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?
Need more context. But at a high level, it’s an enhancement in most cases. It can’t replace them yet. It will start to replace sales people in the following order imo:
B2C inbound. Cable company, etc
B2B inbound SMB. Yelp, Google ad words.
B2B outbound - a single SDR human, can oversee 2 email sequencing ai motions.
I think it’s further away than we think, and closer than we want to admit. For B2B mm and ent deals, much harder to replace a rep. The real issue is you will get shortlisted and not even know it because of GEO. And if you sell to the tech side of the house, they love the idea of never speaking to sales people until they absolutely have to.
We've tried AI SDR, Artisan, 11x, and Attention. Some did a better job at enrichment than others, but in par with Clay. The outreach, though, was screaming "done by AI". Our ICP is engineering executives so the bar is high, even for a human SDR. I didn't not feel comfortable sending these emails to our ICP.
Thanks, Richard H. . I concur, the sequencing feels spot on. Enterprise B2B is a whole different animal, too much complexity and trust building to completely automate; however, the hidden risk is exactly what you said, you can get shortlisted without ever knowing. Especially with tech buyers, they’d rather avoid sales until the very end if they could. Feels like the future will be more of a hybrid while AI handles the administrative lift and people focus on oversight and building trust. For additional context, I’m seeking to understand the potential upside and challenges with implementing an AI SDR or BDR as well as gain insight from the communities personal experiences with implementation and execution.
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?
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
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.
Does that help?
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.