One year ago, I left AI startups to step into a GTM Engineer role at Skai , a ti
By Dperleberg · October 4, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
One year ago, I left AI startups to step into a GTM Engineer role at Skai, a title that didn't really exist a few years ago (part sales/marketing ops, part data engineering, part AI systems design, to build the AI backbone for Sales, SDR, and Marketing teams. If you've noticed my radio silence here, this is why. Rather than writing about it, I've been heads-down building and testing. Looking back, I'm grateful for the trust leadership placed in me to own this.
How it started: Testing the Stack (Q4 2025)
It began with experimentation: enrichment and list-building platforms, inbound-led outbound tools, GDPR-compliant de-anonymization, warm intro networks, champion & job-change tracking, multi-channel outbound.
What stood out wasn't just the tech, it was how fast Sales adopted them. AE's and SDRs leaned in immediately, and that momentum justified further investment.
How it's going: from Assisted to Driven
In practice, our AI evolution moved through three stages.
AI-assisted: individual tools that sped up one task at a time (enrichment, list-building, signal tracking). AI-embedded: those tools stopped being standalone and started feeding each other, enrichment flowing into ICP scoring + scoring into buyer identification. AI-driven: a centralized agentic system now runs that whole chain, plus multi-threading, in parallel rather than as separate manual steps. One rep can go from a single prompt, "what's the best way to get a meeting with this prospect?", to a researched contact, a verified email, and a send-ready outbound message in minutes. Research-to-outreach work that used to eat an hour or more now runs start-to -finish in under 12 minutes.
The biggest unlock wasn't any single tool. It was sequencing them so a signal flows straight into action instead of sitting in a dashboard someone has to remember to check.
This all connects to why I joined Skai and where it's headed. I ran a performance marketing agency for 12 years before this... and I learned AI's real value isn't replacing marketers, it's making every marketer better at their job. Skai is building that same value into Agent Connect MCP, Data Hub and Platform, so marketers can to turn structured data into agentic workflows, with human-in-the-loop governance built in from day one. We're building it so it earns trust instead of running ahead of it.
The real highlight: The People
None of this happens in a vacuum. Thankful for colleagues across Sales, SDR, and Marketing who tested rough-edged tools and gave sharp feedback, and for leadership who gave me room to build, fail fast, and iterate. A year in, I'm proud of what we've shipped, and excited for what's next.
If you're building similar GTM/AI systems, or fighting the same tool-sprawl problem, I'd like to compare notes.