Promote Internal Nerds to Manage AI Sales Agents

Jason Lemkin believes the future of sales belongs to those who embrace AI agents rather than fighting against them. He transformed his SaaStr sales organization from 10 humans to 1.2 humans plus 20 AI agents, maintaining the same business performance while dramatically increasing efficiency.

At the core of Lemkin's philosophy is the recognition that AI is replacing jobs people don't want to do while displacing mediocre performers. The best salespeople will gain superpowers from AI, while those in the middle of the pack face existential risk. As he puts it: "AI is replacing the jobs people don't wanna do today and it is displacing the mid pack and the mediocre."

Lemkin sees a clear bifurcation in the market: traditional SaaS companies struggling with decelerated growth versus AI-powered companies experiencing unprecedented demand. This creates two different incentives for AI adoption - efficiency for the former and scale for the latter. Either way, AI integration is inevitable.

For sales leaders, Lemkin recommends hands-on experience with AI tools. Don't delegate the learning - pick one problem, select a vendor willing to help with implementation, and do the work yourself. The process involves ingesting your data, training the AI on your best-performing content, and continuously refining it. After 30 days of corrections, "it's gonna be pretty good."

For individual contributors, the path forward is embracing rather than resisting these tools. Being the person who knows how to work effectively with AI agents makes you more valuable. As Lemkin notes, "If you can go do this and get it live into production, you're hyper employable."

The orchestration of AI agents requires dedicated human oversight - what Lemkin calls the "chief orchestration officer." This person spends 1-2 hours daily managing agents, ensuring quality, and preventing conflicts. This role typically comes from within the organization: "Find someone on my team that raises their hand and says I've already done this."

Lemkin predicts certain sales roles will disappear within a year - particularly email-based SDRs and lead qualifiers. However, he believes we'll need more sales professionals overall as AI companies grow rapidly. The key difference is that these roles will require managing agents rather than doing repetitive tasks: "We should have $250,000 a year SDRs but they'd be like at Vercel they'd be managing 10 agents not 10 people."

For organizations implementing AI sales agents, Lemkin emphasizes being honest about the impact. Don't hide that it will create change, but focus on how it helps your best people become more productive. The bigger shift isn't layoffs but rather not backfilling positions when people leave - using AI instead of new hires.