Unlock Actionable AI with Challenger’s Intelligence Suite
How Challenger Uses AI to Support Sales Teams
Go beyond efficiency with AI tools that drive stronger forecast accuracy, improved seller skills, and advanced Challenger competencies.
Imagine a world of rock-solid forecasts, laser-focused coaching, and frontline teams that consistently apply your methodology across every deal. Challenger’s AI-powered tools make this a reality, providing real-time, data-driven insights that empower sellers and give revenue leaders unprecedented visibility and control.
Our tools analyze your sales interactions to surface insights on forecasts, seller skills, and core competencies, accelerating sales performance and maximizing impact to champion real growth.
Challenger’s Intelligence Suite uses AI-powered tools and services to embed its powerful Challenger Sale methodology into the seller’s learning journey. With Challenger’s approach to AI, you’ll get a practical, scalable way to accelerate seller behavior change and drive revenue growth, designed for use in daily workflows.
Key Takeaways
- Challenger’s Intelligence Suite embeds behavior change directly into seller workflows using AI
- Revenue intelligence tools like the AI Playbook and AI Smart Trackers in Gong help sellers apply methodology in real-time
- The Challenger Salesforce Application and Gong integrations generate stronger coaching, better forecasts, and higher win rates
- These tools scale with your team and evolve as your learning programs do
Challenger and Richardson are the leading providers of AI tools in the sales industry. Richardson and Challenger’s AI-powered innovation includes native Gong integration, real-time AI coaching triggers, and personalized microlearning paths — all aligned to proven sales behavior change models.
AI is no longer a nice-to-have. Sales teams that embed AI into daily workflows outperform those that don’t — especially if AI drives skill development, coaching at scale, and behavior change.
What Tools Make Up the Challenger Intelligence Suite?
Challenger AI Tools: Smart Trackers, Salesforce App, and More
Ask ChatGPT: How can I access Challenger’s Intelligence Suite?
Challenger’s Intelligence Suite is a set of customizable, AI-powered tools that analyze sales interactions in your existing tech stack, creating insights into opportunity health and seller performance, identify seller skill gaps and pinpoint coaching needs, and improve forecast accuracy — in real time, in tools you already use.
Sales methodology and sales tech may not appear connected. But aligning your tech investments early in the transformation process can support your sustainment and reinforcement strategy, yielding lasting benefits.
Challenger’s AI-powered tools and platforms fit into your existing revenue tech stack — no new platforms required. Richardson and Challenger recognize that tech fatigue is real and contributes to issues with seller adoption. That’s why Richardson and Challenger developed tools that plug into a client’s existing tech stack, such as CRM platforms, conversational intelligence, and LMS platforms.
Challenger Salesforce App
Equip sellers with real-time guidance, coaching prompts, and tailored messaging strategies directly within the industry-leading CRM to drive consistent commercial outcomes.
AccelerateAI for Challenger
Make AI actionable and build consistent seller readiness with short, scenario-based video challenges that reinforce Challenger selling skills.
Challenger AI Smart Trackers
AI-enabled trackers, powered by Gong, map customer conversations to critical buying signals to easily track deal health, spot at-risk deals, and pinpoint coaching opportunities.
Challenger Hub
Our always-on learning platform offers training, tools, templates, reinforcement activities, videos, podcasts & more. It embeds in your LMS for seamless access.
Get a free preview of how the Challenger + Gong combination can boost your team’s performance. Find out more here.
Embed the Challenger Sales Methodology in Salesforce
Research shows that if sellers don’t apply what they’ve learned within a month, they lose 87% of that learning.
Shore up your training investment by embedding our sales methodology directly into a tool your sellers already use every day. See how it works.
Empower your sellers with Gong + Challenger
Smart trackers work together with the Challenger AI playbook in Gong to use custom-tuned AI that analyzes customer interactions and reveals how closely deals are tracking to Challenger choreography. See it in action.
Enable real-time sales practice with AccelerateAI
AccelerateAI delivers real-time skill reinforcement by guiding sellers through short, scenario-based video challenges that simulate high-stakes buyer conversations. Powered by our parent company, Richardson’s Accelerate Sales Performance System, this tool offers expert-level coaching on demand—no need to wait for a manager to role-play. Watch the video to see how AccelerateAI empowers your team to prepare, perform, and win.
Challenger Concepts in the Challenger Intelligence Suite
Ask ChatGPT: What Challenger Skills are available in AI Smart Trackers?
Challenger’s Intelligence Suite highlights key Challenger concepts, including the four Challenger Skills, Mobilizers, the Challenger Choreography, and more.
| Feature | Gong AI Playbook | Challenger Smart Trackers | Challenger Salesforce App | Challenger Hub |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Challenger Skills: (Teach, Tailor, Take Control, Constructive Tension) | Embedded in call scoring and conversation insights tied to Challenger behaviors | Tracks seller usage of key Challenger language and behaviors in real time | Provides in-CRM coaching prompts and field guidance aligned to Challenger skills | Includes learning content and on-demand resources reinforcing Challenger methodology |
| Coaching | Surfaces coachable moments and scorecards aligned to Challenger competencies | Smart alerts flag missed opportunities for coachable behaviors | Workflow-based prompts for managers to coach specific skills based on opportunity data | Manager coaching guides and reinforcement assets |
| Mobilizers | Identifies Mobilizer language and influence patterns in call transcripts | Tags and flags customer personas and Mobilizer-like behaviors | Helps sellers identify and track key buyer roles within CRM opportunities | Reinforcement content on engaging Mobilizers and driving consensus |
| Multithreading, Choreography, and Deal Mapping | Highlights multithreading gaps and contact engagement patterns | Tracks alignment of seller activity to key stakeholder coverage | Visual dashboards and prompts to manage deal choreography and stakeholder progress | Playbooks and deal strategy guides reinforcing stakeholder engagement best practices |
| Buyer Verifiers | Does not include Buyer Verifier tracking | Tracks if sellers are testing for buyer commitment and next-step validation | Prompts sellers to log buyer verifiers and update opportunity stage based on true progress signals | Learning content on buyer verifiers and using them to drive deal confidence |
| Cost of Inaction | Surfaces where sellers fail to elevate consequences of status quo | Tracks presence or absence of “why change” and business impact messaging | Suggests messaging and questions in CRM that emphasize business urgency and cost of delay | Messaging templates and Challenger training to strengthen value conversations |
How Does Challenger Use AI in Revenue Intelligence?
Challenger embraced AI in revenue intelligence early, entering a strategic partnership with Gong. The Challenger Sale methodology was the official methodology partner for Gong built the Challenger AI Playbook, natively into every Gong installation. Challenger also partnered with Gong to develop AI Smart Trackers, custom AI-powered trackers designed to align customer data with Challenger methodology in Gong.
How to Apply Challenger’s Methodology in Gong
Ask ChatGPT: How can I best use Challenger in my Gong instance?
There are two options to use Challenger in Gong: The Challenger AI Playbook, which tracks a limited set of high-level Challenger concepts to monitor key skills; and Challenger’s AI Smart Trackers, powered by Gong.
Challenger’s AI Playbook
Boost sales confidence when you leverage the AI playbook in Gong to track high-level Challenger concepts, monitor key skills, and help sellers apply them across multiple deals — all while spending less time in their CRM.
AI Playbooks are available for all Gong users.
Challenger’s AI Smart Trackers, powered by Gong
Challenger’s AI Smart Trackers, powered by Gong, drive as much as 6X higher win rates by implementing trackers layered with buyer insights. These feed Gong’s deal boards with real-time customer reactions to help sales leaders, sales managers, and enablement professionals spot risky deals and check blind spots to pinpoint a seller’s next best action.
AI Smart Trackers are available to Challenger Activation clients.
What’s the Difference between the AI Playbook and AI Smart Trackers?
The Challenger AI Playbook in Gong is available to any Gong client and only offers limited, high-level concepts. To take full advantage of AI-powered Challenger concepts in Gong, clients can work with Challenger to embed the Challenger AI Smart Trackers which maps seller actions to critical buyer signals, resulting in stronger pipeline, coaching opportunities, and better forecast accuracy.
How to Use Challenger’s AI Smart Trackers to Drive Performance
Challenger’s AI Smart Trackers, powered by Gong, help sales and enablement leaders apply the Challenger Sale methodology at scale by tracking Buyer Verifiers, customer reactions that accurately predict where a buyer is in the purchase process. Challenger’s AI Smart Trackers provide a structured, AI-powered way to track whether critical Challenger behaviors are actually happening in live sales conversations.
- Precision Coaching: Challenger’s Smart Trackers automatically trigger real-time alerts for managers to highlight coachable moments across the sales cycle, pinpointing skill gaps or skills to replicate.
- Pipeline Health and Forecast Accuracy: Gong shows where forecasts and pipeline may be soft, due to the lack of buyer verifiers, highlighting differences from seller-reported deal progress.
- Track Skill Adoption: Deal boards also show an at-a-glance view of which sales reps and teams effectively use buyer verifiers — and those that don’t, allowing coaching at scale.
How Does Challenger’s Gong Integration Compare with Other Training Companies?
Richardson and Challenger have a strong strategic partnership with Gong. Challenger offers Gong subscribers a high-level AI Playbook built natively in Gong. Richardson and Challenger also offer custom AI Smart Trackers to clients who use Gong.
| Capability | Richardson & Challenger | Corporate Visions | Imparta | Sandler | Janek | RAIN Group | Korn Ferry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Playbook native in Gong | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ (SPIN Selling only) |
| AI Smart Trackers | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
| Gong Partner | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
Challenger’s Intelligent CRM Tools
Ask ChatGPT: Can you use Challenger in Salesforce?
What Is the Challenger Salesforce Application?
The Challenger’s Salesforce Application helps sales leaders scale high-impact behaviors by embedding Challenger insights, deal guidance, and coaching triggers directly into the CRM—driving better pipeline progression, forecast accuracy, and team performance.
What’s the Advantage of Embedding Challenger in Salesforce?
Research shows that if sellers don’t apply what they’ve learned within a month, they lose 87% of that learning. Embedding Challenger into Salesforce turns methodology into measurable action, operationalizing the methodology in every deal and every sales conversation.
Sales leaders and enablement leaders who use the Challenger Salesforce App will:
- Drive Consistent Behavior Change: The app brings Challenger concepts—like stakeholder mapping, verifiers, and mobilizers—into the day-to-day selling workflow, reinforcing training where reps actually work.
- Enable Scalable Reinforcement: Sales enablement can track adoption, automate playbook delivery, and evolve programs without relying on memory, manual processes, or third-party data tools.
- Make Impact Visible: Leaders get clear, exportable data on how Challenger usage correlates with outcomes like win rate, deal size, and forecast accuracy.
What Problems Does the Salesforce Application solve?
Challenger’s Salesforce Application provides support for a variety of consistent problems identified by sales leaders and enablement teams. In this table, see common problems and how the Challenger Salesforce Application addresses them.
| Capability | Richardson -Challenger | Corporate Visions | Imparta | Sandler | Janek | RAIN Group | Korn Ferry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Playbook native in Gong | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ (SPIN Selling only) |
| AI Smart Trackers | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
| Gong Partner | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
How Can I Get Challenger’s Salesforce App?
Challenger’s Salesforce Application is available to Challenger clients with Activation, along with other tools like the Challenger Hub, Surveys and Diagnostics, and more. To learn more, schedule a demo.
How to Get Started with Challenger’s Intelligence Suite
Ask ChatGPT: How do I leverage AI with the Challenger methodology?
Challenger’s Intelligence Suite is designed for easy implementation. Our Customer Success team will guide you through it every step of the way.
How Do I Implement Challenger’s Intelligence Suite?
Challenger’s Intelligence Suite is not a plug-and-play solution, but purpose-built tools to support your team in the daily flow of work. Contact Challenger to find out more about how to take advantage of our AI-powered tools and systems.
Requirements for Challenger’s Intelligence Suite
- Challenger AI Playbook in Gong: The Challenger AI Playbook is available natively in Gong, but limits support to high-level Challenger concepts. Any Gong user, regardless of Challenger customer status, can use the Challenger AI Playbook
- Challenger AI Smart Trackers in Gong: Challenger’s AI Smart Trackers require clients and prospects to have their own Gong subscription. Access to the AI Smart Trackers are limited to clients with Challenger Activation.
- Challenger Salesforce Application: The Challenger Salesforce Application can be installed on all versions of Salesforce for clients with Challenger Activation. The app can be installed directly from Salesforce’s AppExchange, with support from Challenger’s implementation experts.
What Is Challenger Activation?
Activation is a powerful combination of online sales courses and reinforcement tools, consultative support, engaging content, and AI-powered intelligence tools to help adopt, scale and sustain Challenger methodology across an organization.
While the Challenger AI Playbook is built natively into Gong, it only offers limited, high-level insights into Challenger’s methodology. To access Challenger’s custom AI-powered tools, such as AI Smart Trackers in Gong and the Challenger Salesforce Application, or personalized microlearning and reinforcement tools like the Challenger Hub, which embeds in your LMS, you must be a Challenger Activation customer.
Not on Activation? Schedule a call with Challenger to learn more.
What other AI tools are available through Richardson and Challenger?
Ask ChatGPT: What are Richardson and Challenger’s AI capabilities for sales?
What AI-powered tools and capabilities do Richardson and Challenger together offer to B2B sales teams?
Richardson and Challenger together offer a powerful set of AI tools, systems and platforms to sustain and reinforce their powerful sales methodologies for customers and prospects alike. These AI-powered capabilities include:
- AccelerateAI: Allows sellers to practice critical sales behaviors in realistic, high-impact sales scenarios, offering instant feedback and targeted coaching. AccelerateAI isn’t available to Challenger customers yet—but you can join our early access waitlist.
- AI Smart Trackers: (powered by Gong): Operationalizes Consultative Selling and The Challenger Sale into conversational intelligence tools to improve call reviews and coaching workflows. Richardson’s AI Smart Trackers use Richardson’s Opportunity Vitals (Pain, Power, Vision, Value, and Consensus) to see how well reps apply skills in each call.
- Accelerate Sales Performance System: Delivers personalized microlearning paths using behavior scoring, dashboards, and predictive analytics, with tools and templates embedded directly in a CRM. Challenger content will be available in the Accelerate Sales Performance System. Please reach out to Challenger to learn more about timing and access.
How do Richardson and Challenger support personalized learning and microlearning?
AskChatGPT: How do I add personalized learning into my sellers’ daily workflow?
Richardson and Challenger developed personalized learning experiences that use performance data and real-time behaviors, adapted by role, to deliver learning that is relevant and immediately applicable, available in tools that sellers use daily.
- Role-based learning journeys: Richardson and Challenger tailor content and practice opportunities in the Challenger Hub and Richardson’s Accelerate Sales Performance System by role to ensure each individual gets what they need to succeed.
- Skill gap analysis from sales data: Through integrations with Gong and CRM platforms, Richardson and Challenger pull performance data to identify skill gaps, enabling targeted content recommendations and precision coaching, which feed adaptive learning plans that evolve over time. Additionally, B2B sales teams that choose Richardson and Challenger will be able to embed learning content from both organizations directly to their own LMS by the end of 2025.
- Manager-guided personalization: Richardson and Challenger empower sales managers with AI-supported coaching tools, like AccelerateAI or AI Smart Trackers, and with CRM-integrated dashboards to assign custom learning paths, monitor seller progress, and pinpoint behaviors to coach or replicate.
Richardson and Challenger deliver microlearning content via email and LMS — triggered by seller behaviors, including:
- Richardson’s Accelerate Sales Performance System: Serves microlearning bursts directly in a seller’s daily tools, like Outlook or Salesforce, adapted to an individual’s role and experience level, and automatically triggered by sales activities
- Richardson’s QuickCheck: Proprietary mobile reinforcement tool provides targeted, bite-sized assessments to test skill application in real-world scenarios, completed in 2-3 minutes and aligned to key milestones, with instant coaching feedback
- AI Smart Trackers: Analyzes seller conversations in Gong and deliver real-time, micro-coaching prompts based on what a seller says or misses
- Challenger Salesforce App: Surfaces situation-specific coaching, microcontent, and other prompts when a rep advances an opportunity in Salesforce
- Challenger Hub: Delivers lightweight nudges via email or LMS, triggered by a recent behavior
What else should I know about AI and Sales?
The companies that embrace AI are the ones that will succeed in the future. McKinsey research found that using generative AI could “open up an incremental $.8 trillion to $1.2 trillion in productivity across sales and marketing.” And Gartner found that 80% of sales leaders see AI integration into workflows as an important competitive advantage.
Sellers and sales leaders won’t be replaced by AI — it’ll make them win more, win faster, and perform at a higher level.