AI Companies Are Hiring Human SDRs (And Building Enterprise GTM)
39% of top AI companies with open GTM roles are hiring SDRs
The original version of this article is on my personal newsletter at here (adamgtm.com)
Back in 2022, SDRs topped every “jobs AI will replace” list.
Now the hottest AI-native companies are building SDR functions. OpenAI, Anthropic, Clay, LangChain, ElevenLabs are all hiring SDRs or SDR leaders right now.
I’m seeing this clearly in my AI Index (200 top AI companies). 39% of those with open GTM roles are hiring SDRs or SDR leaders. The vast majority are outbound and enterprise-focused.
If anyone is going to replace people with AI, I’d think it’s these companies.
The new playbook is being written
What’s most interesting: many $100M+ AI companies are forming their SDR function for the first time in 2025.
Clay just hired Rob Cook as Head of BDR. Now they have open roles for “ClayDRs.”
Anthropic posted a BDR Manager role to “build, lead, and scale a team of 8-12 BDRs.”
CoreWeave is hiring an SDR Director to “lead and scale a high-performing SDR organization, managing a team of SDR managers.” They’re building the leadership layer before the IC layer.
LangChain has IC sales development roles open, explicitly saying “Hiring our first Sales Development Representatives.” A company with massive open source adoption, now building an upmarket GTM motion.
OpenAI is hiring a Head of Sales Development to build their first enterprise Sales Development organization.
These aren’t backfills. They’re building leadership layers to create the function.
These companies have an advantage. They get to work from a blank page. They aren’t trying to reduce headcount or reconfigure an existing motion. They’re figuring out the new playbook from scratch.
I know Jason Lemkin replaced his sales team with 20 agents. That works for event sponsors (straightforward, transactional deals). But if you want to win enterprise? Complex sales, multi-threading, multi-product, executive engagement? You probably need humans involved in creating those 6-7 figure opps.
The Enterprise talent war is on
This is part of a broader move upmarket. Enterprise-first companies like Sierra are doubling down. PLG-first companies like Cursor and LangChain are building their enterprise motions.
We can see them all making a big push for Enterprise GTM talent.
~1/3 of all open GTM roles at top AI companies are Enterprise-focused. 50% of companies with open GTM roles have some Enterprise roles open. Not a surprise given the size of the prize and the pace of enterprise demand.
The biggest demand is enterprise AEs who can check three boxes:
7+ years experience.
Self-sourcing skills.
Tech chops.
Listed OTE averages $300-320K.
Here are some examples of what they’re looking for:
They’re building full orgs, not just hiring AEs
Same story across the broader Enterprise motion—new programs, rapid expansion.
International expansion is aggressive. Mistral AI has 78% of Enterprise roles outside the US across 9 countries. Harvey is in 8 countries. Sierra is pushing into Japan and Singapore.
Vertical bets are forming. Harvey has two distinct tracks: Law Firms vs Corporate In-House. ElevenLabs is making vertical bets on Healthcare (Boston) and Government (DC). Anthropic built a real Federal practice—DOD/IC, Civilian, State & Local.
Solutions investment is heavy. Companies like Cresta have 41% of GTM in FDE/solutions roles. Cursor is building AI Deployment Managers and Field Engineers alongside AEs.
2x more Enterprise AE roles than SDR roles in my data. That suggests more SDR hiring is coming.
What I’m watching
I can’t believe these orgs will run the same Aaron Ross playbook from 2011. The skills, the automation expectations, and the AE/SDR ratios are all likely shifting.
A few things I’m curious about:
How does output (and comp model) change when AI handles more of the manual work?
What skills matter for AI-native SDRs? Is it any different than SaaS 2.0?
How will these orgs take shape more broadly? AE/SDR ratios, FDE investment, Marketing roles?
Worth watching how these AI companies build Enterprise GTM. What’s different, and what stays the same.
Great post. “What skills matter for AI-native SDRs?” My two cents is AI shifts SDRs from activity-driven to intelligence-driven, i.e., from effort to more judgment.