The question about AI agents flipped this year from “will we use them?” to “which workflow gets agentized first, and who’s actually watching it?” Nowhere is that more pointed than in go-to-market: an unsupervised agent doesn’t just make a mistake internally, it makes it in front of your customer. 

Speed without governance isn’t speed -  it’s deferred risk. The teams that win the agentic age pair autonomy with oversight. They let agents handle scale, but keep a human in the loop on anything that touches a customer, money, or compliance. 

That’s not a brake on growth, in my opinion; it’s what lets you deploy faster while still protecting the brand.

Underneath all the AI-agent hype, there’s a bigger signal happening: companies are scaling go-to-market faster than almost any other function. Anthropic is hiring GTM Strategy & Operations partners alongside enterprise sales teams, while OpenAI is rapidly expanding enterprise-facing and technical customer roles as it grows toward ~8,000 employees by the end of 2026.

Hiring is only half the story. The teams pulling ahead are restructuring the GTM stack around two things: partnerships and a predictable pipeline, and using AI to make both smarter, not just bigger.

Spray-and-pray outreach doesn’t work anymore (It’s not dead!), but buyers can spot generic messaging instantly. The advantage now is building a smarter pipeline with better signals, better targeting, and the right human touch behind the automation.

The teams getting this right are treating AI as an accelerator, not a replacement. Let the agents handle the research, drafting, sequencing, and scale, but keep humans in the loop for anything customer-facing, financial, or regulated. And this approach is actually performing better. McKinsey found that B2B teams pairing AI agents with human SDRs generated 41% more pipeline than either approach alone. 

The agents handle the volume, while humans handle the trust, nuance, and real conversations that still close deals.

I recently sat down with Matt Darrow, CEO of Vivun, on my podcast, Ascend: Stories of Scale, to talk about what AI actually changes in modern sales teams, where the human touch still matters most, and how GTM leaders should think about adoption moving forward.

ICYMI, we launched a new episode of AScend: Stories of Scale last week: "Balancing Automation and Human Insight in the Age of AI" featuring Yan Grinshtein.

In this conversation, Yan shares valuable insights on founder resilience, understanding customers at a deeper level, and building products people genuinely need in an increasingly AI-driven world.

If you're thinking about how to scale responsibly while keeping the human element at the center of innovation, this episode is worth a listen.

Stream the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts here.

We’re excited to continue building with the community as we prepare for FTW: SF. If you’re interested in joining us as a partner, speaker, sponsor, or simply want to get involved, send me a message or reply to this email.

Thanks for reading along! We hope these stories help spark conversations, ideas, opportunities within your teams and organizations.

And for the founders, operators, and marketing teams navigating tighter budgets, restructuring, and the constant pressure to grow faster with less — I see you because I’ve been there too.

If you’re looking for a second set of eyes on your GTM, positioning, growth channels, or overall strategy, I’m always happy to connect and share perspective. No strings attached.

At AScaleX, we’ve been fortunate to double our ARR year over year, generate over $3M from a single campaign, and help influence nearly 85% of our clients’ pipelines. None of it happened overnight, and there’s no perfect playbook for this market, but growth is still very possible with the right systems, positioning, and execution.

We don’t take on every project. We work with teams we genuinely believe we can grow with long-term. If that sounds aligned, schedule some time to connect here.

- Angelique