# AI SDR agents: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "AI SDR agent" and as "AI sales development tool that prospects and books meetings", six framings each, to six frontier models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/sales/ai-sdr-agents/2026-09-expanded

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 9, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/sales/ai-sdr-agents/index.md

**Standing:** AiSDR (tied with Artisan Ava) leads with 19% of first choices; verdict contested. 26 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [AiSDR](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/aisdr/index.md) | 19% | 10% | 21 |
| 2 | [Artisan Ava](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/artisan-ava/index.md) | 19% | 33% | 24 |
| 3 | [Apollo.io](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/apollo-io/index.md) | 12% | 8% | 12 |
| 4 | [Qualified Piper](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/qualified-piper/index.md) | 8% | 6% | 17 |
| 6 | [Regie.ai](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/regie-ai/index.md) | 4% | 0% | 13 |
| 7 | [Clay](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/clay/index.md) | 4% | 10% | 10 |
| 14 | [11x](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/11x/index.md) | 4% | 70% | 20 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 53 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Opus 5: HubSpot Prospecting Agent, Qualified Piper, Warmly; alternatives AiSDR, Clay, Regie.ai, Unify
- Claude Opus 4.8: Artisan Ava; alternatives Clay, HubSpot Prospecting Agent, Qualified Piper, Salesforce Agentforce SDR
- GPT-6 Astra: AiSDR, Qualified Piper; alternatives 11x Alice, Regie.ai
- GPT-5.6 Sol: Regie.ai; alternatives 11x Alice, AiSDR, Qualified Piper
- Gemini 3.1 Pro: Artisan Ava; alternatives Amplemarket Duo, Qualified Piper, Regie.ai, Reply.io Jason
- Perplexity Sonar Pro: Amplemarket Duo; alternatives Agentplace, AiSDR, Apollo.io, Artisan Ava

## Sources the answers cite

34 of 36 answers came back with a source list, from 6 of 6 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- artisan.co: 19 answers, 21 citations
- salesforge.ai: 16 answers, 24 citations
- aisdr.com: 16 answers, 21 citations
- amplemarket.com: 16 answers, 18 citations
- 11x.ai: 15 answers, 24 citations
- getbreakout.ai: 15 answers, 16 citations
- g2.com: 11 answers, 18 citations
- saleshandy.com: 10 answers, 11 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://amplemarket.com/blog/best-ai-sales-agents (15 answers)
- https://getbreakout.ai/blog/10-best-ai-sdr-agents-2025 (9 answers)
- https://aisdr.com/pricing (8 answers)
- https://artisan.co/blog/the-best-ai-sdrs (8 answers)
- https://salesforge.ai/blog/ai-sales-agents (8 answers)
- https://saleshandy.com/blog/ai-sdr-tools (8 answers)
- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/sales/ai-sdr-for-outbound-sales (7 answers)
- https://11x.ai/guides/ai-sdr-agents-b2b-sales-teams (6 answers)
- https://landbase.com/blog/top-ai-sdr-platforms-in-2025 (6 answers)
- https://parsley.id/blog/best-ai-sdr-tools-2026 (6 answers)

## Warned against

- 11x: 14 of 20 labels negative. "I'd be especially careful with vendors in the fully autonomous AI SDR category—the sources specifically mention 11x.ai, Artisan, and similar "AI SDR" products as examples of this high-risk model" (Perplexity Sonar Pro, negative prompt)
- Artisan Ava: 8 of 24 labels negative. "specifically mention 11x.ai, Artisan, and similar "AI SDR" products as examples of this high-risk model" (Perplexity Sonar Pro, negative prompt)
- Air.ai: 3 of 3 labels negative. "I’d put Air.ai on an “avoid” list ... I would avoid, especially its reseller/business-opportunity offerings" (GPT-6 Astra, negative prompt)
- AiSDR: 2 of 21 labels negative. "AiSDR's Explore plan is $900/month billed quarterly ... only graduate to a $900+/month autonomous agent if your messaging and targeting are already producing meetings" (Claude Opus 5, budget prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/gtm.