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Sales Tech

Beck Salgado

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Sales prospecting isn’t for the faint of heart. Shopping for a SaaS solution these days feels less like popping into your local bodega and a little more like gearing up for a trip to Jungle Jim’s International Market. You need the right tool for the job, and identifying that is half the battle. Are you leveraging your social media contacts? Do you need a giant contact database? Are you looking for richer insights? Is seamless CRM integration your main goal?

It’s a maze out there, and your shopping list needs to be on point. Here are three companies that could put a pep in your prospecting step.

Lusha CEO and co-founder Yoni Tserruya feels his company provides the most value through its data-driven recommendations, or as previously referred to, “prospecting on autoplay.” Think of it as AI-powered sales leads in the form of a playlist or Spotify for sellers. Tserruya says having to manually search for data poses a major barrier for sales teams. He uses the analogy of the music industry, where you once had to download individual songs to build a playlist.

“Today you have Spotify, and it knows you, and it knows your taste,” he said.

As AI takes over administrative duties, Tserruya thinks manual prospecting will soon become extinct. That’s where he sees Lusha stepping in.“What makes us unique is the fact we are investing the most in data, and in learning you as a user…we are investing less in features that might be disrupted next year,” said Tserruya.

Tserruya said Lusha’s edge comes down to the best mix of data aggregation that can provide value for Lusha’s users.

“We have unique technology that allows us to identify trends and identify similarities and those two together, which are not easy to build.”

Max Angell is head of sales at Apollo.io, which is helping sales teams evolve their outreach and get hyperspecific with AI by marrying a vast B2B dataset with powerful AI workflows.

“AI workflows are really only as powerful as the data that’s supporting them, and in turn, data is really stagnant without any sort of powerful workflow,” he said. The result is delivering the right message to the right person at the right time.

Angell gave an example of an Apollo customer in the security space, which sells a product that when paired with System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 compliance creates value for customers.

“Using the Apollo dataset, we can layer in AI and we can ask Apollo to take that account list and then go and scour all of the websites of all of the accounts and identify where SOC 2 exists,” he said. Angell says the quality of the datasets is paramount, and after that it comes down to the specificity of the “unique differentiators on the workflows themselves.”

As for the industries Angell thinks Apollo is best integrated with and used for? “Tech is definitely our sweet spot,” he said.

RocketReach CEO Scott Kim says the platform is the “simplest and most intuitive AI-powered” GTM tool. He joins the chorus of business leaders focusing on the importance of quality data but adds that ease of onboarding, and general use, is key for his platform. Kim says the sheer volume of platform usage allows the team to incrementally hone the product.

“We get to take a more science-oriented approach in usability,” he said. “Not all 300 [to] 500,000 people watch a webinar or a video, so we pride ourselves on the ability for our customers to figure it out.”

Integration is also a huge plus for Kim, and the ability to integrate across a host of platforms is critical to RocketReach’s value proposition.

“We have to be able to fit our puzzle piece into that larger workflow in an easy and seamless way,” Kim said. “We actually integrate where you want us to integrate into your workflow.”

Zooming out to the bigger picture, he suggests staying in your lane, doing what you do best, and letting “other companies do the thing they do really well.” The priority: making sure “our thing integrates with their thing,” he said.

Three outreach companies, three ways to do outbound

There is no one solution.

How three outreach companies approach outbound

-like universe where the machines are a little bit less T-1000 and a touch more like the one that tries to help John Connor. One company is leaning into that narrative: humans and machines working together to solve problems.

Workforce solutions company Asymbl built an AI SDR, gave it a job description and even a name.

“We gave him a name specifically to help the rest of our team think of him as an employee and not just a bot,” Asymbl CEO and founder Brandon Metcalf said. “We call him Theodore when he’s being naughty, and he’s Teddy’s when he’s doing a good job.”

Theodore wasn’t an accident but rather was part of a deliberate drive to increase digital deployment in the organization. “We went through a program with Salesforce, of trying, iterating, adapting, coaching, all of that,” he said.

Theodore might just be stage one. Asymbl recently hired a chief digital labor officer with a modest task: find out how to make the company’s entire labor force a mix of human and digital workers, with the goal of having 40% of its labor come from digital employees by next year.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to eliminate our current team. It means we’re going to give them more horsepower,” Metcalf said.

Theodore’s job is to sift through all of the company’s prospects, identify the value of a potential customer, and when there is an ideal profile match, convince the prospect to talk to a human sales rep.

“Instead of having to hire more [humans], I can 5x Theodore’s capacity. I’m going to pay more for his usage, but I’m saving a tremendous amount of money because to manage [humans] requires supervisors, HR, systems access, time off, and all this other stuff that us humans need,” Metcalf said.

He made it clear that it’s not all on AI SDRs like Theodore, but that it is a part of a process that will “hopefully do 10, 20, 100 times more than we’re doing right now with the same human team that we have.” Metcalf says it’s a mix of different pieces, including generative and predictive AI.

Despite all the hype around the technology, the human aspect of AI’s success is impossible to dismiss. Enter Mitch Canaday, business development representative at Asymbl, the man behind the machine.

Canaday said he understood the concept presented to him, that digital labor was going to take the form of a digital employee. “I was still going to have to meet with [Theodore] once a week and collaborate…just like I would any other coworker,” he said.

Following Theodore’s “hiring,” the two met in scheduled meetings and collaborated to win new business. Once he learned how to best leverage Theodore’s strength, Canaday said he felt more productive.

“The benefit is that I’m able to do my own outreach and be really specific and take the human approach and figure out what are good prospects,” Canaday said. “Then I can just meet with [Theodore], feed all that information to him, and continually update messaging that he’s sending out.”Canaday says he’s comfortable with the relationship because “it’s never going to be effective unless there’s a human being on the other side.” He recommends those who are nervous about the threat to sales jobs should instead lean into and have confidence in AI. He says his AI experience is essential knowledge that will propel his career forward.

“It’s like AI 101. I get the opportunity to have hands-on experience with this, and experience being able to create it, build it, feed it information, just have a really strong foundational understanding of how it works,” he said.

Robert Wahbe, CEO of sales enablement company Highspot, believes AI can revolutionize entry-level workforces. This viewpoint conflicts with discourse suggesting AI will steal jobs from college graduates.

“People coming out of college can now operate as if they’re much more senior because they have AI, and yet they’re still very new and inexpensive,” Wahbe said.

Wahbe’s optimistic tone tracks with Canaday’s testimony, especially the idea that AI can be beneficial to the workforce if deployed in a measured way.

The flip side means risk. Highspot recently 

 on AI implementation in GTM teams, which identified “AI leapers” as a category of companies embracing the technology without first building the right infrastructure. Wahbe emphasized that AI should be implemented within a strategic framework, like Asymbl’s two-year plan for digital labor.

“It’s the right time for every department. If you’re not doing it, you’re going to fall behind because this is a transformational time,” Wahbe said. “Like all transformational technologies, it’s overhyped in the short term and it’s underhyped in the long term.”

Robotic hand shifting a mouse around the canvas in a circular motion

Should you hire or build your next SDR? 

 It’s part of the company’s digital workforce plan.

Why Asymbl built an SDR named Theodore

Put away your Gregorian calendar. The age of AI means 2025 is a leap year for all of us. But a report from sales enablement platform Highspot confirms your go-to-market team’s worst fear: AI deployment, while accelerating, might be missing the mark.

Of the 463 senior go-to-market leaders surveyed for “

, 98% said though their strategy has been rolled out, just 10% saw it driving results. Worse still, the report showed only 6% are keeping abreast of GTM performance signals, suggesting a major breakdown in deployment assessment. The big picture around so-called “AI Leapers”—companies taking the plunge, despite not acting with precision—is stark: Despite 77% of companies investing in an AI-driven future, only 28% reported performance improvements.

Some key trends emerged from teams experiencing success:

Alignment trumps ambition; it’s no good jumping in if everyone isn’t on the same page.

Choosing the right AI for your org is pivotal.

Using your go-to-market strategy as a performance system is key; it helps you analyze what’s working, and what isn’t.

The report also signals a disturbing side effect of misalignment, with 80% of GTM leaders reporting signs of burnout and stress among their teams due to twisted priorities or inefficient workflows. It seems a key catalyst for the breakdown of execution is sales and marketing content not being used effectively. What’s more, GTM leaders can’t agree on the best way to improve consistency: Roughly a quarter (26%) said AI recommendations were the key, while 22% suggested better tool and workflow integration.

“Don’t scale chaos,” warns the report, suggesting that you don’t need to overhaul your GTM structure overnight. The big takeaway: The GTM performance gap indicates a hefty, but not insurmountable, gulf between strategy and execution.

There are some silver linings out there. Data from Highspot’s 2025 “State of Sales Enablement” report revealed that AI-guided coaching improves win rates by 36%, and companies with unified enablement tech stacks were 42% more likely to improve sales productivity. Looking at that data in this new context will provide food for thought.

Highspot report details what AI is and isn't doing right

Early data on how GTM teams use AI.

Highspot report highlights AI’s impact on GTM

Layla Ilchi

One of the tech world’s buzziest startups just got even buzzier. Cloud-based data and AI platform Databricks announced it has surpassed a $4 billion overall revenue run rate in Q2—that’s 50% YoY growth. The San Francisco-based company’s AI products recently crossed the $1 billion revenue run rate threshold, a positive sign for AI deployment in an increasingly skittish environment. The good news for its business metrics doesn’t stop there: Databricks also achieved positive free cash flow over the last 12 months.

The strong growth backdrop coincides with the company’s latest fundraising. It pulled in $1 billion in a Series K led by Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, MGX, Thrive Capital, and WCM Investment Management. The company’s valuation now exceeds $100 billion, putting it in an exclusive category.

It’s been around nine months since the rapidly expanding startup raised a blockbuster $10 billion in a round led by Thrive Capital. Databricks is using the fresh capital to expand its AI capabilities, specifically its Agent Bricks platform.

“With this new capital, we can move even faster with Agent Bricks, helping customers in every industry turn their data into production AI agents and carry more momentum as we create the new Lakebase category, reinventing databases for AI agents,” said CEO and co-founder Ali Ghodsi in a statement.

In the last two quarters, Databricks has kept up its growth through new and expanded partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Google Cloud, Anthropic, SAP, and Palantir. According to the Wall Street Journal, Databricks has signed Honda Motor, Peet’s Coffee, and Princeton University as new clients this year. Databricks says over 650 of its customers pay $1 million annually for its products and services.

Databricks exceeds $4 billion revenue run rate after latest funding

The cloud-based data and AI platform raised a $1 billion Series K this month. 

Databricks surpasses $4 billion revenue run rate after latest fundraising round

Setting off into the AI abyss takes a strong stomach, especially when companies are under pressure and learning at hyperspeed. Building the track while the train is running is hard enough already without a destination that keeps changing. An August 

, which found that 95% of companies are seeing no return on their AI investments, hasn’t helped ease the journey either.

It begs the question: How should a company implement AI? And can you give yourself a grade along the way? We spoke with three companies—Asymbl, Shopify, and Hapax—embarking, and trying to keep themselves in check, on the AI journey.

“You’ve got to think about the outcome,” said Asymbl CEO and founder Brandon Metcalf. The recruitment and staffing solutions company wants to approach AI with a smaller scope to achieve large results.

“The way we look at AI and digital labor is: What’s the impact that it’s going to have on the business? And what’s the impact that it’s going to have on our employees?” Metcalf said.

Within his sales organization, Metcalf created an AI SDR named Theodore that handles most of the tasks that a human SDR can for his team.

“We saw a need in the business for someone to interact with all these leads that we had coming in in a meaningful way,” Metcalf said. “We decided to give Theodore a try as our first agent…then we saw him starting to perform well in the test case of leads that he had.”

Metcalf said that each AI investment is made with a specific outcome in mind. “What’s your game plan?” he said. “Make sure it’s grounded in realistic results that you can measure, not just what’s the activity the AI is doing.”

Asymbl then created its own benchmarks for tracking success and hired a chief digital labor officer, who oversees the AI deployment across every department.

“The game plan is by 2026, 40% of our labor will be digital,” Metcalf told Revenue Brew. “ Our game plan for this year is 20%. We’re already ahead of the 20% from the success that we’ve seen, and we’re getting better at it.”

Metcalf says the technology is a moving target, requires focus, and is time-consuming. “Keeping our internal team up to speed is our biggest challenge,” he said.

Shopify has not been shy about communicating its 

. While CRO Bobby Morrison says most companies have taken the stance that AI is solely the purview of engineers, data scientists, and the like, Shopify has “taken a different approach, where we’ve democratized AI and made it available for everyone across the company.”

Morrison created a grading spectrum that measures where the company, and its employees, is in its AI commitment, which spans AI naive, AI curious, and AI native. Once each employee gained access to AI tools and the spectrum was created, Morrison said the next step was to create a culture where employees feel emboldened to create their own AI solutions, what Shopify calls tinkering.“There are a set of behaviors that you can see in your business that really help you identify where you are along that curve,” he said.

When asked where he feels Shopify is on that scale, he thinks it is beyond AI curious and on its way to being native, but he added that because AI is changing so fast, being native is only partly attainable.

“It may be one of those unachievable goals because once you think you’re AI native, the next version comes out, and you realize now you’re all the way back down to curious,” he said.

“This is a journey, not a sprint,” said Kevin Green, co-founder and CMO of AI solutions company Hapax, referring to the sea change businesses are experiencing as the AI revolution unfolds. Hapax is encouraging clients, primarily banks and other financial services providers, to slow down and build a safe and scalable foundation. 

The big question for Hapax’s CRO Aaron Kwan: “I always go back to ‘why’…Why are you trying to deploy AI? What are you trying to solve? Let’s step back,” said Kwan.

The company prides itself on being transparent and deliberate in implementing protections it says will pay dividends in the future. For Hapax, building a strong AI use case is paramount but just as important is developing a systematic process for ensuring deployment is responsible. 

“We’ve got to sit back and plan and take the safest approach that also solves the most problems or creates the most opportunity for us,” said Kwan.

Meanwhile, Green highlights other major pitfalls, such as the potential for compromised data. “I don’t think people understand the security vulnerabilities in the Big Tech solutions,” he said.

Kwan echoed the sentiment. “You have to have guardrails in place to protect your customer data and your company data. If you don’t have that in place, it’s not worth pursuing AI at all, because you’re putting everything at risk if you don’t.”

How three companies measure AI implementations

Focus, safety, and culture are key.

How three companies grade AI success

Commerce solutions provider Cart.com has announced the CRO appointment of Gregg Zegras, who will oversee a unified sales team across commerce and logistics solutions. His recruitment comes at a time of significant expansion for the company. In the last 18 months alone, it has led two strategic acquisitions and a $50 million fundraising round, bringing its valuation up to $1.6 billion.

Most recently, Zegras spent over 10 years at global shipping and mailing company Pitney Bowes, where he oversaw a staff of over 4,500, and is credited with scaling revenue to $1.5 billion. His 25-year career has included roles at Sharecare, Hearst, and NBCUniversal.

Cart.com CEO and founder Omair Tariq said Zegras will be “accelerating high-margin revenue growth, penetrating new verticals, diversifying our client base, unifying our go-to-market efforts, and scaling Cart.com to $1 billion in revenue over the next few years.”

“I’m thrilled to join Cart.com at such an exciting moment in its growth journey,” Zegras said in a statement. “The company has built a differentiated platform that uniquely combines commerce enablement with a nationwide logistics network. I look forward to working with Omair and the entire Cart.com team to drive customer success and deliver on the company’s ambitious goals.”

Cart.com has over 6,000 clients across B2B companies, consumer brands, and the public sector. Since its founding in October 2020, it has raised a total of $475 million.

Cart.com names Gregg Zegras as chief revenue officer

The longtime e-commerce executive will lead sales across commerce and logistics solutions. 

Always be closing, even if it’s with a bot. SaaS companies are getting in on the AI sales role-playing train by having sellers perfect their pitches in a simulation.

One of those players is MeetRecord. Launched in 2022, it offers its own AI role-playing platform, along with broader revenue intelligence and CRM automation. This week, the company announced it has rebranded as Outdoo, heralding the next step in its evolution. Here are some of the core features:

Outdoo’s role-playing platform offers audio, video, and chat functions to mimic myriad types of conversations.

Learning modules offer “measurable coaching outcomes.”

Modules integrate with enterprise learning management systems such as Absorb LMS and Docebo.

The platform adapts in real time by analyzing “performance data, competitive insights, and live objections.”

“Call Blitz” simulation puts sellers under time constraints to deliver a pitch.

Performance dashboards “track progress, reinforce coaching, and fuel compounding improvements.”

“Revenue leaders everywhere face the same challenge: how to ramp reps faster, keep them sharp, and make training measurable,” Outdoo CRO Sachin Sinha said in a statement. “Outdoo gives them a system that not only identifies gaps, but closes them with role-play, coaching, and intelligence in one loop. It is about building confidence before the call, not just analyzing performance after.”

According to GTM Buddy, companies that integrate AI into sales training saw 3.3 times higher quota attainment growth year over year. Accordingly, Outdoo is facing a crowded marketplace: Competitor AI simulation platforms include Second Nature, Mindtickle, Hyperbound, and Zenarate, which 

Collaged side by side of an AI robot and human employee working at a desk. (Credit: Morning Brew Design)