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Zayd Ali
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Published January 2, 2025 · Updated August 31, 2026
What’s up, it’s Zayd.
Last week I shared some thoughts on a16z’s thesis for the future of sales tech. We talked about how the tech stack is changing and what it’ll look like down the line with AI.
This week, I want to dive into the second part of this conversation - will AI ever fully take over outbound?
My take: it won’t.
Here’s why. 👇
I don’t think AI will ever fully take over outbound.
This might sound backwards coming from the founder of an AI-led sales tech company. But the intention with Valley isn’t to develop a tool that replaces sellers.
It’s to expand the wingspan of sellers.
Let AI handle the science of sales, and let reps focus on the art of it.
We’re seeing a lot of ai sdrs where the goal is to remove sellers from the process. Just have someone click a few buttons on the backend and let a bot handle the entire transaction.
Of course I think AI is powerful and will take over a decent chunk of the process. But I don’t think AI will ever fully run outbound end-to-end.
Here’s what I believe will happen:
A single tool will allow sellers to scale personalization, relevance, and timing in outbound. This tool will function like a key. We’ll still need sellers to put it into the lock and turn it.
AI doesn’t have context regarding in-person conversations.Companies I’ve spoken to are looking for a solution to a wingspan and efficiency problem. They’re not necessarily looking to bring headcount costs to $0.People don’t want to outsource the human parts of sales (building rapport, connecting with prospects, etc).
Roles are already shifting - and I think they’ll continue to.
The order of operations looks like this:
VPs of sales tell reps to collect data on the prospect.This gets packaged into a nice research report, then passed over to the outreach brain.They craft personalized messages.
Instead of the SDR hitting “send” on these messages, we’re seeing AEs take on this role. This will only become more common.
The industry will shift to have more full-cycle AEs than SDRs. These AEs will be equipped with AI-led tools that make them more efficient, covering things like:
List creation
Researching all the different personalizations
Finding the best incision point
What was once a process involving 3-4 people becomes a process owned by 1.
But it won’t replace the seller.
It might change the job description for sales positions, adding new requirements or shifting responsibilities. But I don’t see it replacing them entirely.
Sales is (and should be) human. And I think we all know that.
Replacing every seller with a bot is reductive.
Let me book sales calls for you while you’re grocery shopping. Seriously.
I built Valley to be your automated SDR and empower AEs.
Book a demo (teams of 5+) and watch your calendar fill up with qualified leads.
