Are there any AI sales agents?
Yes. AiSDR, Artisan and 11x sell managed outbound agents, and Kortix runs a sales agent you own. The managed tools send the sequence for you, while Kortix's own lead follow-up flow holds the send for a person.
Open-source AI sales agents, compared by who approves a send
The open-source AI Operating System
An AI sales agent researches a lead, drafts the follow-up and writes the result back to the CRM. What separates the tools is which of those actions a person approves before it runs. Kortix is open source and runs its own lead follow-up on a scheduled trigger, with every draft waiting for a person to send.
Approval gates you set, off until you set them · Rules are files in your repo · Self-host is free
lead-follow-up.txtA guide to AI sales agents
A scheduled trigger sweeps HubSpot every 15 minutes for new leads, and each firing spawns a fresh session in its own sandbox. The agent researches and drafts freely, but nothing goes out on its own: every follow-up stops at a human approval gate as a draft for a person to review and send. Credentials are encrypted in the secrets manager and injected at runtime, scoped to the agents you grant them to. Only the drafts it produces are written back out.
Hand a sales agent the research, the pre-call brief, the CRM write-back and the follow-up draft. Nothing sends until you approve it, and every action it took is written down.
The approval step, tool by tool
Rival cells come from each vendor’s own page, checked October 2026; the Kortix cells come from the flow Kortix publishes.
| Product | What it is | Open source | Before a message leaves | What it does unsupervised | How it is priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kortix | Open-source AI Operating System that runs a sales agent you own | Yes | You set the send gate; its lead follow-up flow holds the send | Researches, drafts, proposes a slot; you set the send gate | Credits, billed per second while the agent computer runs |
| AiSDR | Managed AI SDR writing and sending email and LinkedIn | No | Launch the campaign; pause outbound whenever you want | Builds campaigns, sends, classifies replies, books meetings | $1.50 per person contacted; built for 1,000+ a month |
| Artisan | Managed AI BDR; Ava emails and books meetings for reps | No | Approve before sending, lock tone and CTAs, set banned phrases | Finds leads, writes outreach, handles replies, books meetings | No published rate; a quote sized to lead volume |
| 11x | AI agents for outbound, inbound and expansion across voice, email and chat | No | No approval step published on 11x.ai | Researches accounts, runs email, social and dials, books meetings | No published price; 11x.ai/pricing returns a 404 |
Rival cells and prices come from each vendor’s own page, checked October 2026: AiSDR’s and Artisan’s pricing pages, and 11x.ai’s homepage. 11x’s pricing URL returns a 404, so its column states no price.
Which approach fits?
Three questions. Each answer lands on one of three ways to run a sales agent.
A managed AI SDR sends for you
AiSDR bills per person contacted and runs the sequence from its own inbox; Artisan sells Ava with approvals you set inside its product. Pick this if you want the campaign run for you and the vendor holding the account is fine.
Compare Kortix with AiSDRA scheduling tool
Booking links, routing and reminders cover the job when the agent only finds a slot on a calendar. Kortix is more platform than that job needs.
Kortix, an open-source AI Operating System
Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System that runs the agent, and the send is the step you approve. Its own lead flow sweeps HubSpot on a schedule, drafts the follow-up and stops at a person. The approval controls and the CRM write-back are separate settings you scope.
Try KortixOpen source. Read it, fork it, audit it.
For a buyer, open source puts the agent's rules in front of you before the first run, and every action it takes is recorded.
- The agent's persona, skills and permissions are files in the repo, versioned and changed through a reviewed change request, not a dashboard setting.
- Any model provider with your own keys.
- Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network.
Open-source AI sales agent · Self-hosted AI sales agent · Kortix on GitHub · Kortix docs
Questions buyers ask before they pick one
Short answers on cost, and on who approves a send.
How much do AI sales agents cost?
AiSDR bills $1.50 per person contacted; Artisan quotes per account, and 11x publishes no pricing page. For Kortix, free is $0 with 500 credits a month and 1 project, on your own provider keys or a ChatGPT subscription; managed models and the rest are on the credits plan, from $50 a month. Self-host is free.
Can AI agents do sales?
Yes, for the work around the call: research, the pre-call brief, CRM notes, the follow-up draft and the meeting slot. Kortix’s own lead flow runs those steps and leaves the send to a person, with the approval controls set on the tool call.
Run a sales agent you can read before you trust it.
Start with one job, new-lead follow-up, and keep a person on the send.
Approval gates you set, off until you set them · Rules are files in your repo · Self-host is free