Outbound Squad Here’s PROOF that AI isn’t replacing SDRs anytime soon
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Mar 3, 2026 Discussion of hiring trends showing AI companies still recruit human outbound reps. Examples of OpenAI and peers building sales development teams are highlighted. Experiments trying to fully automate outreach and their failures are described. Emphasis on the advantage of reps who become fluent with AI tools.
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AI Companies Are Building Human SDR Teams
- AI vendors themselves are hiring human SDRs, which contradicts the narrative that AI will replace SDRs soon.
- Jason Bay cites hiring at OpenAI, Anthropic, Clay and others building first enterprise sales development teams as evidence.
Substack Research Shows SDR Roles At Top AI Firms
- Jason Bay references Adam Schoenfeld's Substack research showing AI firms listing SDR and BDR roles across companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
- He notes job descriptions require self-sourcing skills for account executives at these firms.
Full Outbound Automation Delivers Poor Results
- Despite hype, large software customers Jason Bay works with are not fully automating outbound SDR work with AI.
- Attempts at heavy automation yielded low success rates (around 0.3%) for low-ticket offers.