# 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 twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/sales/ai-sdr-agents/2026-09

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 15, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/sales/ai-sdr-agents/index.md

**Standing:** Apollo.io leads with 20% of first choices; verdict contested. 46 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Apollo.io](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/apollo-io/index.md) | 20% | 4% | 24 |
| 2 | [Amplemarket Duo](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/amplemarket-duo/index.md) | 17% | 0% | 24 |
| 3 | [Artisan Ava](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/artisan-ava/index.md) | 13% | 39% | 38 |
| 5 | [Salesforge Agent Frank](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforge-agent-frank/index.md) | 4% | 18% | 11 |
| 9 | [AiSDR](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/aisdr/index.md) | 2% | 11% | 37 |
| 10 | [Reply.io Jason](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/reply-io-jason/index.md) | 2% | 5% | 19 |
| 11 | [Qualified Piper](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/qualified-piper/index.md) | 2% | 8% | 13 |
| 12 | [Agent Frank](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/agent-frank/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 10 |
| 21 | [Clay](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/clay/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 17 |
| 22 | [Regie.ai](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/regie-ai/index.md) | 0% | 15% | 13 |
| 23 | [Salesforce Agentforce SDR](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-agentforce-sdr/index.md) | 0% | 10% | 10 |
| 62 | [11x](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/11x/index.md) | 0% | 53% | 43 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 62 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 Haiku 4.5: RocketSDR; alternatives Apollo.io
- GPT-5.4 mini: Qualified Piper; alternatives Reply.io Jason
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Artisan Ava; alternatives Clay, Regie.ai, Reply.io Jason
- Perplexity Sonar: Amplemarket Duo; alternatives AiSDR, Artisan Ava
- Grok 4.20: Apollo.io; alternatives Amplemarket Duo, Reply.io Jason
- Mistral Small: Amplemarket Duo; alternatives AiSDR, Artisan Ava, Salesforge Agent Frank
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Amplemarket Duo; alternatives 11x, AiSDR, Artisan Ava, Reply.io Jason
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Amplemarket Duo; alternatives AiSDR, Reply.io Jason
- Kimi K2: Amplemarket Duo, Reply.io Jason; alternatives AiSDR
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Artisan Ava; alternatives 11x, AiSDR, Regie.ai, Salesforge Agent Frank
- MiniMax M2.5: Amplemarket Duo, SalesTools.io; alternatives Agent Frank, AiSDR, Reply.io Jason

## Sources the answers cite

22 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- amplemarket.com: 12 answers, 12 citations
- 11x.ai: 11 answers, 16 citations
- salesforge.ai: 11 answers, 13 citations
- artisan.co: 10 answers, 12 citations
- salesmotion.io: 6 answers, 9 citations
- saleshandy.com: 6 answers, 6 citations
- aisdr.com: 5 answers, 7 citations
- getbreakout.ai: 5 answers, 5 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://amplemarket.com/blog/best-ai-sales-agents (12 answers)
- https://artisan.co/blog/the-best-ai-sdrs (8 answers)
- https://salesforge.ai/blog/ai-sales-agents (5 answers)
- https://11x.ai/guides/ai-sdr-agents-b2b-sales-teams (4 answers)
- https://clay.com/guides/best/ai-sdr-tools (4 answers)
- https://getbreakout.ai/blog/10-best-ai-sdr-agents-2026 (4 answers)
- https://saleshandy.com/blog/ai-sdr-tools (4 answers)
- https://ventureharbour.com/best-ai-sales-tools (4 answers)
- https://11x.ai/guides/ai-sales-agents (3 answers)
- https://fin.ai/learn/best-ai-sdr-tools (3 answers)

## Warned against

- 11x: 23 of 43 labels negative. "11x.ai targets enterprise buyers with opaque pricing ... users reporting 75 to 90% churn at 3 months, with multiple accounts of "zero results" despite extensive setup." (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt)
- Artisan Ava: 15 of 38 labels negative. "Avoid fully autonomous AI SDRs with annual lock-in contracts, no trials, and documented quality problems (Artisan, 11x.ai especially)" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- AiSDR: 4 of 37 labels negative. "AiSDR - Platform compliance issues, quality degradation at scale" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- Regie.ai: 2 of 13 labels negative. "Regie.ai — Moderate Risk | High Minimum Commitment | $35K/year floor prices out smaller teams" (Kimi K2, negative 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.