This editorial appeared in the March 27th, 2025, issue of the Topline newsletter.
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The tech drama meter is redlining. Last week, two HR Tech unicorns were caught in a spy saga, and now an AI SDR company stands accused of cooking their books, name-dropping phantom clients, and — oddly enough — working too hard. At this rate, we'll need our own TMZ just to keep up.
Founded in 2022, 11X hit the scene with a radical vision: building digital workers for GTM teams. Their CEO's core insight wasn't subtle: "People don't want tools for reps — they want an actual AI rep that delivers outcomes." Bold claim, polarizing mission.
For a while, 11X seemed bulletproof. Benchmark led their Series A, and a16z quickly followed with a $50M Series B, declaring they were "proud to support 11X as they reshape what's possible in sales." The Silicon Valley kingmakers had spoken.
Then came the fall. TechCrunch abandoned its usual diet of funding puff pieces to drop a scorching takedown. The allegations included inflated revenue numbers, phantom clients, high churn, and a grab bag of other questionable tactics.
Did TechCrunch nail every detail? Probably not. But I'm not here to referee. What fascinates me is the barely concealed glee from corners of the GTM community — the chorus of "I told you so" about both 11X and AI SDRs as a category.
They might be right about 11X, but they're dead wrong about AI SDRs.
Blaring Signals
AI presents knowledge workers with a stark duality. On one hand, it handles the soul-crushing parts of our jobs — those repetitive tasks we'd happily never do again. On the other, it threatens to make entire roles obsolete, potentially widening the already massive divide between the haves and have nots.
The AI SDR is meant to replace human SDRs. This terrifies team leaders, SDRs themselves, and anyone wondering: "If SDRs go first, who's next?"
Fear breeds resistance, which manifests in three predictable ways:
- Status-quo bias: Clinging to familiar methods because the unknown feels dangerous.
- Confirmation bias: Cherry-picking evidence that supports what we already believe.
- Recency bias: Overweighting the latest drama while missing the long-term trajectory.
LinkedIn was a case study in all three this week.
I get the anxiety. Seeing AI actually challenge your role hits differently than reading about it in some future-of-work think piece. But, disruption doesn't pause for our discomfort. We either adapt, or get left behind.
I've felt this firsthand. My company has generated over $35M in revenue by placing SDRs throughout North America. Pre-ChatGPT, this was 30% of our yearly revenue — a reliable money-maker. Today? Less than 5%. My frustration couldn't halt market forces. We had to pivot.
Early pivots are always the hardest because signals are faint, the path unclear. But that's not where we are anymore. The signals are blaring.
Inevitability
We're now in the operationalization phase of AI in GTM, with viable use cases emerging at the edges. It's rarely an out-of-the-box AI SDR solution — it's usually scrappy GTM teams cobbling together unorthodox approaches that actually deliver.
I recently met a Series C company whose CMO assembled an AI BDR team that outperforms their human BDRs by 30%. Not exactly a rounding error.
But the teams cracking this code remain few. I can count on one hand the people I know capturing these advantages. Beyond being forward-thinking technologists, they share another trait: they lead high-velocity sales teams targeting well-defined markets with abundant data to feed their AI systems. That’s where displacement seems most likely in the near to medium term.
Kyle Norton (CRO of Owner.com), one of these pioneering GTM leaders, believes "it's a near certainty that some version of the AI SDR becomes a viable and important part of the GTM tech stack. The only question is when and how much."
James McKay (CEO of Ven) — the sharpest rev ops mind I know — shares Kyle’s point of view: "There is going to be a point where they equal all meaningful metrics we can expect from human SDRs. That's inevitable." Why inevitable? Because visionaries like James and Kyle aren't fixated on today's capabilities — they're plotting against the relentless curve of AI's evolution.
Those celebrating 11X's failure as proof that AI SDRs are doomed should study their tech history more carefully — the industry's most consistent rule shows that today's "absurd" technology often transforms into tomorrow's essential standard. Instead of gloating, they should be looking to leaders like Kyle and James to understand what's actually possible when this technology reaches its potential.
