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AI BDR agents are autonomous outreach workers. You give an agent a target audience, a way to write, and a budget — and it works through companies on its own: choosing who to contact, writing the email, following up, spotting genuine replies, and handing the conversation to you when a human touch is needed. Every agent is linked to one or more Discovery profiles and only ever works on companies from those profiles.

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Enrichment comes first

Before an agent touches a company, that company is automatically enriched: Alva finds contacts and email addresses, cleans up the data, and ranks contacts by seniority. The agent only sees companies that have finished enrichment, so it can focus on what it does best — outreach — rather than data gathering.

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Two modes: Template and Personalised

Every agent runs in one of two modes. You choose the mode when you create the agent.
Template is the default and the simplest place to start. Personalised is an opt-in, more powerful mode — it writes original copy rather than sending fixed templates.

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When to use which

  • Choose Template when you have messaging you’re happy to send verbatim, want tight control over every word, or just want to get an agent running quickly.
  • Choose Personalised when the prospect deserves a tailored approach, you want the agent to vary its angle across follow-ups, and you’re willing to invest a little more in setup for a much stronger result.

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Set up Personalised agents through Alva

Personalised agents are powerful and have a lot of moving parts — the playbook, prospect research, previews, and an activation checklist. We strongly recommend setting one up by asking Alva. Alva is fully briefed on how to configure a Personalised agent correctly: it builds the playbook with you, runs sample previews so you can see the copy before anything sends, and only lets the agent go live once everything is in place.Building a Personalised agent from scratch in the Agent Creation UI is not encouraged — it’s easy to miss a step. Once the agent exists, making small tweaks in the UI afterwards is perfectly fine.
Template agents can be set up either way — through Alva or directly in the Agent Creation UI.

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What an agent does, step by step

Once active, an agent works through its companies on a schedule you control. For each company it:
  1. Checks enrichment — confirms the company has contacts and emails ready
  2. Chooses who to contact — prioritising economic buyers and senior decision-makers
  3. Writes and sends — a template (Template mode) or original copy from your playbook (Personalised mode)
  4. Follows up — on the cadence you set, if there’s no reply
  5. Watches for replies — and escalates genuine interest to you
  6. Hands over — steps back the moment you take over a conversation
See How the agent chooses who to work on for the details of ordering and prioritisation.

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Try it safely first

An agent without a connected email account runs in simulation mode: it evaluates companies and records exactly what it would do, but never sends a real email. This is the safest way to watch a new agent — especially a Personalised one — before letting it send for real. See Simulation mode.

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Where to go next

Set up your first agent

Create a Template or Personalised agent.

Personalised outreach

Build a playbook, preview copy, and go live.

Budgets and hours

Control spending, scheduling, and pace.

Managing replies

Escalations, drafts, and taking over.