Run specialised AI SDRs for outbound, inbound and follow up with weekly human coaching

Jason Lemkin and Chief AI Officer Amelia Lerutte report on six months of running five specialised AI SDRs at SaaStr, covering cold outbound, inbound, follow up and lapsed customers. Together the agents sent close to 20,000 outbound messages with a 6.7% response rate, and the inbound agent alone closed over $1M within 90 days on roughly $100K of spend. For cheaper items such as event tickets the AI now closes sales itself, bringing in about 20% of ticket revenue, while larger deals are qualified and handed to people. Their main lessons: the agents only scale messaging and processes that already work, each platform costs $50K to $100K or more a year, and they need 15 to 20 hours of human coaching every week.