{
  "apiVersion": "v1",
  "passage": {
    "id": "vercel-lead-agent-under-5000-year-32x-roi-2026",
    "text": "To give you some perspective, the lead qualification agent that I opened with costs us under $5,000 a year between infrastructure and tokens to run. It takes about 20% of one engineer to maintain it. That's a 32x ROI. … It's now $5,000 and it operates 24/7 with faster speed to lead and all the quality of human equivalent metrics.",
    "context": "Vercel's COO, making the case that agents change the build-versus-buy decision, gives the running cost of the lead qualification agent she described at the start.",
    "speaker": "Jeanne DeWitt Grosser",
    "speakerId": "jeanne-dewitt-grosser",
    "speakerUrl": "https://the-ai-record.com/people/jeanne-dewitt-grosser",
    "speakerLevel": "executive",
    "role": "Chief Operating Officer, Vercel",
    "voice": "person",
    "organization": "Vercel",
    "organizationId": "vercel",
    "organizationUrl": "https://the-ai-record.com/organizations/vercel",
    "aiVendor": true,
    "work": {
      "title": "Going from 10 to 1 SDRs. How We Deployed AI Across our Sales Org with Vercel's COO",
      "type": "talk",
      "date": "2026-11-04",
      "publisher": "SaaStr AI (YouTube); talk at SaaStr AI Annual 2026",
      "locator": "14:05",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXHLbr4W-8s"
    },
    "grade": "B",
    "gradeMeaning": "The organization's own post, paper or talk.",
    "verification": {
      "status": "verified",
      "meaning": "An independent second reader re-fetched the source and confirmed the wording.",
      "reviewedOn": "2026-11-08"
    },
    "topics": [
      "ai-cost-and-spend",
      "internal-tools"
    ],
    "functions": [
      "sales-marketing"
    ],
    "figures": [
      {
        "metric": "lead-agent-annual-run-cost",
        "value": 5000,
        "unit": "usd",
        "period": "per year, as spoken",
        "definition": "upper bound ('under $5,000') on infrastructure plus tokens to run the lead qualification agent",
        "level": "n/a"
      },
      {
        "metric": "lead-agent-roi-multiple",
        "value": 32,
        "unit": "x",
        "period": "as spoken",
        "definition": "return on investment of the lead qualification agent, as the speaker states it; she does not give the calculation",
        "level": "n/a"
      },
      {
        "metric": "lead-agent-maintenance-engineer-share",
        "value": 0.2,
        "unit": "share",
        "period": "as spoken",
        "definition": "share of one engineer needed to maintain the agent",
        "level": "n/a"
      }
    ],
    "url": "https://the-ai-record.com/passages/vercel-lead-agent-under-5000-year-32x-roi-2026",
    "json": "https://the-ai-record.com/api/v1/passages/vercel-lead-agent-under-5000-year-32x-roi-2026.json"
  },
  "notice": [
    "Every passage is reproduced word for word from the cited source.",
    "Check the verification status: \"reported\" means not yet confirmed by an independent second reader.",
    "Organizations flagged aiVendor sell AI tools or services and have a reason to publish flattering numbers.",
    "An empty result means the archive holds nothing on it, not that nobody has said anything."
  ]
}