---
title: "Single Digit Thousand Dollar AI SDR"
description: "Vercel took its inbound SDR team from 10 to 1.25, automated 90% of sales development, \u0026 runs the whole thing for single-digit thousands a year. The SDR function is being absorbed into the workflow."
categories: ["AI","sales","startups"]
keywords: ["AI SDR","GTM engineer","Vercel","Jeanne DeWitt Grosser","sales automation","agentic GTM"]
ai_summary: "Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, COO of Vercel, reports 90% automation of inbound sales development, a support agent handling 93% of cases, a 32x ROI on the sales development agent, \u0026 a total annual infrastructure bill in the single-digit thousands. Vercel took its inbound SDR team from 10 to 1.25. The bottleneck is not the model, it is the codified workflow."
date: 2026-09-15
lastmod: 2026-09-15
canonical_url: https://tomtunguz.com/single-digit-thousand-dollar-ai-sdr/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---


{{< email_image src="sdkyyk2sxeojnsqlrns6" alt="Theory Office Hours: When Inbound Sells Itself, with Tom Tunguz & Jeanne DeWitt Grosser" width="540" height="304" >}}

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[^1] :

> "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[^2].

Today, AI is in a place where the original promises have now been kept.

On Thursday, October 1st at 11:00 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/).

[^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.