What is an AI BDR?
Explore what AI BDRs do and how you can use them to book more meetings
BDRs have a lot on their plate.
On top of building pipeline, they find leads, write cold emails, qualify prospects, manage CRMs, and a lot more, including exploring new market opportunities and fostering relationships with clients. It’s no surprise they spend so much time on tasks rather than relationships.
But what if BDRs could skip the lower-value work and focus only on speaking with leads that actually want to talk?
That’s where AI BDRs step in.
They free human BDRs to focus on the quality of conversations over quantity.
What is an AI BDR?
A traditional business development representative (BDR) is responsible for outbound lead prospecting, qualification, and nurturing leads until they’re ready to book a meeting.
To get this done, BDRs juggle various tasks like:
- Scraping the web to research companies and leads that match the ideal customer profile
- Filling the sales pipeline with relevant leads
- Qualifying leads based on specific criteria and sifting out irrelevant ones
- Messaging and interacting with leads through emails, cold calls, and other sales channels
- Creating nurturing campaigns for different lead segments
- Scheduling meetings
- Transcribing and analyzing cold calls
BDRs spend about 68% of their time actively reaching out to prospects.
This process includes several tasks that can be automated, like researching leads, writing and personalizing emails, sending follow-ups, and transcribing and reviewing calls.
That’s where AI steps in.
An AI-powered BDR is specialized software that can automate many of the routine, high-volume tasks that BDRs carry out, such as:
- Scraping and working with large amounts of data
- Finding high numbers of leads that reflect your ICP
- Tailoring and sending emails to prospects
- Managing and enriching lead data within your CRM
- Handling questions, replies, and objections
- Scheduling meetings
In other words, human BDRs can configure AI BDRs to cover the majority of their workload so that they can focus on calls and other interactions that require people.
AI BDRs vs AI SDRs: What’s the difference?
Depending on a company’s sales process, AI BDRs and AI SDRs share a lot of overlap.
Some companies can even “hire” one of them to cover the roles of BDRs and SDRs.
But just like BDRs and SDRs, there is a slight nuance between the two.
BDRs & AI BDRs focus on prospecting and nurturing outbound leads while SDRs & AI SDRs qualify and work with inbound leads.
Simply speaking, a BDR focuses on prospecting and nurturing outbound leads, while an SDR qualifies incoming leads.
| AI SDRs | AI BDRs | |
| Focus | Processes and qualifies inbound leads | Prospects outbound leads |
| Role | Quick responses to leads, resurrecting lost deals, and retargeting leads who didn’t convert into meetings | Nurture leads and build relationships over time |
| Funnel stage | Top & Middle | Middle & Bottom |
| Goal | Hand over qualified leads to account executives | Build pipeline in coordination with sales and marketing teams |
Many AI SDRs and AI BDRs can cover both tasks at scale, but deciding which to use is determined by your GTM playbook and sales plays.
AI BDRs vs human BDRs
AI BDRs aren’t here to replace humans – They’re here to help BDRs scale and amplify their impact. Many teams that embrace AI BDRs (or AI SDRs) often perform favorably compared to those that don’t.
And leadership’s not the only ones saying this.
BDRs who use AI consistently hit higher sales quotas than those who don’t. This helps many BDRs view AI as a productivity booster, rather than a threat.
At the end of the day, it’s not about choosing one over the other. The best-performing teams can find a balance between automation and human insight to maximize results.
When to use an AI BDR
Here are a few scenarios where you might benefit from using an AI BDR as your AI sales assistant.
When you feel it’s time to scale
If you want to scale your business, you’ll need to put more effort into growing your sales pipeline. Instead of spending extra on hiring additional BDRs, you can try an AI BDR to cover tasks that can be easily automated.
It’s an excellent way to extend your team and scale operations without overhead expenses.
When your BDRs are overwhelmed
An AI BDR can operate fully on autopilot without coffee breaks or outside office hours, ensuring coverage around the clock in all time zones. This means you can run email campaigns, reply to prospects, send follow-ups, and fill your pipeline with a skeleton crew.
This can prove to be a godsend if your current sales team is on the verge of burnout and they need a breather.
When your team struggles to find relevant leads
Manual prospecting takes a lot of time. You have to dig into a number of contact databases to pull out relevant leads, and often, it results in reaching out to the wrong people.
In contrast, AI BDRs can automatically enrich your lists with leads that match your ICP and continuously analyze their intent signals to contact only the ones with a high buying intent.
When you want to scale but have a limited budget
“Employing” an AI BDR costs less than working with a human.
If you’re pressed for resources to hire a traditional sales team, going with AI is a great way to start out. The average monthly salary of a BDR in the United States is $4,000, while some AI BDR cost around $500-$900 per month.
When to use a human BDR
Here are a few scenarios where you might prefer using a human BDR over AI.
Relationship building and emotional intelligence
While AI BDRs are great at processing and analyzing loads of data and automating routine tasks, a poorly configured AI will struggle to build trust or rapport like a person can.
Culture intricacies
Сross-cultural communication has a lot of aspects that only humans can understand. AI still struggles with cultural norms, tone, and language subtleties, which is why it’s sometimes better to have a human BDR on standby. Especially if you work with different cultures.
Personalized conversations
Though AI can be trained and customized, it still works based on pre-defined scenarios and flags humans when there’s a complex situation. So in situations like a detailed consultation or product walkthrough, you’ll probably need a human BDR.
| AI BDR | Human BDR | |
| Speed | Processes large amounts of data within a short time / responds to emails right away | Needs more time to dig through contact databases and manage email campaigns |
| Scalability | Can handle a large volume of tasks while staying as productive | Can become less productive when overloaded with extra tasks |
| Personalization | Analyzes lead’s profiles, CRM data, and intent signals to personalize the message | While AI personalizes initial outreach, human BDR can focus more on high-impact conversations |
| Consistency | Works around the clock following pre-defined rules | Their consistency depends on a variety of factors |
| Learning and adapting | Quickly adapts to the changing requirements with no learning curve | Needs more time to learn new things and adapt |
| Complex conversations | Not suitable for complex conversations and high-priority deals where a human touch is needed | Understands the context of the conversation and gives that person-to-person connection |
| Ethics | Has to be specifically configured for sensitive topics | Knows the cultural nuances and topics that shouldn’t be touched |
The benefits of AI BDRs
Here are some of the key advantages of adding an AI BDR to your team.
Improved BDR performance
AI BDRs don’t get tired, bored, distracted, or overwhelmed. They can analyze market and lead data, generate pipeline, and write emails, as well as other responsibilities that your BDRs are less enthusiastic about. Then they can concentrate on closing deals.
With AI qualifying leads, sending follow-ups, and enriching contact records, your outreach becomes faster, more consistent, and easier to scale.
The result? Higher productivity and higher quotas. Without burnout.
Smarter follow-ups
Follow-ups are often the difference between silence and a booked meeting. AI BDRs make sure follow-ups are timely and tailored to each lead’s stage and buyer intent level.
They can even target multiple roles within the same account to boost response rates. In fact, BDRs who contact two or more roles average 104% quota attainment, which is something AI can help make scalable.
Cost-effective scaling (or cost savings)
Hiring, onboarding, and managing a full BDR team can get expensive. An AI BDR is an affordable option for companies with limited resources like startups or lean sales teams that need to grow fast without growing payroll.
AI tools don’t require extensive onboarding or training and involve no turnover-related costs or recruitment expenses. An AI BDR gets to work straight away, and if you have GTM engineers at your disposal, they’ll help keep the AI on track to deliver results.
Data-driven decision making
BDRs spend so much time juggling dozens of LinkedIn lead profiles, their company websites, and social media. AI can accumulate all this data and provide a detailed company profile with the information you need to start a personalized outreach based on data, not your gut feeling.
AI also analyzes real-time performance data, lead responses, engagement rates, and conversion trends, connecting the dots and generating insights for sales strategies.
How to add an AI BDR to your team?
The first step to integrating an AI BDR is understanding where it fits in your workflow. Start by listing all the tasks your current BDRs handle, then divide them into three categories:
- Tasks for AI
- Tasks for humans
- Tasks that can be shared
Use AI to take over high-volume, repetitive tasks, and let your human BDRs build relationships, close deals, think strategically, and use their creativity.
Here’s an example breakdown.
| Tasks for AI BDRs | Tasks for human BDRs |
| Building a lead list based on the ICP | Setting up and overseeing AI performance |
| Gathering data and providing insights about the market and target buyers | Analyzing insights to inform strategy |
| Collecting and analyzing buyer intent signals | Engaging high-value leads where there’s no room for error |
| Following up with inbound leads | Managing high-priority prospects and sending personalized follow-ups |
| Enriching and updating CRM data | Applying lead and customer insights |
| Sending personalized cold emails at scale | Making cold calls |
| Warming up new domains and mailboxes | Giving product demos and guiding complex conversations |
| Automating meeting scheduling | Exploring new sales channels (e.g. LinkedIn, X) |
| Transcribing and analyzing calls | |
| Creating cold call scripts |
AI can supercharge your outreach, but you’ll still want someone nearby who can step in when needed. Here’s how combining both creates a smarter workflow:
- AI handles cold outreach, data entry, and follow-ups so humans focus on high-impact conversations.
- AI surfaces high-intent leads based on behavior (e.g. engagement, website visits, behavioral data) so humans focus on only the most promising prospects.
- AI identifies trends and winning strategies while humans use soft skills and intuition to build trust, pitches, and opportunities for deals.
- AI analyzes past performance, customer behavior, and conversion rates so humans can fine-tune sales strategies.
- AI speeds up lead qualification and outreach so humans can nurture and convert faster.
How to choose the right AI BDR
Not all AI BDRs are created equal. Here’s a practical checklist to help you choose a tool that actually delivers results.
Check its key integrations
An AI BDR shouldn’t be a standalone tool.
You’ll want to make sure it integrates with your CRM system and sales engagement platforms.
Even better if it connects to multiple data sources: lead databases, LinkedIn, Hubspot, Twitter, fundraising data, hiring data, and more. The more data it can access, the richer your prospect insights will be.
Ask about its AI capabilities
Some tools market themselves as “AI-powered” but barely scratch the surface.
You can sign up for a product demo to find out more about the AI capabilities of the tool you’re considering and see exactly how it automates the sales process.
In most cases, you’ll want to ask:
- Can it find and prioritize leads based on ICP and intent signals?
- Does it automate outbound sales campaigns?
- Can it write and personalize emails that sound just like a person?
- Does it follow up intelligently and adjust messaging over time?
- Does it offer web scraping, CRM enrichment, and email warm-up?
If the answer is “yes” to most or all, you’re on the right track.
Take it for a spin
A good AI BDR should be easy to use – no coding, no complex setup. And the best way to test this is to request a free trial and share the access with your team.
Also check if the vendor offers support resources like onboarding videos, a help center, or 24/7 customer support. You’ll want fast answers if anything breaks mid-campaign.
Learn about its compliance and data security
Find out if this AI BDR meets security and compliance regulations such as GDPR, SOC2, ISO27001, and PIC. Also, make sure the public model is not trained on your data, that your data remains private, and that you can easily remove it upon request.
The AI BDR vendor should also be clear on how they protect sensitive information from unauthorized access and security threats, while the tool itself should have data protection mechanisms in place. These include role-based access control, encrypted passwords, two-factor authentication, and an intrusion detection system.
If security isn’t baked into the product, move on.
Calculate potential ROI
Estimating ROI is never easy, but we want to help you calculate the ROI of BDR automation.
Here’s what you should do:
- List all costs (subscription, setup, onboarding, etc.)
- Estimate the cost of labor for the tasks you’re automating
- Subtract the automation cost from the labor cost
- Divide by the automation investment and multiply by 100
Here’s what the formula looks like:
ROI = ((Possible Savings – Cost of Automation) / Investment Amount) x 100.
This will give you an approximate understanding of what you’ll gain by BDR automation.
Feel free to tweak this formula based on your current needs. For example, if AI is augmenting BDRs, focus on productivity gains instead of a reduction in headcount. In addition, time savings per rep should be tracked to measure efficiency improvements and customer experience improvements, such as faster responses and better follow-ups.
Finally, our advice is to test the AI BDR’s performance on a smaller scale before fully adopting it.
For example, implement the tool on one segment of leads, compare its performance against human-only BDR efforts, and make the decision to proceed (or not) based on the results.
