Qualified Bets Big on Human-Like AI Agents — Will Customers Bite?

CMO Maura Rivera (right) presenting AI SDR Agent Piper (left)

Qualified has unveiled what it calls the world’s first “AI SDR superagent,” a bold step in the rapidly forming “agentic AI” era. Their flagship agent, Piper, is designed to run the entire sales funnel autonomously: capturing, nurturing, and converting leads across text, email, and now — face-to-face video interactions.

The company says more than 500 leading brands already use Piper in some capacity, and with this latest release — PiperX, coming Fall 2025 — the platform promises to turn every SDR bottleneck into a scalable AI-powered experience.

A Digital Human at the Funnel’s Front Door

What makes Piper stand out isn’t just her multi-modal capabilities. It’s the choice to put a face on the agent. In the demo, visitors browsing a website are met with a digital SDR looking straight at them, nudging them to engage. Once clicked, the agent opens into a video chat — complete with facial expressions, hand movements, and speech.

This is a striking departure from most AI sales assistants on the market, which deliberately avoid anthropomorphism. Whether that makes Piper more approachable or uncanny will depend on buyer reaction. From my viewing, Piper’s voice and movements still land firmly in the “robotic” zone — especially when contrasted against a real human presenter, Qualified CMO Maura Rivera, who was narrating the demo with the kind of charisma that makes you wish she were your SDR.

In our Q&A with Maura Rivera she noted that: "not everyone will opt for the digital human experience - we will also offer a colorful orb, similar to OpenAI or other LLMs users are familiar with".

As you browse a website the AI chat agent is monitoring and trying to engage with you

Cool Features, but Still Scripted

Beneath the face, Piper does bring impressive functionality. The demo showcased Piper using context — like search history — to tailor responses, even pulling up a case study directly in the chat window rather than just sending a link. In one clever moment, when the human presenter put on glasses, Piper noticed and offered to display data in a larger, more readable table.

Still, parts of the interaction felt scripted. The demo was polished, but you’re left wondering how spontaneous and adaptable Piper is in real-world prospect conversations.

The Website Test: A Missed Opportunity

Curious to see Piper “in the wild,” I went to Qualified’s own website. Sure enough, a Piper-branded chat box was there — but it wasn’t the shiny new version from the demo. No video chat, no human-like face, none of the much-hyped features. Following our Q&A with Qualified we understand PiperX won’t be available in her multi-modal format until later this year.

For a product pitched as a revolution, that felt underwhelming. If any place should showcase Piper’s full SDR power, it’s Qualified’s own front door. Nothing would have sold me more that seeing how Piper is selling Piper and we hope Qualified will actually use PiperX on their own website once it's released.

Why This Matters

The marketing funnel has been stuck in the same template for decades: disconnected systems, limited SDR capacity, and too many leads falling through the cracks. Qualified argues Piper breaks this cycle with “agentic marketing,” where AI agents proactively run the entire pipeline without human intervention.

Industry voices quoted in the press release were effusive. Gainsight’s CMO called Piper “the future.” Klaviyo’s CMO went further, saying, “With Piper, I have total control over the entire funnel—and I don’t have to wait.”

But the unanswered questions remain the ones that matter:

• Why did Qualified decide to put a realistic human face on an SDR agent when many platforms have avoided it?

• Does Piper’s presence truly increase engagement and conversion rates, or does the uncanny valley risk depressing usage?

• How much of the slick demo carries over into messy, unscripted buyer conversations?

The Market Ai take:

Qualified deserves credit for pushing boundaries. Piper is not just another chatbot bolted onto a website; it’s an attempt to reimagine how pipeline creation works. But with that ambition comes the harder challenge: balancing innovation with authenticity.

Because in the end, prospects may not care about agentic AI jargon — they care whether the conversation feels helpful, trustworthy, and human.

Update: Q&A with Qualified

We asked Qualified a few questions about their design and positioning strategy here's the response from their CMO Maura Rivera:

1. Design Choice: In the demo, Piper presents with a realistic human face. Why did you decide to go this route, when most current AI sales applications avoid human-like visuals altogether?

Piper isn’t just another AI sales tool, she’s capable of embodying the full role of an inbound SDR, and is truly a part of the team. Our customers have loved customizing their Piper instances with names and personas, and this is a natural evolution as her capabilities grow. Not everyone will opt for the digital human experience - we will also offer a colorful orb, similar to OpenAI or other LLMs users are familiar with, where users can engage with Piper via voice. It will be up to our customers what fits their brand and desired buyer journey best! 

2. Performance Metrics: Do you have data or customer statistics that show Piper’s impact on conversion rates, pipeline acceleration, or overall sales efficiency since launch?

While PiperX won’t be available in her multi-modal format until later this year, more than 500 companies are already using Piper to scale their pipeline and outbound success, including well-known brands like Asana, Box, Gainsight, Plaid, LogicMonitor, SUSE, Brex, Clari, GE Healthcare, Grubhub, and Lattice.

Some specific customer results include:

• Asana: 22% increase in pipeline driven by Piper

• Rightsline: 4× more meetings booked, 5× increase in pipeline

• COMPLY: 42% increase in pipeline

• Quantum Metric: 50% of all marketing-sourced pipeline now comes from Piper

• Crunchbase: Tripled their meetings booked

• Gainsight: Saw the equivalent output of 3 SDRs and a 4× increase in pipeline

Whether it’s tripling meetings booked, doubling marketing-sourced pipeline, or delivering the impact of multiple SDRs, the data shows Piper is consistently driving measurable revenue growth for leading companies—and she’s just getting started. 

3. Market Positioning: You describe Piper as the first “AI SDR Superagent.” What does that mean in practical terms for marketing teams, and how does it shift their day-to-day operations compared to existing AI SDR solutions?

Piper is redefining what’s possible for marketing teams by going far beyond other AI SDR agent tools. As a superagent, she’s able to act fully autonomously across multiple channels, in multiple modalities, and work the funnel from top to bottom, just like a human SDR would. In practice, superagents are capable of:

• End-to-end multi-agent orchestration: Unlike other AI SDRs on the market that only qualify high-intent inbound leads, Piper autonomously manages the entire funnel. She identifies, engages, recognizes signals, and triggers context-aware engagement across your most important marketing channels, and she does this seamlessly without having to cobble together disparate agents.

• Multi-modal and multi-channel: Piper isn’t just chat or email. She can hold face-to-face conversations via voice or video, follow-up over email, reference previous engagements, and ensure the entire buying committee is looped into every step of the process. 

• Adaptive and data-driven: Piper leverages real-time GTM data and intent signals to deliver the right experience at the right moment, turning every website into a vehicle for hyper-personalized, interactive buying journeys. Piper dynamically thinks, reasons, and strategizes the most effective way to convert your inbound buyers into pipeline. She synthesizes all your GTM data as it changes in real time, then goes to work to convert qualified buyers.

The day-to-day impact to marketing teams is clear—marketers are fully in control of their pipeline targets, without any bottlenecks or capacity constraints. Piper scales infinitely and is always on, delivering human-like touchpoints 24/7 with messaging tailored by your marketing team. The integration is seamless and marketers have access to everything happening in one centralized hub with features like Piper Spotlight, so there are no questions as to why Piper made a decision. 

Superagents like Piper move marketing teams from manually managing fragmented, rigid tools and data to managing an intelligent, proactive partner who drives pipeline at every stage. This is the future of pipeline generation.