[Podcast Series] Cold to Close - Ep. 4 with Thibault Gracia: AI SDRs are overhyped - here's what's actually working

We just dropped Episode 4 of Cold to Close - Smartlead's podcast for operators who live inside outbound campaigns.

Vaibhav (Founder, Smartlead) sat down with Thibault Gracia (Founder, Reachly) to break down what's actually driving results in outbound today - and where the AI SDR hype is leading teams astray.

In this episode he shares:

✅ Why AI SDRs are overhyped - and the specific places they break down in real campaigns

✅ How AI has made deep prospect research almost "free" (and what to do with that leverage)

✅ What real personalization at scale looks like - beyond {{first_name}} tokens

✅ The multi-channel flow that's converting right now: email → LinkedIn → calling

✅ What "contextual calling" actually means, and why it's beating spray-and-pray dialers

✅ How top teams re-engage cold leads after the 90-day mark instead of burning the list

Watch Episode