SaaStr 885: Going from 10 to 1 SDRs. How We Deployed AI Across our Sales Org with Vercel's COO

Vercel COO Jeanne DeWitt Grosser details the company's transition to an agent-first operational model, where AI agents now handle core functions like customer support and lead qualification. By implementing a "tripod" development framework—pairing engineers, data scientists, and subject matter experts—Vercel successfully automated complex workflows while maintaining human-in-the-loop quality control. Key to this success is a headless, composable architecture that allows agents to interact via APIs rather than traditional UIs, alongside a robust semantic data layer that grounds agentic reasoning. This approach has yielded significant ROI, such as a 32x improvement in lead qualification efficiency. Ultimately, the shift toward agentic infrastructure requires companies to prioritize developer-accessible surfaces and clean data foundations, enabling internal teams to build bespoke solutions that outperform off-the-shelf software in both cost and performance.