The Switch
Every reply to our outreach lands on our reply desk. In mid-October we put the whole desk on autopilot: AI writes the reply, waits 5 minutes so a person can stop it, then sends it. The median time to first reply went from 59 minutes in the week of 21 Sep to 6 in the week of 19 Oct.
Speed, Week by Week
Median minutes to our first reply, by week commencing. The first four weeks were before autopilot. Messages on autopilot: 80% in the week of 19 Oct, 88% in the week of 26 Oct so far.
Weeks commencing, 2026, median minutes. The week of 26 Oct is still running. The 6 minutes includes the 5-minute wait before every automatic reply.
Before and After
| Measure | Before autopilot weeks of 21 Sep to 12 Oct 2026 | Since full autopilot 14 days to 28 Oct 2026 | Latest 7 days to 28 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median time to first reply | 59, 32, 13 and 13 min (one median per week) | 6 min | 6 min |
| First replies within the hour | 55% | 88% | 92% |
| Messages on autopilot | 45% | 80% | 88% |
How Much Runs Itself
1,221 messages went out in the 14 days to 28 Oct 2026 (about 610 a week). In the 7 days to 28 Oct 2026 it was 617 messages.
Out of Hours
23% of first replies in the 14 days to 28 Oct 2026 went out in the evening or at the weekend, so a buyer who writes back late still gets an answer.
What It Costs
A meeting counts once it's booked in the diary, whether or not it has been held yet.
The Guard Rails
- A 5-minute stop window. Every automatic reply waits 5 minutes so a person can stop it. It's included in the 6 minutes.
- A check before sending. Every message is checked, and unusual or hard cases go to a person.
- Data requests go to me. If someone asks where we got their details or asks us to delete them, I handle it and the outreach stops.
How we built it is in How We Built and Use AI Agents.
How we count
- Autopilot: A message sent with no human touching it.
- Median time to first reply: The minutes between a prospect's reply arriving and our first answer going out, as a median. It includes the 5-minute wait.
- Within the hour: The share of first replies sent within 60 minutes of the prospect's reply.
- AI spend per meeting: The AI spend for the reply desk in the window, everything included, divided by the meetings booked in the same window.
- Windows: 9 in 10 is the 7 days to 28 Oct 2026 (88%). Over the 14 days to 28 Oct 2026 it's 8 in 10 (80%).
Pulled 28 October 2026.
The positive replies these conversations start from are on the results page.