
SaaStr 846: 10 Things to Know Before You Deploy Your First AI SDR with SaaStr's CEO and CAIO
From The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors by SaaStr
March 18, 2026 · 1h 6m
About this episode
The episode discusses key insights and lessons learned from deploying AI SDRs at SaaStr.
SaaStr 846: 10 Things to Know Before You Deploy Your First AI SDR with SaaStr's CEO and CAIO If you're about to roll out your first AI SDR, or you're on your second or third deployment and still not getting the results you want, this one's for you. Amelia Lerutte, SaaStr Chief AI Officer, and Jason Lemkin, SaaStr CEO and Founder, walk through everything they've learned from running 20+ AI agents in production at SaaStr, including four AI SDRs spanning outbound, inbound, customer success, and sponsor engagement. After 10 months, 1.5 million inbound sessions, and over 200,000 outbound messages sent, they've made enough mistakes to save you a lot of time and money. In this session they cover: Why the tool doesn't matter as much as you think, and what actually does. The single biggest mistake both early-stage startups and billion-dollar companies make when deploying their first AI SDR. How to segment ruthlessly so your agent has the right context for every prospect instead of one big, generic brain. Why consistency beats brilliance, and what "pretty good at scale" actually looks like in practice. The minimum traffic and list size you need before an inbound or outbound AI SDR is worth…
People in this episode
Host: Jason Lemkin
Guest: Amelia Lerutte
Topics covered
- AI SDR
- deployment
- startups
- customer success
- automation
Keywords
- AI
- SDR
- deployment
- startups
- customer success
- automation
- SaaStr
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: SaaStr, Amelia AI
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