What is an AI SDR?

An AI SDR is software that automates prospecting and outreach — building lists, generating personalised emails, and sometimes sending and replying autonomously — marketed as a replacement for a human sales development rep.

In practice the fully autonomous version has struggled: reply rates collapse once buyers learn to recognise the pattern, and several high-profile tools saw churn well above the human teams they replaced. The durable use of the same technology is as an assistant to a human, not a replacement for one.