How AEs and SDRs are becoming GTM engineers

Why Signal-Based Outbound Matters Now

The average AE or SDR still stitches together a Salesforce report, a Sales Nav search, a few Chrome extensions, and a spreadsheet just to build one target list, and by the time it's built, the signal that made it worth building has often gone cold.

Unify's own data shows outbound built on a real signal (a funding round, a new hire, a churn event at a competitor) sees 73% higher response rates than a cold, generic list. Austin Hughes, Unify's co-founder and CEO, framed the shift: reps have always had sharp instincts about which campaigns would land, but acting on them has historically required technical firepower most teams can't staff for every rep.

From Spreadsheets to a GTM Engineer in Your Chat

Owen Polk, an NBR on Unify's own team, described the old grind: "I would just prospect within the CRM because it was just such a huge lift to go into Sales Nav or ZoomInfo, grab people, and then throw it back into Sales Loft." The era after that solved for execution but not maintenance, a dedicated GTM engineer built workflows in tools like Clay on reps' behalf, but every workflow needed constant upkeep as the team scaled.

What actually changed:

• Maintenance over building: Neema said upkeep, not the initial build, was the real tax as teams scaled.
• Reps stayed hands off: Ethan said every rep request still had to be built by someone else.
• The new answer: A chat-based outbound harness reps can direct directly, with usage up roughly 30% week over week.

Inside Unify: Chat Interface with 40+ Data Sources Behind It

More than 40 data sources sit behind the chat interface, spanning first-party CRM data and third-party signals. Austin's favorites: closed-lost recovery, PLG signup targeting, and warm-intro discovery through The Swarm. As Ethan put it, "one-off signals are great, but when you layer in signals... that's when you get people's attention." Reps now stack closed-lost history with funding, hiring, and job postings to prioritize accounts worth their time.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Owen's live demo made the case better than any slide:

• Ten-minute personalized sequence: Owen built a list of ten likely attendees and personalized each email in a couple of minutes.
• Instant account briefs: One prompt pulled news, org structure, stakeholders, and warm-intro paths before a call.
• The Boston Public Schools story: Discovery calls once took six to eight calls to reveal a prospect was unintentionally violating state law, an insight Unify Chat can now surface before a call is even booked.

What's Next for Signal-Driven Prospecting

Asked how to prioritize dozens of signals without drowning a pipeline in noise, Austin argued the industry is moving away from manually weighted scoring frameworks: "We move away from the scoring frameworks we've seen historically... and start giving raw data to agents that are purpose built for this work." On messaging, Ethan pointed to Unify's research across 25 million emails: keep copy short, lead with one relevant detail, and don't neglect LinkedIn and phone. Neema noted LinkedIn messages convert meaningfully higher than email alone, a session worth watching in full for anyone rethinking how their team turns a signal into a booked meeting.