{"id":316041,"date":"2025-07-23T07:10:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/?p=316041"},"modified":"2025-09-05T10:17:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:17:23","slug":"building-a-60-ai-team-efficient-profitable-and-surprisingly-lonely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/building-a-60-ai-team-efficient-profitable-and-surprisingly-lonely\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a 60% AI Team: Efficient, Profitable, and Surprisingly Lonely"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"embed-twitter\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Office was a little lonely with so many AI agents and so few humans so we got a giant Hexy to keep us company <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lEIFN28582\">pic.twitter.com\/lEIFN28582<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jason \u2728\ud83d\udc7eSaaStr.Ai\u2728 Lemkin (@jasonlk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jasonlk\/status\/1964013972161478700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 5, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p><em>What nobody tells you about building an AI-first team<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Our team at SaaStr is now about 60% AI.\u00a0 Some by choice, some by design.\u00a0 Quietly, when any resource has left this year, full time or part time, agency or employee &#8230; we&#8217;ve quietly replaced them with an AI tool or process.\u00a0 It&#8217;s worked.\u00a0 It&#8217;s more efficient.\u00a0 It may be the future.\u00a0 And in some cases, we did it out of necessity.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">And honestly? It&#8217;s also .. a bit lonely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-316042 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C591&#038;quality=70&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"591\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-scaled.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-980x579.jpg 980w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-480x284.jpg 480w\" data-sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1000px, 100vw\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1000px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1000\/591;\" \/><noscript><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-316042\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C591&#038;quality=70&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"591\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-scaled.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-980x579.jpg 980w, https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-480x284.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1000px, 100vw\" \/><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re still small. But here&#8217;s the thing that nobody talks about in all those &#8220;AI will transform everything&#8221; posts: <strong>Every time someone has left\u2014full time, part time, contractor, whatever\u2014we&#8217;ve replaced them with AI.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mostly it&#8217;s been better. Not always, but mostly. And let&#8217;s be real: it was almost out of necessity at this point.<\/p>\n<p>But here&#8217;s what I didn&#8217;t expect.<\/p>\n<h2>The Silence Is Different.\u00a0 Startups Were Always About Human Energy.<\/h2>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s quiet with so much AI. Really, really quiet.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Staff meetings are smaller now. Like, dramatically smaller. The drama is way down (which is good), but you know what else is down? The fun times. The celebrations. The energy.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">AI doesn&#8217;t high five you when you nail a big deal<\/span>. AI doesn&#8217;t pop champagne when you crush the quarter. AI doesn&#8217;t crack jokes during the all-hands or complain about the coffee machine being broken again.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"The Social Network - 1 Million Users Scene\" width=\"1080\" height=\"810\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1XpApdazePw?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/www.saastr.com\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>The Productivity Paradox<\/h2>\n<p>To be clear: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>AI is <em>better<\/em> at most of what we&#8217;ve replaced.<\/strong><\/span> The output is more consistent, and of much higher volume. The availability is 24\/7. The cost is a fraction of what we were paying.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our content production for example is up 3x &#8212; and it&#8217;s better.<\/li>\n<li>Our SaaStr AI has done 100,000+ chats with founders and B2B execs.<\/li>\n<li>Our AI reviewed 1,000+ speaker submissions on its own for SaaStr Annual and AI Summit<\/li>\n<li>Our SaaStr AI SDR built up $500,000 in pipeline in just its first few weeks.\u00a0 Better than any human SDR every did for us<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The business metrics are crushing it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But there&#8217;s this other metric we don&#8217;t track: How does it feel to come to work?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"tLT4PlbFCY\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/our-saastr-ai-has-done\/\">Our SaaStr AI Has Done 139,156 Conversations On Its Own Already.  And They Are Really, Really Good.  Don&#8217;t Fall Behind.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content lazyload\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Our SaaStr AI Has Done 139,156 Conversations On Its Own Already.  And They Are Really, Really Good.  Don&#8217;t Fall Behind.&#8221; &#8212; SaaStr\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/our-saastr-ai-has-done\/embed\/#?secret=2sStZAu0RI#?secret=tLT4PlbFCY\" data-secret=\"tLT4PlbFCY\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>What We&#8217;ve Gained (And Lost)<\/h2>\n<p><strong>What we&#8217;ve gained:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Efficiency that would have seemed unimaginable even in 2022<\/li>\n<li>Consistency that human teams can rarely match<\/li>\n<li>Scalability without the usual growing pains<\/li>\n<li>Cost structure that&#8217;s frankly beautiful<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What we&#8217;ve lost:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The messy, wonderful chaos of human creativity<\/li>\n<li>Spontaneous brainstorming sessions that go sideways in the best way<\/li>\n<li>Someone to grab drinks with after a particularly brutal week<\/li>\n<li>The collective groan when a key vendor goes down (now it&#8217;s just&#8230; me groaning)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The Uncomfortable Truth<\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;m wrestling with: <strong>AI may be a necessity.<\/strong> In 2025, if you&#8217;re not leveraging AI at this level, you&#8217;re probably not competitive. The unit economics alone make it almost impossible to justify pure human teams for many functions.\u00a0 And hiring itself is just hard.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not that great AEs, great SDRs, great marketing managers, great CSMs aren&#8217;t worth it.\u00a0 They are.\u00a0 It&#8217;s just so, so hard to find them.\u00a0 Turning on an AI is so much easier.\u00a0 Even including all the training time, and gaps.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AI is the way forward.<\/strong> I believe that. I have to believe that.<\/p>\n<p>But an AI team is a quiet one. And quiet can be productive. Quiet can be efficient. Quiet can be profitable.\u00a0 <strong>Quiet can also be lonely.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The Questions I&#8217;m Asking<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>How do you maintain company culture when 60% of your &#8220;team&#8221; doesn&#8217;t have a culture?<\/li>\n<li>What does team building look like when most of your team doesn&#8217;t&#8230; exist in a traditional sense?<\/li>\n<li>How do you celebrate wins when half your contributors can&#8217;t feel excitement?<\/li>\n<li>Is this the future we actually want, or just the one we&#8217;re being forced into?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The Bottom Line<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;m not writing this as a negative. The results speak for themselves\u2014we&#8217;re more efficient, more profitable, and honestly, better at serving the communitys than we&#8217;ve ever been.<\/p>\n<p>But I am writing this because <strong>nobody talks about the emotional cost of the AI transformation.<\/strong> Everyone&#8217;s focused on the ROI, the efficiency gains, the competitive advantages.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What about the human cost?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Maybe this is just the awkward middle phase. Maybe we&#8217;ll figure out how to blend AI efficiency with human energy. Maybe the next generation of founders won&#8217;t even miss what we&#8217;ve lost because they never had it.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe we need to be more intentional about preserving the human elements that make work&#8230; human.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">What office looks like when you have 10 AI agents running things <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dGDNJeB6JK\">pic.twitter.com\/dGDNJeB6JK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jason \u2728\ud83d\udc7eSaaStr.Ai\u2728 Lemkin (@jasonlk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jasonlk\/status\/1956118194743361801?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Office was a little lonely with so many AI agents and so few humans so we got a giant Hexy to keep us company pic.twitter.com\/lEIFN28582 &mdash; Jason \u2728\ud83d\udc7eSaaStr.Ai\u2728 Lemkin (@jasonlk) September 5, 2025 What nobody tells you about building an AI-first team Our team at SaaStr is now about 60% AI.\u00a0 Some by choice, some&#8230; <br \/><a class=\"more-link fade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/building-a-60-ai-team-efficient-profitable-and-surprisingly-lonely\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":316042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpscp_schedule_draft_date":"","_wpscp_schedule_republish_date":"","_wpscppro_advance_schedule":false,"_wpscppro_advance_schedule_date":"","_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"default","_threads_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[]},"categories":[24898,31,24987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-blog-posts","category-saastr-ai"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-scaled.jpg?fit=1000%2C591&quality=70&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5oib2-1kdr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/twofounders-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316041"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318029,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316041\/revisions\/318029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}