folk CRM x Insightly: Which AI CRM is the best?

AI has evolved beyond being a mere feature; it now powers smarter pipelines, accelerates decision-making, and fosters stronger customer relationships.

With capabilities ranging from predictive insights to automated workflows, CRM platforms are now competing on how effectively they integrate AI into every interaction.

While both folk CRM and Insightly offer intelligent sales assistance, their depth of AI, user-friendliness, and overall business impact differ significantly. For teams that prefer simplicity over complexity and cluttered dashboards, folk provides robust AI integration that enables timely follow-ups and insights extraction from calls and emails. It's the most powerful application of AI within a CRM.

Why AI Integration Matters?

AI revolutionizes CRMs, transforming them from static databases into proactive sales assistants. Rather than relying on reps to sift through contacts or draft follow-up messages, AI now automates crucial tasks, predicts outcomes, and enriches data in real-time.

• Faster decisions. AI identifies which leads to prioritize based on intent signals and deal velocity.
• Smarter outreach. Tools recommend message templates, optimal timing, and even analyze tone or sentiment.
• Cleaner data. Say goodbye to manual entry; AI automatically fills in missing information and flags duplicates or outdated records.
• Sales forecasting. Predictive models enable teams to identify pipeline risks before they materialize.
• B2B data enrichment. AI swiftly gathers company size, job titles, LinkedIn profiles, and contact information to complete lead records.
• AI-powered sequences. Personalized cold emails are generated and scheduled automatically based on deal stage, persona, or interaction history.

When AI is seamlessly integrated into a CRM, sales reps can dedicate less time to administrative tasks and focus more on actual selling. This distinction is what elevates a good CRM to one that truly accelerates revenue!

What is folk CRM?

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folk serves as the ideal sales assistant that teams have always desired. This intuitive, integrated CRM streamlines the busywork, allowing sales representatives to concentrate on fostering genuine relationships. With an impressive 4.5/5 rating on G2, folk is recognized as one of the most reliable AI-powered CRMs for lean teams.

Tailored for startups, agencies, and sales teams, folk makes AI accessible and practical, avoiding any sense of overwhelm.

Extract intel from calls and emails

A standout feature of folk is its AI-driven call transcript analysis, enabling sales and investment teams to extract valuable insights from recorded conversations. By integrating with dialers like Ringover and Aircall, or call recording tools such as Grain for Google Meet, users can seamlessly import transcripts into folk. From here, they can utilize Magic Fields, an AI feature that allows users to define prompts for extracting specific information from transcripts. For instance, sales teams can automatically gather details like contract value, user count, decision-makers, budget, or next steps—eliminating the need for manual note-taking. Investment teams can also access insights about founder backgrounds, fundraising stages, or a startup's requirements. These fields are completely customizable; simply write a prompt, map it to the transcript, and let folk's AI handle the rest. The outcome is a structured, searchable CRM enriched with critical data from your calls, enhancing follow-ups, qualifications, and reporting for greater speed and accuracy.

AI-Powered Follow-Up Reminders

The AI Follow-Up feature in folk ensures that no opportunity is missed. Built directly into the platform, this intelligent assistant evaluates your email interactions to determine when follow-ups are necessary. For example, if you've posed a question via email and the lead has not responded, folk will automatically recognize this and remind you to follow up at the appropriate time.

Moreover, the feature also works in reverse, highlighting leads that may have slipped your mind or conversations that have grown cold. By reviewing past interactions, folk helps you prioritize which contacts to re-engage, facilitating deal progression. This smart contextual follow-up system saves time, minimizes manual tracking, and boosts your chances of closing more deals.

AI features in folk CRM summary

• Suggested actions: Receive proactive reminders and AI recommendations based on recent activities or deal stages.
• Extract intel from calls: Utilize AI to gather next steps, decision-makers, budgets, and other essential information.
• AI-generated messages: Save time with outreach suggestions tailored to each contact's context.
• Duplicate management: AI identifies duplicates and cleans up messy contact lists, keeping your CRM organized.

folk starts at $20 per user per month, with a 14-day free trial available—no credit card required!

What is Insightly?

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Insightly’s AI roadmap introduces generative assistance across marketing, sales, and service. In marketing, the AI assistant crafts and refines email and landing-page copy, complete with A/B-testing variations. CRM users can generate AI-crafted email replies, summarize lengthy ticket threads, and even articulate calculated-field formulas in plain English to auto-generate code. On mobile, enhanced AI-powered business-card scanning improves accuracy and contact capture, ensuring that every aspect of your CRM feels conversational rather than cumbersome.

Feature comparison of folk CRM and Insightly

AI Follow-ups

Folk’s AI Follow-ups analyze your inbox and calendar to identify when a lead requires attention, such as when someone says, “Let’s chat Tuesday” or “I’ll circle back next week.” You’ll receive a task suggestion along with a draft follow-up message in your dashboard. Simply review it, hit send, and rest assured that you’re staying on top of every conversation.

Insightly’s AI Assistant monitors your activity feed and email threads for follow-up cues. When it picks up phrases like “let’s touch base next week,” it proposes a task or draft reply, complete with a subject line and opening sentence. You can customize the timing and wording before finalizing. For conditional actions—such as “if no reply in three days, send a reminder”—integrate those suggestions into Insightly’s Workflow Automation.

Automated Contact Enrichment

With our 1-click Enrichment feature, your new contacts are automatically filled with essential company details, titles, phone numbers, social profiles, and more the moment they enter your CRM. Say goodbye to manual imports and outdated data. If you’re looking for additional technographic or firmographic insights, simply integrate with marketplace partners like Clearbit or InsideView for seamless, real-time data hygiene.

As soon as a new lead record is generated, Insightly’s AI-powered business card scanner or our integrated data partners effortlessly gather profile information—such as name, title, company, email, phone, and social links—from publicly available sources. To enhance your contacts with richer firmographics or technographics, consider connecting AppConnect enrichers like Seamless.AI or Clearbit for real-time updates on every contact.

Smart Fields

Looking to enhance personalized outreach? folk seamlessly merges your CRM data with AI, enabling you to create contextual email sequences in seconds. Simply specify the persona and goal—like “five-step outreach to marketing leads” or “post-demo recap”—and receive tailored subject lines, body copy, and sending schedules ready for immediate launch. Experience full-funnel automation without any writing hassle.

Insightly empowers you to design dynamic layouts and dependent picklists, allowing forms to adjust based on existing data. If a visitor's email is already known, the form omits that field and presents fresh questions instead. In the background, you can align custom properties that sync with your AI Assistant, ensuring that any missing information is automatically filled from your enrichment connectors.

AI-Powered Message & Sequence Generation

Looking to scale your personalized outreach? folk seamlessly integrates your CRM data with AI to generate contextual email sequences in mere seconds. Simply specify the persona and goal—like “five-step outreach to marketing leads” or “post-demo recap”—and you’ll receive ready-to-launch subject lines, body copy, and send cadences. Experience full-funnel automation without the hassle of writer's block.

With Insightly’s AI Assistant, just provide a straightforward prompt—such as “three-step outreach to marketing directors” or “post-demo follow-up”—and it will swiftly create complete email sequences that include subject lines, body copy, and send cadences. You can save these sequences as templates and deploy them through Campaigns or Workflow Automation, ensuring each step is triggered by opens, clicks, or changes in stage.

Next Best Action

Folk eliminates the uncertainty in your pipeline by presenting the 'best next step' derived from CRM data, inbox interactions, and calendar insights. Whether it’s making a call, sharing a case study, or sending a quick follow-up, you’ll receive positive, actionable suggestions directly within your workflow—ensuring every representative feels confident and supported.

Insightly’s predictive analytics engine evaluates deal health, engagement signals, and historical win patterns to suggest the most impactful next step—be it a call reminder, a personalized content share, or sending a proposal. These recommendations are displayed in your pipeline view or as task prompts, and you can seamlessly integrate them into workflows to steer your team at every stage.

Conclusion

In comparing folk CRM and Insightly, Insightly offers powerful generative assistance for crafting emails and marketing content, while folk excels in AI-driven follow-ups, call transcript analysis, and personalized outreach. Both CRMs leverage AI to streamline processes and enhance sales capabilities. However, folk stands out as a superior alternative, integrating robust AI features that simplify user experience and maximize productivity, making it the ideal choice for teams seeking efficiency without complexity.

Start your 14-day free trial or book a demo today.