Single Digit Thousand Dollar AI SDR

Vercel cut its inbound sales development team from 10 people to 1.25, with COO Jeanne DeWitt Grosser reporting 90% automation of inbound sales development and a home-built support agent handling 93% of all support cases at a total annual infrastructure cost in the single-digit thousands of dollars. Grosser said the sales development agent delivers a 32x ROI, and she will discuss the shift at Theory Office Hours on Wednesday, September 16th at 9:30 AM PT.

Vercel took its inbound sales development team from 10 people to 1.25. Jeanne DeWitt Grosser https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannedewitt , COO of Vercel, shared this on our Information interview together<sup 1 fn:1 </sup : “We had 90% automation of sales development for inbound. And our support agent that we’ve home-built handles 93% of all support cases… In both of those cases, the total annual infrastructure bill is in the single-digit thousands… Our sales development agent is a 32x ROI. So it’s worth it, no matter how much that model costs… There are many ways in which we’re now getting AI to sort of be a 99th percentile performer 99% of the time.” Sales development was one of the immediate use cases for AI in the early days. Like self-driving cars, the promise arrived & fulfillment required a bit more time until the Waymo could navigate the streets of the Inner Sunset. It’s a coincidence that Waymos reduce pedestrian collisions by 92%, nearly identical to the figures above<sup 2 fn:2 </sup . Today, AI is in a place where the original promises have now been kept. On Wednesday, September 16th at 9:30 AM PT, Theory Office Hours welcomes Jeanne DeWitt Grosser https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannedewitt of Vercel to talk about what happens to the sales development function when the inbound agent manages leads itself. If you’d like to attend, please register here https://gatsby.events/theory-ventures/rsvp/register?e=virtual-office-hours-when-inbound-sells-itself . 1. Jeanne DeWitt Grosser on The Information’s TITV https://www.theinformation.com/titv/lgbci . Detail on the 10→1.25 compression from SaaStrAI’s coverage of the same session https://www.saastr.com/vercel-took-a-10-person-sdr-team-down-to-1-the-whole-thing-costs-5000-a-year-with-vercels-coo-jeanne-dewitt-grosser/ . ↩︎ fnref:1 2. Waymo, New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer for those most at risk https://waymo.com/blog/2025/05/waymo-making-streets-safer-for-vru/ , May 1 2025. The study reports a 92% reduction in injury-involving pedestrian crashes, with 82% for cyclists & motorcyclists. ↩︎ fnref:2