Did AI kill the SDR role?
Not in headcount. SDRs were 6.7% of software sales teams in March 2026, against 6.8% a month after ChatGPT launched.
Methodology (PDF)Key findings
-1.5%
relative change in the SDR share of software and IT sales teams, from 6.8% at the end of 2022 to 6.7% in March 2026.
44,829
SDRs in March 2026, level with the September 2022 peak of 44,855, after a 12.5% fall to early 2024.
-7.7%
change in SDRs per AE. The ratio fell because AE headcount grew 12.0%, against 3.4% for SDRs.
+12.5%
for junior SDRs against junior support and marketing roles at the same companies (95% interval 7.0% to 17.9%).
On this page
AI has not killed the SDR role, at least not in headcount. In software and IT companies, sales development reps (SDRs and BDRs) made up 6.7% of sales-team headcount in March 2026. At the end of 2022, a month after ChatGPT came out, they made up 6.8%. That is a relative fall of 1.5%: a dent, not a death.
The count is back, too. There were 44,829 SDRs at these companies in March 2026, level with the peak of 44,855 in September 2022. We rebuilt quarterly headcount for 113,233 software and IT companies in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand from the work histories in Ken's internal data.
SDRs and BDRs as a share of sales-team headcount at software and IT companies, at each quarter end. The share nearly doubled from 2018 to its peak in September 2022, two months before ChatGPT launched.
Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.
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| Quarter end | SDR share of sales team |
|---|---|
| 2018 Q1 | 3.75% |
| 2018 Q2 | 3.94% |
| 2018 Q3 | 4.11% |
| 2018 Q4 | 4.17% |
| 2019 Q1 | 4.29% |
| 2019 Q2 | 4.57% |
| 2019 Q3 | 4.75% |
| 2019 Q4 | 4.81% |
| 2020 Q1 | 4.92% |
| 2020 Q2 | 4.81% |
| 2020 Q3 | 4.94% |
| 2020 Q4 | 5.08% |
| 2021 Q1 | 5.32% |
| 2021 Q2 | 5.75% |
| 2021 Q3 | 6.05% |
| 2021 Q4 | 6.25% |
| 2022 Q1 | 6.6% |
| 2022 Q2 | 6.96% |
| 2022 Q3 | 7% |
| 2022 Q4 | 6.8% |
| 2023 Q1 | 6.59% |
| 2023 Q2 | 6.52% |
| 2023 Q3 | 6.4% |
| 2023 Q4 | 6.28% |
| 2024 Q1 | 6.21% |
| 2024 Q2 | 6.31% |
| 2024 Q3 | 6.39% |
| 2024 Q4 | 6.32% |
| 2025 Q1 | 6.38% |
| 2025 Q2 | 6.57% |
| 2025 Q3 | 6.63% |
| 2025 Q4 | 6.61% |
| 2026 Q1 | 6.7% |
What we measured
At the end of every quarter from 2018 to March 2026, we counted how many people held each job at each company, using the start and end dates in their work histories. An SDR is anyone with an SDR, BDR or similar title: sales, lead, market or account development rep, business development representative, appointment setter or cold caller. The sales team is SDRs plus account executives (AEs), account managers, general sales reps, business development and partnership staff, and sales engineers. Software and IT covers 18 industry labels on the company record, from software development and IT services to cybersecurity.
We stop at March 2026 because people add new jobs to their profiles months late.
A boom, a freeze and a recovery
The SDR share was not flat over the period. It nearly doubled, from 3.75% of software sales teams in early 2018 to a peak of 7.0% in September 2022, two months before ChatGPT. It then slid to 6.2% in March 2024 and climbed back to 6.7%.
Headcount followed the same arc. SDRs fell 12.5% from the September 2022 peak to 39,267 in March 2024, then rose 14.2% to 44,829.
The fall started before ChatGPT, as the 2021 to 2022 hiring boom ended. The low point came in early 2024, just as AI tools sold as SDR replacements started to spread. Since then the number of SDRs has grown, not shrunk.
Hiring tells the same story. New SDR jobs at software and IT companies fell 30.9% in 2023 against 2022, and new AE jobs fell 26.4%. The freeze hit SDR hiring a little harder, but it hit both. In 2025, SDR starts were still 25.1% below 2022 and AE starts 11.6% below, and both 2025 figures are likely to rise as people keep updating their profiles.
Fewer SDRs per AE, because AEs grew
One measure did fall clearly: SDRs per AE. It went from 0.36 at the end of 2022 to 0.34 in March 2026, a fall of 7.7%. That is one SDR for every 2.7 AEs then, and one for every 3.0 AEs now. The ratio fell because AE headcount grew faster: up 12.0% over the period, against 3.4% for SDRs.
Change in headcount at software and IT companies from the end of 2022 to March 2026. Junior roles are entry-level titles in each function.
Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.
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| Headcount change, end of 2022 to March 2026 | |
|---|---|
| AEs | +12.0% |
| Junior SDRs | +6.4% |
| All SDRs | +3.4% |
| Junior marketers | -3.3% |
| Junior support reps | -6.6% |
The ratio fell most at companies with 51 to 200 employees (16.8% lower) and 201 to 1,000 employees (13.4% lower), the companies most likely to run a separate SDR team. At companies with 50 or fewer employees it rose 7.5%.
Change in SDRs per AE at software and IT companies from the end of 2022 to March 2026, by company size.
Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.
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| Change in SDRs per AE | |
|---|---|
| 1-50 | +7.5% |
| 51-200 | -16.8% |
| 201-1,000 | -13.4% |
| 1,001-5,000 | -1.3% |
| 5,001+ | -7.9% |
Against other junior jobs, SDRs held up better
The 2023 downturn hit many entry-level jobs, and AI is said to threaten many of them. So we compared junior SDRs with two other junior roles at the same companies: customer support reps and marketers. From the end of 2022 to March 2026, junior SDR headcount rose 6.4%, while junior support reps fell 6.6% and junior marketers fell 3.3%. Against the two control roles together, junior SDRs gained 12.5% (95% interval 7.0% to 17.9%).
SDRs did take a harder hit at first. By the end of 2023 they were 5.8% down on the control roles. They have more than made that up since 2024.
- 95% interval
- 95% interval
Junior SDR headcount relative to junior support and marketing roles at the same companies, against the end of 2022 (0%). The band is the 95% interval. Before 2021 junior SDRs grew much faster than the control roles; the methodology PDF has the series from 2018.
Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.
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| Quarter end | Junior SDRs against control roles | 95% interval |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 Q1 | -28.28% | -30.67% to -25.3% |
| 2021 Q2 | -21.49% | -23.72% to -18.9% |
| 2021 Q3 | -16.22% | -18.3% to -13.62% |
| 2021 Q4 | -12.95% | -14.95% to -10.33% |
| 2022 Q1 | -5.99% | -7.71% to -3.71% |
| 2022 Q2 | +1.01% | -0.52% to +2.74% |
| 2022 Q3 | +2.74% | +1.89% to +3.66% |
| 2022 Q4 | 0% | 0% to 0% |
| 2023 Q1 | -2.37% | -3.49% to -1.1% |
| 2023 Q2 | -3.16% | -5.63% to -1% |
| 2023 Q3 | -4.12% | -6.62% to -1.72% |
| 2023 Q4 | -5.81% | -8.46% to -3.22% |
| 2024 Q1 | -5.86% | -9.06% to -2.63% |
| 2024 Q2 | -3.62% | -6.96% to -0.13% |
| 2024 Q3 | -0.99% | -5.09% to +2.7% |
| 2024 Q4 | -1.53% | -5.82% to +2.28% |
| 2025 Q1 | +0.94% | -3.56% to +5.1% |
| 2025 Q2 | +5.57% | +0.56% to +10.41% |
| 2025 Q3 | +8.44% | +3.07% to +13.48% |
| 2025 Q4 | +8.99% | +3.81% to +14.26% |
| 2026 Q1 | +12.5% | +7.01% to +17.91% |
What we expected, and what we found
We wrote down four predictions before looking at the data.
- The SDR share and the SDR-to-AE ratio both fall at least 5%. Wrong. The share fell 1.5%, although the ratio fell 7.7%. Across all industries, the SDR share rose from 2.18% to 2.33%.
- The share peaks before ChatGPT. Right for software and IT: it peaked in September 2022.
- No extra drop against the control roles, at ChatGPT or when AI outbound tools spread. Half right. There was no drop in 2024: SDRs gained on the control roles from then on. But the break that best fits the data falls in the second quarter of 2023, just after ChatGPT and in the same months as the 2023 wave of tech layoffs, and our own rule, written in advance, counts that against the prediction. The data cannot separate ChatGPT from the layoffs: when we resampled companies, 45.0% of the best-fitting break dates fell before 2023.
- The SDR-to-AE ratio falls most at companies with 51 to 1,000 employees. Right.
What this data cannot show
- Titles, not tasks. An SDR who works with AI tools still counts as an SDR. AI may be changing what SDRs do; it has not changed how many there are.
- Renamed jobs. If companies gave SDR work new titles, our rule would miss them. Titles that look like SDR work but fall outside the rule (such as business development executive, or titles with "outbound" or "pipeline") made up 39.9% of SDR-like job starts in 2022 and 41.3% in 2025. That is no rush to rename.
- Late and missing jobs. People add new jobs late and leave short ones off. Ending the series in September 2025 instead gives the same answer: the SDR share is 2.6% below its end-2022 level.
- Coverage. The data covers six countries and only profiles that exist today, so older years undercount. We compare roles with each other rather than read absolute numbers.
- Cause. This is a time series with a comparison group, not an experiment. It cannot show what headcount would have been without AI.
What it means for sales leaders
- SDR teams have not been replaced. The share barely moved, from 6.8% to 6.7%, and the count is back at its 2022 peak.
- The squeeze was 2023, and it hit everyone. SDR and AE hiring both fell by more than a quarter. Plan for hiring cycles, not a one-way trend.
- Benchmark against today's ratio. Mid-size companies cut SDRs per AE the most, by 16.8% and 13.4%. A 2022 org chart overstates how many SDRs each AE now gets.
- AI is changing the work first. If it is changing outbound sales, so far it is changing how SDRs work, not how many there are.
Data and method
- Data
- Ken internal data: the public work histories and company records Ken uses for sales and outreach, reused by Cristian Frunze for this study. Six countries: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.
- Sample
- 113,233 software and IT companies, with headcount rebuilt at every quarter end from each role's start and end dates.
- Date range
- Quarter ends from 2018 Q1 to 2026 Q1, with profiles updated up to April 2026. The end of 2022 is the reference quarter.
- Method
- Pre-registered time series with a comparison group (junior support and marketing roles at the same companies): a break-date search with a company bootstrap and an event study with 95% intervals. Headline numbers recomputed by a separate analysis.
- Excluded
- Role records with no start date, or that end before they start
- Companies outside the 18 software and IT industry labels, except in the all-industries check
- Quarters after March 2026, which are still filling in
- Privacy
- Aggregates only. Any group smaller than 50 people is suppressed, and no individual is named.
