Automate B2B Lead Generation with an AI Agent (2026 Guide)

Spending hours manually searching for prospects on LinkedIn, Google Maps, or business directories? This guide shows you how to deploy an AI agent that generates B2B leads for you — just tell it what type of company you’re looking for.

#What is an AI lead generation agent?

An AI lead generation agent is an assistant that finds prospects on the web for you. You tell it who you’re looking for — for example “real estate agencies in London” or “accounting firms with more than 10 employees in the Greater Paris area” — and it brings back a structured list with names, websites, emails, and phone numbers.

To do this, the agent relies on web scraping tools. The most powerful and accessible is Apify: a platform offering hundreds of pre-built scrapers (called “Actors”) for LinkedIn, Google Maps, Yellow Pages, industry directories, and many other sources.

The agent doesn’t just launch a scraper. It picks the right tool based on your request, configures the parameters, runs the extraction, and presents results in a clear, actionable format.

#Why automate B2B prospecting with an AI agent?

Manual prospecting is every salesperson’s nightmare. Here’s what it looks like without an agent:

1. Open Google Maps or LinkedIn
2. Type a search
3. Browse results one by one
4. Copy info into a spreadsheet
5. Hunt for emails and phone numbers
6. Repeat for the next query

For 50 qualified leads, expect 3 to 5 hours of work. Every single week.

With an AI agent connected to Apify, the same task takes 2 minutes:

Find me 50 Italian restaurants in Manchester with their address, phone number, and Google rating.

The agent launches the Google Maps scraper, retrieves the results, and presents them in a clean table. Meanwhile, you focus on closing deals.

#Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

• An Apify account — the free plan includes monthly credits to get started
• An Apify API token — available in Settings → Integrations in your Apify account
• A Tasmela account — the platform that deploys your AI agent and manages connections to external tools

No technical skills required. You don’t need to code or understand scraping — the agent handles everything.

#Step 1 — Create an Apify account and get your token

Go to apify.com and create an account. The free plan gives you monthly credits to run Actors.

Once logged in, go to Settings → Integrations and copy your API token. This token allows your agent to run extractions on Apify.

Take a minute to explore the Apify Store: it’s the catalog of all available scrapers. You’ll find Actors for Google Maps, LinkedIn, Instagram, Amazon, Yellow Pages, and hundreds of other sources.

#Step 2 — Connect Apify to your agent on Tasmela

From your Tasmela dashboard:

1. Go to the Integrations page
2. Find Apify in the list
3. Click on it and paste your API token
4. Click Connect

The agent configures itself automatically in seconds. No code to write, no config files to edit. Tasmela handles all the technical plumbing: secure connection to the Apify API, access to the Actor catalog, and result formatting.

#Step 3 — Run your first lead extraction

Go back to the chat and test with a concrete prompt:

Find me 20 real estate agencies in Bristol with their name, address, phone number, and website.

The agent will:

1. Identify that Google Maps is the best source for this query
2. Launch the Google Maps Scraper Actor on Apify
3. Configure the search “real estate agencies Bristol”
4. Retrieve the results
5. Present a structured table

All in under 2 minutes.

#Step 4 — Build a complete prospecting pipeline

The real power comes when you chain steps together. Here’s a typical workflow:

Phase 1 — Identification

Find 100 accounting firms in the South East on Google Maps. I want the name, address, phone, website, and Google rating.

Phase 2 — Qualification

From this list, keep only firms with a rating above 4 stars that have a website.

Phase 3 — Enrichment

For the top 30 firms in the filtered list, find available email addresses from their websites.

In 3 prompts, you go from zero to a list of 30 qualified prospects with complete contact details.

#Ready-to-use prompts

Here are 5 prompts you can copy-paste directly into the chat:

Find me 50 restaurants in Shoreditch, London with their name, address, phone, Google rating, and number of reviews.

Scrape the first 30 LinkedIn results for "VP Sales SaaS UK". Give me the name, title, company, and profile link.

List all bakeries in Birmingham with more than 100 Google reviews and a rating above 4.5.

Find 40 fintech startups in London on Google Maps. I want the name, website, and phone number.

Extract industrial cleaning companies in the Midlands from Google Maps. Name, city, phone.

#Best use cases

#FAQ

#Is it legal to scrape data for prospecting?

Scraping publicly accessible data is legal in most cases, but there are rules to follow. Information displayed on Google Maps, Yellow Pages, or company websites is public. However, scraping personal data from LinkedIn is subject to their Terms of Service and GDPR. Use collected data responsibly: no spam, no resale, and respect people’s right to opt out.

#What is an “Actor” on Apify?

An Actor is a pre-built, ready-to-use scraper. There are hundreds in the Apify Store: one for Google Maps, one for LinkedIn, one for Instagram, one for Amazon, and so on. Your AI agent automatically picks the right Actor based on your request — you don’t need to know which one to use.

#Is the free Apify plan enough to get started?

Yes. The free plan includes monthly credits for several dozen extractions. For a small business or freelancer, that’s more than enough to get started. If you scale up, paid plans start at $49/month.

#Can the agent export results to a CRM?

Yes, if your CRM has an integration available. The agent can be configured to send leads directly to HubSpot, Pipedrive, or even a Google Sheet. That’s the advantage of the Tasmela approach: you can connect multiple tools and create complete workflows.

#Summary

#Conclusion

Automating B2B lead generation with an AI agent means going from artisanal prospecting to industrial prospecting — without hiring, without coding, without spending hours on it.

You describe the type of company you’re looking for, the agent does the rest. In 2 minutes, you have a structured list of qualified prospects with their contact details.

Setup takes less than 5 minutes on Tasmela. And from the very first use, the time saved is obvious: what used to take half a day now happens in a few prompts.

This guide is part of a series on AI automation for professionals.