research(6). These illustrate that while Clay might require a bit more setup than a pure plain-language query tool, it delivers tremendous efficiency gains by automating the entire data pipeline around lead
If you have very specific targeting needs or you want to build a sophisticated, scalable prospecting system rather than just one-off searches, Clay is one of the best platforms out there. Its use of AI agents for web research (Claygent) sets it apart – enabling a level of data gathering and customization that others can’t easily match. Clay might be the choice for more data-savvy teams or those with RevOps functions that can invest in building out workflows. And with its 150+ integrations(6), it can act as the connective tissue of all your sales tools. In the context of AI-driven lead gen, Clay demonstrates how human-in-the-loop design (you specify what you want) combined with AI automation (the system figures out how to get it) can yield incredibly rich lead intelligence with minimal ongoing effort.
Go-to-market teams used to spend weeks building the right audience – exporting lists from static databases, cleaning and de-duplicating records, manually enriching data, and hoping the results were accurate enough to justify the effort. Today, tools like the ones we’ve discussed are changing that process completely. AI agents now handle the heavy lifting: they understand your ideal buyer profile, scour countless sources in real time, and deliver qualified leads on demand. The five platforms above each exemplify this new paradigm in their own way, but they share a common intent: drastically reduce the time and guesswork involved in finding high-quality prospects.
For sales and marketing leaders, the message is clear: stop wasting time on outdated methods and stale data. In today’s market, the fastest way to grow revenue is to start with the right audience. And now, finding that audience is as easy as typing a sentence. By equipping your team with an AI lead-generation agent, you arm them with a virtual expert that works 24/7, never gets tired, and continuously improves. It’s an advantage that compounds over time.
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