The "1.2 Human" Sales Team is Here (And It’s Mostly Just Better Ops)

The one thing you need to know in AI today | AI Ready CMO

If you want a preview of what the next 18 months of B2B go-to-market look like, veteran SaaS investor Jason Lemkin just provided an incredible blueprint. The headline: Lemkin replaced a 10-person sales team with 1.2 humans (yes, 1.2) and 20 AI agents. Revenue stayed flat.

Look past the shock value. This isn’t a sad story about robots coming for your job. It’s about the death of the “mediocre middle” in knowledge work, and we all should celebrate that.

For years, we’ve accepted a bloated model in sales where junior employees burn out doing robotic tasks—qualifying inbound leads, sending generic cold emails, chasing dead opportunities. Most of this work can be broken down into repeatable workflows, discrete steps you can map on a whiteboard. Even the judgment calls like “is this lead worth my time?” can be automated with good reliability if you train the system on your best people’s instincts. And AI doesn’t get tired, doesn’t complain about “trash leads,” and works Christmas morning.

But …