What is an AI SDR?

What does an AI SDR do?

The same work a sales development rep does before a meeting, in order:

1. Find the right people. Companies and people who match who you sell to. Dylan's plan shows how many companies fit and ten real examples.
2. Write the first email and the follow-ups. One reason to talk, one small ask and a clear way out. See how Dylan writes.
3. Send them. Paced, from mailboxes and domains that can carry cold email without hurting yours.
4. Answer replies. Routine ones, such as scheduling or questions your brief answers. Anything about pricing, legal or complaints goes to a person.
5. Book the meeting. Into the calendar of the person on your side who takes the call. That part is the job of an AI appointment setter.

How Dylan runs each step, and when, is on how it works.

Is an AI SDR the same as an AI BDR?

On this page, yes. It treats AI SDR and AI BDR as one job: outbound prospecting that ends in a booked meeting. With people, some sales teams give SDRs and BDRs different jobs, and others use the two titles as synonyms. This page says AI SDR throughout.

What does an AI SDR not do?

• Run your sales call. The meeting, and everything after it, is yours. A held meeting is the last step Dylan controls.
• Answer what a person should. Dylan hands you anything about pricing, legal questions or complaints.
• Make phone calls. Dylan works by email today. If your buyers answer the phone, ask about adding Belkins callers to your plan.
• Fix what is broken. SaaStr's first lesson after six months of running its own was that AI SDRs "scale what's already working" and cannot fix what is broken. If outbound did not work when people did it, an agent does the wrong thing faster.

Where did the first AI SDRs go wrong?

The first wave sold replacement: software instead of a sales development team, sending without limit and running on its own. Most of it disappointed.

• In a SaaStr reader survey in November 2024, 83% said they had not gotten anything from AI SDRs yet, and 3% had generated real revenue from them.
• A year later, SaaStr reported 15 to 20 hours a week of people's time managing its five AI SDRs, and wrote that "this is not set-and-forget technology."
• It started its agents in draft mode, where the agent suggests and a person approves, and six months in still kept some there for high-value prospects.

Each failure treated outbound as a production problem, more emails with fewer people, when it is mostly judgment: who to write to, why now and what to say when they answer. The longer story is in the AI SDR hype is over: what actually survived.

How is Dylan different from other AI SDRs?

• His own mailboxes. Dylan brings his own mailboxes and domains, already warm, with a separate slice for each client. Your domain never sends a cold email.
• People approve. You approve the plan and the first emails of every new angle. A person at Belkins reviews your plan and emails it within one business day.
• He says he is an AI. Every first email says, in its opening line, that he is an AI agent and which company he works for. See why Dylan says he is an AI.
• Replies stop the sequence. The moment a reply is read, every further scheduled email to that person stops, by rule, before any AI sees it.
• Paid per held meeting. No seats, no price per email. No meeting in 60 days? Your deposit comes back. See pay per meeting.

The rule underneath all five: agents judge, people approve, code protects. How Dylan is built explains it.

How does Dylan compare with AI SDR software?

Hiring an SDR and an agency retainer are in the same table on the home page. To put a number on your own team, try the SDR cost calculator.

What should you ask any AI SDR vendor?

1. Who approves the plan and the first emails before anything is sent? If nobody does, your brand is the test environment.
2. What happens, mechanically, when someone replies "stop"? Listen for a rule in the system, not an instruction to the model.
3. Whose domain sends the emails? If it is yours, a bad month lands on the address your customers and invoices come from.
4. What do you pay if no meetings come? That tells you who carries the risk.
5. Does the agent say it is an AI, and who it works for? If not, ask what happens to your name when a prospect finds out.

Before you ask, write down who you want to meet. How to brief an AI SDR lists the inputs that matter, and the buyer's guide has every post in one PDF.