Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
SaaStr posted actual lead counts from its 2026 AI event. Replit got 1,423 leads, Salesforce got 1,027, and Artisan closed $249k on-site. Here is what the data says about B2B event sponsorship ROI, and five questions to ask before you sign any 2027 deal.
Major CRM vendors are adding usage-based pricing for AI agent API access, charging dramatically more per call than existing integration tiers. Salesforce's Flex Credits and HubSpot's Breeze metering hit at renewal, forcing sales teams to rework agent workflows or pay the premium. The pattern: if your pricing was built for humans clicking, the meter moves to the API.
SaaStr's inbound AI agent handled 17,000 conversations in 12 months, booked ~600 meetings for its $90K sponsorship packages, and drove 60% more new business. The entire sales operation runs with three humans. Here's the actual setup, what they replaced, and why it works for tech buyers but won't work for everyone.
Jason Lemkin's media business ran 17,000 conversations and booked 600 meetings using AI agents for inbound, renewals, and outbound. Sponsorship revenue is up 2.1x, renewals up 60%, with Salesforce running headless under a custom Replit agent. Here is what the stack actually looks like.
Meta is now charging Australian businesses for human customer support through its new Meta One subscription service. The platform will connect subscribers to real support staff, prioritise their cases, and offer phone support. Previously, Meta's advertiser support relied heavily on automated systems.
Jason Lemkin's SaaStr runs 21 AI agents that have closed millions in revenue with a human GTM team of 1.5 people. The agents book meetings, resurrect dead leads, and handle billing. What they cannot do: close a real deal. Every dollar came from buyers already leaning in, not agents convincing hesitant prospects.
Jason Lemkin's SaaS media company cut its sales org to near zero and replaced the work with AI agents. Real operational roles, real systems, real failures. Here is what each agent does, what they refuse to do, and where they have broken.
Anthropic dropped an open-source guide for building Claude AI agents that handle customer service, payments, and back-office tasks in retail and travel. The $380 billion AI company runs on 18 quota-carrying reps globally, which tells you everything about where this is headed. Worth noting: you still need engineering resources to build it.
Salesforce Q2 FY27 earnings showed bookings re-acceleration with cRPO up 14%, revenue $11.3B (up 11%), and organic growth around 6%. Stock jumped 23%, lifting B2B software sentiment. The earnings beat came partly from a $2.53 EPS gain on their Anthropic stake, plus a $25B buyback. For sales teams at scale, the key metric: contracted future bookings grew 3 points faster than recognised revenue.
Jason Lemkin's team deployed 20+ AI agents against their CRM and hit storage overages without touching the UI. Meanwhile, ServiceTitan cut off Podium after their AI agent started writing directly into customer records. Systems of record are repricing for a world where agents write constantly and humans rarely log in.
Jason Lemkin's team cancelled Notion after seven years. No complaints, no support tickets, no competitor win. Their AI agent absorbed the product's last use case: running staff meetings. Usage went to zero before customer success could intervene.
ASX-listed furniture retailer Nick Scali forced parts of its network offline following a cyber incident, leaving sales and customer service teams working from manual records. The company says orders and deliveries continue, but response times are slower. No evidence of customer data breach yet, AFP and Cyber Security Centre notified.