New research from Infinity, a call analytics platform, suggests that AI-powered search is changing the role of inbound sales calls rather than eliminating demand. The findings, based on 41 million phone calls analyzed across Infinity’s customer base over the past 12 months, indicate that consumers are increasingly reaching businesses later in the purchasing process.

According to the research, buyers are arriving with product information already researched and prices already compared through AI tools. As a result, sales conversations are becoming more focused on commercial issues such as price and availability.

Price Becomes the Leading Reason for Failed Sales Calls

Infinity found a significant change in the reasons sales calls fail to convert. Between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026, price or budget mismatches increased by 77%, accounting for 31.6% of non-converting calls and becoming the most common barrier to conversion.

Availability problems ranked second at 18.3%. Meanwhile, questions related to understanding the product, which had previously been the leading reason for unsuccessful calls, fell by more than half during the same period.

Daniel Wilkinson, Chief Customer Officer at Infinity and author of the research, said customers are increasingly entering conversations with expectations about pricing already established before they speak with a sales representative.

He said businesses may therefore be dealing less with a lead-quality issue and more with a mismatch between the customer's expectations and the information provided during the call.

Inbound Call Volumes Continue to Grow

Despite concerns that AI search could reduce traditional inbound demand, Infinity's data indicates that call activity has continued to increase.

Across the 41 million calls analyzed, overall call volume grew 24% year over year. The percentage of website visitors who subsequently called a business also increased, rising from 1.59% in January 2025 to 2.04% in June 2026.

Infinity identified two notable periods of acceleration in the visit-to-call rate: September through November 2025 and May through June 2026. The company associates these periods with increasing adoption of AI-powered search.

The research suggests that businesses may misinterpret declining phone conversions. Rather than indicating weaker customer interest, unsuccessful calls may increasingly reflect the fact that buyers are reaching the sales conversation with stronger purchase intent and more specific expectations.

Sales Conversations Are Becoming More Commercial

Infinity argues that AI is taking over some of the preliminary research that consumers once completed through phone conversations. This means remaining calls are more likely to involve negotiation, pricing, availability, and final purchasing considerations.

Among calls identified as having purchase intent, approximately three out of four still fail to convert, according to the research.

The findings suggest that sales teams may need to adjust their approach as customers arrive with fewer basic questions and greater expectations about the product and its price.

Paid Search Continues to Drive Calls

The research also examined the relationship between different digital acquisition channels and phone activity.

Paid search generated phone calls at a rate of 3.08%, compared with 1.76% for organic search and 0.46% for display advertising.

Infinity found relatively similar call quality between paid and organic search. Approximately 71.1% of PPC-attributed calls lasted longer than one minute, compared with 73.6% of calls attributed to organic search.

AI Is Becoming a Referral Source

Infinity also reported significant growth in website traffic originating from AI platforms. Direct referral traffic from AI services increased by 1,989% between January 2024 and April 2025, with ChatGPT accounting for 78.5% of that traffic.

According to the company's data, visitors referred by AI platforms generated phone conversations at rates comparable to organic-search visitors and produced offline conversion events at 1.45 times the rate of paid-search referrals.

Infinity notes that its AI referral data is current through April 2025, with additional methodology and data-currency information provided separately.

What Businesses Can Do

Based on the findings, Infinity recommends that marketing and sales organizations adapt to the changing customer journey by:

• Incorporating phone-call outcomes into paid advertising and bidding strategies.

• Treating AI services such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini as distinct referral channels.

• Preparing sales and call-handling teams for more frequent discussions around pricing and availability.

• Strengthening brand credibility through reviews, authoritative content, and third-party mentions that can influence AI-generated recommendations.

The research indicates that AI-powered discovery is shifting more of the buying process toward the research stage, leaving businesses to handle increasingly informed and commercially focused customers when they finally make contact.