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Lenny's 🏦 Vault

Buy AI GTM Tools, Don't Build Them

by Jason Lemkin on January 1, 2026

The AI Revolution in Sales and Go-to-Market

Jason Lemkin shares his experience transforming SaaStr's sales organization from 10 human SDRs and AEs to just 1.2 humans and 20 AI agents, while maintaining the same business performance. This radical shift offers a glimpse into how AI is reshaping go-to-market strategies and what sales professionals need to do to thrive in this new landscape.

The Current State of AI in Sales

  • Traditional sales roles are being rapidly transformed:

    • Email-based SDRs will be "90% displaced by AI next year"
    • BDRs who qualify inbound leads "should be extinct next year"
    • AEs are safer for now (70% of jobs safe next year), but this will decline to 40-50% over time
    • Support has already permanently changed (50-80% handled by AI)

  • The market is bifurcated between two extremes:

    • Hyper-growth AI companies that can't hire enterprise reps fast enough
    • Traditional SaaS companies struggling with decelerated growth where "nothing seems to work"

  • Both extremes have incentives to adopt AI in go-to-market:

    • High-growth companies can't service massive inbound demand
    • Low-growth companies need ruthless efficiency to survive

How to Implement AI in Sales

  • Start with one specific pain point:

    • "Pick a tool, an agent, an agentic tool to solve one of your problems"
    • Focus on the most acute pain (support, SDR, inbound qualification)
    • Choose a leading vendor that treats you well and will provide hands-on help

  • The implementation process requires hands-on work:

    1. Ingestion: Upload your website, wiki, training docs, and other materials
    2. Training: Answer questions to help the agent understand your product/service
    3. QA testing: Test the agent thoroughly before deployment
    4. Iteration: Spend time daily correcting mistakes (1-2 hours/day for ~30 days)
    5. Continuous improvement: Monitor and refine as the agent works

  • Vendor selection is critical:

    • Prioritize vendors who offer hands-on implementation help over feature superiority
    • Work with the "forward deployed engineer" (FDE) or solution architect
    • Get commitment that they'll help make you successful before signing

  • Train agents using your best performers:

    • "Take your best person on your sales team, the best marketer you have, take their email copy and use that as the template for your AI"
    • Let the AI iterate and A/B test variations of your best content
    • The goal is to make the agent "a version of your best salesperson"

The New Sales Organization Structure

  • From traditional structure to AI-augmented:

    • Before: 2-3 SDRs + 5 AEs (8-9 people total)
    • After: 1 full-time AE + 0.2 Chief AI Officer + 20 agents

  • The Chief AI Officer role is critical:

    • Spends 10-15 hours/week reviewing agent outputs
    • Segments the database to prevent agent conflicts
    • Orchestrates the entire system of agents
    • Must be technically inclined but doesn't need to be an engineer

  • Different agents for different functions:

    • Outbound prospecting agents
    • Inbound qualification agents
    • Reactivation agents (for lapsed customers)
    • Support agents

The Future of Sales Careers

  • For sales leaders and managers:

    • Learn these tools hands-on - don't delegate the learning
    • Build expertise in agent training and orchestration
    • Focus on being able to deploy and manage AI systems

  • For individual contributors:

    • "Embrace it" - work with the tools, don't fight them
    • Being a "people person" is no longer enough
    • Technical product knowledge becomes even more important
    • The best salespeople will get "superpowers" from AI
    • The mediocre will be replaced

  • New career opportunities:

    • "We should have $250,000 a year SDRs but they'd be like at Vercel they'd be managing 10 agents not 10 people"
    • The orchestrator/manager of AI agents becomes highly valuable
    • Those who can train and deploy agents will be "hyper employable"

What's Changing vs. What Stays the Same

  • What's changing:

    • Support is permanently transformed by AI
    • Email-based SDRs will largely disappear
    • Lead qualification will be automated
    • Productivity expectations are increasing dramatically (3-5M revenue per rep vs. 300-500K)
    • The bar for personalization and response time is rising

  • What stays the same:

    • All the "plays" still work (outbound, webinars, podcasts, events)
    • Field sales and in-person selling remain effective
    • High-touch enterprise sales for major accounts
    • The need for deep product knowledge and solving customer problems

The Limits and Challenges

  • AI agents require constant oversight:

    • "Agents work all night and they work weekends and they work on Christmas"
    • Managing agents is "not a good job for lazy people"
    • The orchestrator role requires 10-15 hours/week of review

  • Business process change remains difficult:

    • Organizations can only absorb so much change at once
    • Eventually people may say "I just can't literally cannot bring one more app into my enterprise"

  • The best implementations combine AI with human expertise:

    • AI handles volume, repetition, and 24/7 coverage
    • Humans handle complex negotiations, relationship building, and edge cases
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