We get asked some version of this question 10x a week now: “Jason / Amelia, how do I actually build an AI agent that does real work? Not a chatbot. Not a demo. Something that actually runs part of my company.”
There are 10,000 AI agent demos on YouTube. There are mass webinars where someone shows a pre-built workflow and calls it “autonomous.” There are pitch decks with agent architectures that have never processed a single lead.
But almost nobody is showing you how to build an AI Agent from scratch, live, with no safety net, and no pre-recorded demo.
We are.
At SaaStr AI Annual on May 12, our Chief AI Officer Amelia is going to walk on stage with a laptop, a microphone, and 45 minutes. No slides. No rehearsed demo. And she’s going to build a working AI VP of Marketing from zero to functional, right in front of you.
Not a mockup. Not a slideshow of what it could do. A working agent that can research, write, strategize, and execute.
And we don’t stop there. We’ll teach you how to deploy AI SDRs, AI BDRS, AI Customer Success agents, and so much more!
Why This Matters 100x More Than Another Panel on “AI Strategy”
We’ve been running AI agents at SaaStr for over a year now. We went from 20+ employees to 3 humans and 20+ AI agents. Revenue went from -19% to +47% year-over-year. Over $4M in AI-driven closed revenue and much more in assisted.
It’s time for you to learn to do the same. For real. Without fear or anxiety. We’ll help turn you into an Agentic Deployment Expert. For real.
What You’ll Actually See on Stage
Amelia is going to show every decision, live:
- From first prompt to working agent. Not the polished version. The messy first draft, the prompt that doesn’t work, the iteration cycle that gets it right.
- Every tool connection decision. What to plug in, what to leave out, what workflows to automate vs. what to keep human. These decisions are where 90% of people get it wrong.
- Where it breaks. This is the part no one shows you. The agent will do something wrong on stage. And Amelia will fix it in real time, so you can see exactly how to handle the failure modes.
- The honest cost, timeline, and skill level. Not “anyone can do this in 5 minutes.” The real answer. What it takes, what it costs, and how long before it’s actually producing work you’d trust.
Why We’re Doing This Live
Enough of the canned demos and LinkedIn posts.
Every AI company has a beautiful 3-minute video showing their agent doing something impressive. Then you sign up, spend two weeks configuring it, and realize the video was a best-case scenario with a human behind the curtain.
Live means you see everything. The mistakes. The latency. The “oh, that didn’t work, let me try this instead” moments. That’s where the actual learning happens.
We built our own AI VP of Marketing at SaaStr AI. It’s called 10K. It handles content strategy, social distribution, SEO optimization, email campaigns, and competitive research across our entire media operation. It’s not perfect. But it does the work of what used to require 3-4 full-time marketing hires.
Amelia built it. She’s going to show you how to build yours.
The Session Details
Live Deployment: Building an AI VP of Marketing from Scratch, on Stage Tuesday, May 12 | 4:15 PM – 5:00 PM PDT SaaStr AI Annual 2026 | SF Bay Area
This is part of Deploy ’26, our new half-day AI GTM Agent Summit. The whole day on May 12 is built around this: not talking about AI agents, but actually deploying them.
If You’re Still on the Fence About AI Annual
Attendance is tracking at 130%+ over last year. And we’ve added an entire day dedicated to hands-on agent deployment because that’s what founders and revenue leaders are asking for.
You can keep watching demos, or you can come watch someone build the thing from scratch and walk away knowing exactly how to do it yourself.
Get your tickets to SaaStr AI Annual 2026 here.
