AI SDRs/BDRs: Performance Insights and Lead Generation Results
Anyone using an AI SDR or BDR and if so, what is the general consensus on performance. Are you seeing an increase in qualified leads, meetings and/or deals?
Anyone using an AI SDR or BDR and if so, what is the general consensus on performance. Are you seeing an increase in qualified leads, meetings and/or deals?
Matt J. I just saw your question. It's hard to predict where AI is going to be a week from now. Instead, I'll answer another question, which is when I will be excited about AI SDR:
When AI will be able to analyze a lead and tell me what his persona is like, what drives that lead and how to approach that lead versus another persona? (e.g mention his family vs. getting to the point quickly)
When AI will be able to give me deep insights about a lead, such as something they said on a podcast, a YouTube video, or even on a personal social media account. I've tried multiple tools that claim to do that and have yet to find something that does that in a relatively consistent way (e.g a lead is an Arsenal fan because he took a picture wearing an Arsenal shirt and posted that on his Insta/Facebook)
Fair enough, their expectation is still at that first blue point on the graph and it’s going to have to come down and give it some time. However to be honest I think there is huge potential in improving existing processes (not reinventing the wheel) through better end-to-end tool connectivity
No I don't think its going anywhere but it will not deliver the results CXO's expect without great change management processes in place.
No I didn’t know these stats however my feeling (from speaking with and implement AI-powered workflows for clients) is that so far AI has created the equivalent of a gold rush where many people want to benefit from it without knowing what to do and how to implement it. So I believe this will change and grow back up overtime as more people (with real experience) are available on the market. It takes time to properly upskill. I like the Dunning-Kruger learning curve AI isn’t going to go anywhere in my opinion.
Super interesting article Matt E. thanks for sharing. From what we are seeing the biggest challenge come from poor tool interconnectivity because each company has created AI functionalities, team members spend even more time in silos stuck in tools. Where the impact is real and gains are massive is when workflows are built with purpose end-to-en leverage AI within it. And this works both for high-volume top of funnel or bottom of funnel activities AS LONG AS the purpose of the workflow is clear and focused on specific actions and outcomes.
Sorry a bit late Matt J. but my 2 pence worth is the best use cases for AI are in high-volume, top-of-funnel activities like lead qualification and list building, freeing up human sellers to focus on relationship-building and closing. If not then you are exposing your wider business and sales teams to workslop.
Personally, I’m a big fan of comprehensive all-in-one solutions like B2Brocket because they simplify the onboarding process for our clients and help them get started quickly. With this kind of platform, you really only need one person to check in daily or every couple of days to make sure everything is operating smoothly and meeting your key performance indicators. This way, your sales reps can focus on what they do best, building relationships in meetings and closing deals, instead of getting bogged down with manual tasks or spending unnecessary time navigating the platform. Just my thoughts!
Hey Matt J., I noticed there’s already been a lot of insightful feedback shared here. I’ll add my perspective, though I should mention that I work with B2Brocket — which is directly related to what you’re asking about. Our platform helps thousands of users fully automate their appointment-setting process. Previously, I worked as a fractional sales consultant myself, so I understand firsthand how challenging it can be to consistently schedule qualified meetings. That’s actually how I discovered B2Brocket.ai: I was searching for a solution that could scale outreach efficiently and effectively. B2Brocket handles everything from generating leads based on your ideal customer profile (ICP), intent data, and website visitor activity, to identifying prospects who are ready to engage. The system then takes over the outreach, crafting tailored messages and executing multi-channel campaigns — covering email, LinkedIn, SMS, WhatsApp, and even AI-driven voice calls — all focused on booking more meetings for you. While no tool is flawless, what really differentiates us is the way our AI adapts to your business. In the past, you’d have to manually feed it info like your company overview, pain points, value propositions, and differentiators. Now, you can upload up to 10,000 documents — training materials, demo transcripts, presentations — so the AI can continuously learn how to communicate more effectively and answer campaign-specific questions over time.
To illustrate here is a mini demo recording we did for a client with technical personas to track
Promotion, change role and new hire signals (which you've started to track), with demo to show how personalised and evergreen campaign can be created 0 to 2:50min
Lead & Account scoring + personalised AI email pushed to sequencer or sales rep for human action from min 2:50.
Note: this was for this client’s context and is only a tiny part of what can truly be done
Does that help?
This isn’t about setting up and AI SDR to replace your teams fully, it’s about having AI and automation do the hard work and being able to only provide the cream to team members to focus their time on what matters most. What we currently see as a result is a team reduction as less HC are needed to convert the same or more in many cases.
Guys, really interesting topic here. From what I’ve seen in the past year most AI SDR tools are not fit for purpose to let it handle everything end-to-end, at least not yet. It does work for mass engagement in B2C context where most users are not used to receiving prospecting emails and for many are not even aware of how much AI has advanced already thus not able to spot the difference. In B2B environment it’s very different especially when targeting technical personas. Shani S. I noticed you’ve mentioned Clay from an enrichment capability point of view. Clay is much much more than this. We currently help multiple companies implementing it end-to-end to remove typical team and tool stack silos so that AI can be leveraged at the right place (reducing manual workload, reducing friction, scalability and consistency in execution) so that the heavy lifting is done while maximising the existing tech stack companies currently pay for. From there depending on account tiering that can also be built on Clay it can be decided to produce ready to use final outputs and notified the right team member for final check/adjustments and decision to call/email/connect based on the insights received But by then the heavy lifting is fully done leaving the team member (SDR, BDR AE or even CSM) to take the most appropriate action No more time wasting doing all the prep work this can be fully automated if needed
Shani S. I’m right there with you, we’re in the midst of exploring a few AI SDR platforms and seeing how they stack up. Thanks for your candor. What I’m seeing is most AI SDR tools optimize for volume, while engineering execs optimize for signal. One tweak that’s worked better is to completely flip the stack.
Let AI do the deep prep only
Have a human write the first touch using your ICP and set guardrails in place by implementing human interference
From your experience, did lead quality or reply rates move at all? Also, do you think AI SDR is even worth continuing to explore right now, or does it feel like the tech just isn’t ready for the bar engineering leaders have set?