The AI Advantage: Why MedTech Sales Reps Who Use AI Are More Likely to Hit Quota [New Research]

Artificial intelligence has become one of the most discussed topics in MedTech sales. But many commercial leaders are still asking the same question:

Does AI actually improve sales performance?

We wanted to find out and recently teamed up with MedTech Dive to survey medical device sales professionals about how they're using AI, the challenges they face, and their quota attainment.

One finding stood out above all the others.

Medical device sales reps who use AI at work are 3x more likely to report that they met or exceed quota. Conversely, reps who did not meet quota were almost twice as likely to have never used AI professionally. 

That's a striking result. It’s even more striking when you consider that AI adoption in MedTech is not at the highest of highs. Nearly two-thirds of the reps we surveyed reported that they do not regularly use AI at work today.

Majority of AI use today is tactical

One of the more surprising findings from the survey was how reps are actually using AI.

Of those who are using AI, most reported using it to draft emails (78%), automate repetitive tasks (78%), organize work (69%), and generate meeting notes (67%). These are useful applications, and they can save hours every week for a rep, but they are only scratching the surface of what's possible.

Very few respondents (11%) from the survey reported using AI to surface insights they wouldn't have found otherwise. These same reps told us, however, that provider discovery and opportunity prioritization are among the activities they believe would have the greatest impact on their performance. 

In other words, many sales teams are using AI as a productivity tool rather than a strategic advantage.

The next competitive advantage in MedTech sales

The findings suggest that AI's greatest value may not come from helping reps work faster but rather helping them make better overall decisions.

Which providers should they prioritize?

Which accounts show signs of growth?

Where are the best opportunities hiding within a territory?

How should they prepare for an upcoming surgeon conversation?

Answering those questions requires more than a generic AI tool. It requires access to the right data and the right context. In other words, the intelligence needs to be specific to MedTech selling. This distinction matters because MedTech isn't a generic sales environment. Reps need to understand provider behavior, procedure trends, referral patterns, facility dynamics, competitive activity, and market changes that are often spread across dozens of disconnected data sources. 

When asked how they access AI at work, 69% told us they are using general-purpose tools, like ChatGPT, versus company-approved AI tools (48% of respondents). The survey findings went on to discover that although general-purpose tools were more widely used than company-approved tools, reps who missed quota were more likely to rely on them at even higher rates than average (75% vs 69%). 

While general-purpose AI tools can help automate tasks, they lack the context required to answer the questions that matter most in the field. And this matters for MedTech reps. 

The organizations seeing the greatest value from AI will be the ones that pair AI with MedTech-specific data and workflows, enabling reps to focus on the right opportunities at the right time.

The full research report explores these findings in greater depth, including how top-performing reps are using AI today, the barriers preventing broader adoption, and why purpose-built MedTech AI solutions are emerging as a competitive advantage for commercial teams. Grab your copy of the report: AI Adoption in MedTech Sales - 2026 Industry Benchmarks and Trends