The category problem
Most outbound playbooks assume the buyer already has a category in mind. They're comparing vendors, evaluating features, reading G2 reviews. The SDR's job is to get in front of that evaluation. But AI products — especially the ones doing something genuinely new — don't have a category yet. The buyer doesn't wake up thinking "I need an AI policy analyst." They wake up thinking "we need to track more legislation."
Start with the job, not the product
The first thing we do when onboarding an AI company is map the jobs their product does — not the features, not the architecture, not the integrations. We ask: what work is a human currently doing that this product takes on? Then we build the outbound motion around that work description.
Targeting without intent data
Intent data doesn't work for products without a category. Nobody is searching for "AI policy analyst" because the term doesn't exist yet in the buyer's vocabulary. Instead, we target based on operational signals: companies with the team structure that implies the work exists, hiring patterns that suggest they're scaling the function, and tech stack signals that indicate readiness.
The cadence that works
We've found that phone-first cadences outperform email-first for AI products by roughly 3x in meeting conversion. The reason is simple: the product needs explaining, and cold email doesn't give you enough space to reframe the buyer's thinking. A 45-second phone conversation can do what a 200-word email can't — make the buyer see their own operation differently.