Over the past few months, I’ve tested several AI sales tools. Some show promise. Others are all hype. The most talked-about category in the industry is “AI SDRs” — AI Sales Development Representatives. These tools claim to automate the entire outbound sales process, replacing the human SDRs.
B2B sales is complex and slow. For example, in healthcare, deals can take several months or even years. The outbound sales journey typically follows these steps: lead prospecting, qualification, engagement, and conversion.
Prospecting is the most straightforward step. You gather names, titles, company data, and emails of relevant prospects.
Qualification is harder. You try to figure out if these people would be interested in your offer. You look at what they search for, what they engage with, and what they buy.
The engagement and conversion are where the actual selling occurs. This is where trust, timing, and messaging matter. The best SDRs listen, not just pitch.
AI SDRs claim they can handle all of this, end-to-end. Faster, cheaper, and better than humans. Startups like 11x, AiSDR, and Artisan have raised big funding rounds selling this story. Their marketing is loud too. 11x’s landing page shows astronauts dancing on a red planet. Artisan put up billboards telling companies to “Stop Hiring Humans”, grabbing attention and pissing people off at the same time.
I tested one of these tools. I had the AI SDR find prospects, refine my offer, write emails, and handle outreach. The result was zero meaningful responses.
I’ve done B2B sales for years and have seen the industry evolve. The core issue with AI SDRs is how they handle “sales”: they still rely on outdated cold outreach tactics. They go for volume over quality. They spray and pray. A few years ago, mass outbound campaigns were harder to pull off. You needed technical skills to set up large emailing infrastructure, research prospects, avoid spam filters, and personalize messages at scale. Now, anyone can do it with cheap tools. As a result, inboxes are flooded, and email service providers (Google and Microsoft) have cracked down hard.
Spray and pray is dead. This is why AI SDRs have not delivered so far. Other users report the same. A public poll from SaaStr showed that only 6% of customers generated revenue from AI SDRs, while 83% got nothing. Monthly costs for AI SDRs range from $500 to a few thousand dollars. As a result, most customers churn after the first few months.
With results like these, it’s no surprise that VCs are still hesitant to invest. They worry – rightfully so – that the growth isn’t sustainable. Desperate, some AI SDR startups have turned to questionable tactics to keep the momentum going. 11x was recently accused of inflating its revenue to justify its $76M in funding, which led to the CEO stepping down.
Where AI can truly deliver value
AI doesn’t need to replace your entire outbound sales process. Its real value lies in making each part of the workflow faster and smarter, helping your “humans” sell more effectively. It can help you instantly spot buying signals, prioritize leads, and time your outreach so you focus on the right prospects and ignore the rest.
This means an average sales rep still relies on multiple sales tools for each step of the process. But that is nothing new. Fortunately, several startups now offer effective cross-platform integration and automation. My current favorite is the “waterfall enrichment” method. It lets you pull data from various platforms to enrich each prospect and spot real buying signals.
I built such an automation using Clay. It scanned RSS feeds from startup news sites like TechCrunch and EU Startups, flagging companies that had just raised funding or launched a new product. It also pulled founder contact details and identified key buying signals. When a lead looked relevant, it generated a personalized landing page with my offer. As a result, the responses I got were more frequent and meaningful than the usual AI SDR emails that only use {first name} and {company name} as variables.
And I believe that’s the real strength of AI in sales: cutting down manual research, surfacing the best leads, and sending the right message at the right moment. AI won’t replace your best sales reps. But it can make them 10x more focused, faster, and more effective. And that’s what actually moves the needle.