Episode
SaaStr 838: The Present and Future of AI in Sales and GTM with SaaStr's CEO and Owner's CRO
- Published
- Jan 21, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3371
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-official-saastr-podcast-saas-founders-investors-743090/episodes/saastr-838-the-present-and-future-of-ai-in-sales-and-gtm-with-saastr-s-ceo-and-owner-s-cro/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-official-saastr-podcast-saas-founders-investors-743090/saastr-838-the-present-and-future-of-ai-in-sales-and-gtm-with-saastr-s-ceo-and-owner-s-cro.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
SaaStr 838: The Present and Future of AI in Sales and GTM with SaaStr's CEO and Owner's CRO Jason Lemkin on Going All-In on AI Agents: 20 Agents, Zero SDRs, and the Death of Mid-Pack Sales Jason Lemkin, Founder and CEO of SaaStr, sits down with Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner, to share the raw story of how frustration with sales team turnover pushed him to deploy 20 AI agents in under a year, and why we'll never go back. In this episode, we cover: → Why Jason stopped hiring SDRs after two senior reps ghosted him right before SaaStr Annual → The real reason most AI agent deployments fail (hint: it's not the technology) → How to pick your first AI vendor: "Talk to your forward deployed engineer before you sign" → Why Salesforce is having a Renaissance as the hub for AI agents → The brutal truth about mid-pack sales jobs being in "terminal decline" → How to get started with AI agents when your CFO won't give you budget → AgentForce vs. the hot startups: what actually works in production → Why the $250K SDR is coming, but only for the truly elite Jason's advice for revenue leaders: "Roll up your sleeves. If you haven't trained an agent yourself, you'll be utterly ignorant in the age of AI." 🔗 See the AI agents SaaStr uses: saastr.ai/agents --------------------- This episode is Sponsored in part by HappyFox: Imagine having AI agents for every support task — one that triages tickets, another that catches duplicates, one that spots churn risks. That'd be pretty amazing, right? HappyFox just made it real with Autopilot. These pre-built AI agents deploy in about 60 seconds and run for as low as 2 cents per successful action. All of it sits inside the HappyFox omnichannel, AI-first support stack — Chatbot, Copilot, and Autopilot working as one. Check them out at happyfox.com/saastr --…