Moving at the Speed of Thought with AI Agents

I was reflecting on this the past few days. Until now, software always forced you to choose between flexibility and simplicity.

If you wanted a system that could do exactly what you needed, it came with layers of complexity (think Salesforce). If you wanted simplicity, you had to sacrifice customization (think lightweight SMB CRMs).

AI agents break that trade-off.

They bring a new era where software can be both, deeply tailored to your business and incredibly simple to set up, run, and evolve.

That’s the real revolution: not adding more layers of process or more specialized roles, but removing the friction entirely.

It’s CRAZY how the fastest growing companies in GTM tech are still built on that old premise of complex customizable software.

But let me tell you why it’s the wrong bet for the future.

Look at Clay’s latest $100M fundraise, and their “GTM Engineer” play. It shows exactly how VCs still believe in the old playbook.

I spent the last 24 hours digging into their "GTM Engineer movement" claims. Here’s what I found.

They're selling you on a "movement" that barely exists. Less than 1% of GTM teams actually employ a GTM Engineer.

And here's the kicker – 82 of those 650 global "GTM Engineers" work at Clay. Only 79 GTM Engineer job openings exist in the entire US on LinkedIn right now.

They're not leading a movement. They're manufacturing one.

The Tried-and-Tested Playbook

This isn’t new. Salesforce perfected this strategy years ago.

They built an incredibly powerful, but deeply complex, platform. Then, instead of simplifying it, they created a role (the Salesforce Admin) and an ecosystem around it, making companies feel they had to hire specialists to unlock value.

Clay is running the same play. They know their platform is impossibly complex for normal users. Instead of making it simpler, they’re building a narrative that makes YOU feel inadequate.

"Oh, you can’t use Clay? You must need a $250k/year GTM Engineer."

It’s a brilliant move: make you feel like everyone else "gets it" but you, then sell you the “experts” to close the gap.

Here’s the truth: ~45% of active GTM Engineer roles today are agencies or consultants selling Clay services.

The Wrong Bet

Clay bet on complexity. On turning sellers into coders. On making human intuition a set of flowcharts.

But the future isn’t more complexity. It’s less.

AI agents are becoming a new layer in business, one that simplifies system complexity entirely. They enable teams to move at the speed of thought and scale with intelligence, not headcount.

And that intelligence? It’s human intelligence - amplified, not replaced.

In the past your option was Salesforce admins. Today it’s $250k GTM engineers. In the future, it’s AI-native companies where every employee is empowered by AI Agents to operate in their zone of genius, autonomously.

The Big Shift View

The real GTM revolution is this:

• Agents handle the systems.

• Humans focus on the work only they can do - reading between the lines, building trust, connecting with customers and feel empathy.

That’s the magic AI will amplify. Not humans pretending to be machines. But machines empowering humans to be human.

That’s the movement worth building.

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