AI SDR fail. 2B fintech that can't clean a contact list
Few months ago I changed my display name on a conference networking app to "AI Stanislav". pure SEO - when people searched for "AI" to find experts or partners, I showed up near-first positions. always working well.
And also turned into a spam filter
Last week a "Partnership Lead" from a licensed fintech company ($2B+ annual processing volume, their words) sent me outreach. opening line: "hi AI Stanislav"
I pointed it out and shared a post I wrote about why this kind of outreach hurts fintech brands specifically. And I doubled answer to his boss via linkedin.
His leadership response wasn't "oh damn, our script is broken, thanks", it was: "we get 30+ qualified meetings a month from this. i'm not sure your post is about us"
and that's kind of the whole problem.
To get those 30 meetings they probably annoyed 3000+ people who now just associate their brand with cheap spam. In fintech this is bad because the whole pitch is "trust us with your money". If you can't clean a contact list before sending, why would I route payments through you.
When I pushed a bit more the conversation ended with "i feel your arrogance... this style of communication isn't for me".
Fine! But it tells you something. The dashboard shows 30 meetings so nobody looks at what's burning underneath.
IMHO, AI SDR tools are not bad by default, but "intent-based" has to actually mean something. knowing someone was at a conference is not intent. having a rough idea why they were there and saying something relevant - that's closer to it.
If your whole strategy depends on people not noticing they got addressed as "AI [name]" you're not building a pipeline.
I'm keeping the "AI" in name. Cheapest filter I found =)
anyone else running something like this, on purpose or by accident?