Jason M. Lemkin argues that AI will largely displace entry-level, email-based Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) within roughly a year, as AI agents can qualify leads and set meetings without human touch. He predicts email-based SDR roles may be ~90% displaced next year, that many Account Executive (AE) jobs are initially safer (around 70% safe by end of next year) but could decline to 40–50% over time, and that hiring will concentrate on experienced staff who can manage agents and know the product. Overall, Lemkin frames AI as concentrating value in mid/senior talent and reducing entry-level opportunities in sales.
Chapters
The classic SDR junior kid that is hired out of college to send emails and respond to respond to inbound emails and maybe get back to them later that day or the next day. We don't need them. We're not going to need most of them. The email based cadence SDR will be 90% displaced by AI next year. They should be extinct next year. There is no reason in the age of AI I have to hit contact me, wait a day or two for 21 year old that doesn't know what linear does to say hey, what do you do? How much are you willing to pay me? Maybe I'll set up a call with Lenny later this week. There is no need to do that with AI. The RAI alone, one of our agents fully qualifies everybody on the website. So they don't even know they're being qualified and just sets up the meeting with the salesperson. So this sdr, this email based SDR and this human qualifying leads which is not good for the customer, it doesn't feel good to be qualified, does it? They will be mostly extinct next year I'm guessing with your now the ae, the classic human doing the sales, most of the tools aren't there yet for the most part. I think 70% of their jobs will be safe by the end of next year but I think it will decline to 40 or 50. I don't think there's any reason what we're seeing in other categories. A great agent can't close a deal too if there's not a lot to negotiate on price. And the agent knows the product better than a human. At least for folks like you and me. I mean do you like to talk to a human in sales? I'd rather just shot the chat with a. Yeah, a really smart AI. So that's all in progress now. But the classic and the tough part and a lot of folks ask this question, Lenny, they say okay Jason, I see that in your data. How are we going to build the sales profession if there's no entry level jobs in SDRs and AES? And that's a meta question across all of AI we're already seeing AI concentrate strength in sort of mid tier folks, isn't it? And we're already seeing lots of folks cut back on entry level hires. You know, Shopify's and others aside, where they'd rather have the six or seven year old engineer that's a cursor machine rather than train some kid. It's just more efficient. Today it's going to happen in sales too. So the folks that know how to manage an agent work with an agent. The folks that know their product for real, they're going to become more valuable, and the rest are going to become less valuable.
