An AI sales agent is software that takes sales steps on its own: it researches a prospect, sends the email, reads the reply, answers it and books the meeting, without waiting for you to click each time. What separates products is how much freedom they have, which comes in three levels: drafts only, acts after you approve, and acts alone inside limits you set. Decide which level you are comfortable with first, then check that the product lets you set the limits, see everything it did and stop it.
That is a different question from the one most pages answer, which is which agent has the most features. A feature list will not tell you what happens when the agent gets a reply you did not expect. This page covers the three levels, the limits to ask for, the phone rule that applies to AI voices, and the cost.
Three levels of freedom
| Level | What you do | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Drafts only | Read every draft and send it yourself | Time. You are still the bottleneck, and the work stalls the week you are busy. |
| 2. Acts after approval | Approve a batch or each message, then it sends | Speed. Replies wait for you, and a reply that waits two days often goes cold. |
| 3. Acts alone within limits | Set the limits, review the log, take the meetings | Direct control. You are trusting your limits and the agent's judgment on edge cases. |
Most buyers want level 3 and start at level 2. That is sensible. Start by approving the first 20 emails, read what it does with the first handful of replies, then loosen the leash. A product that cannot do level 2 gives you no way to build that trust, and one that only does level 2 is a drafting tool with a send button. Rocketship acts on its own by default and offers "show me first" approval as an optional setting, so you can start at level 2 and move up.
Limits to ask for before you turn anything on
An agent without limits is a liability with a login. Ask whether each of these exists, and whether you can set it yourself:
- A daily send cap. It keeps a mistake small. Rocketship's plans cap sending at 20 a day on Starter, 70 on Launch and 210 on Frontier.
- A stop on reply. Follow-ups end the moment someone answers, or the agent keeps emailing a person who is already talking to it.
- Words it may not say. No invented prices, no promises of results, no claims about the buyer's company that are not on its website.
- Who it may not contact. Existing customers, competitors, a do-not-contact list you can upload.
- An escalation path. Replies that mention a lawyer, a refund or anger should land with you, not get an automated answer.
- A full log. Every message sent, every reply, every booking, in one place you can read without asking support.
- A pause button. One click, for the whole account.
We wrote out a filled-in set of these in limits to set on an AI sales worker, and is it safe to let AI email prospects covers the risk side.
Channels: email is simple, phone is not
Agents work across channels, and the rules differ by channel. AiSDR's pricing page, read on 2026-10-30, lists email, LinkedIn connection requests and DMs, voice notes and AI call steps. Rocketship sends email from your own Gmail and, on Launch and up, makes AI phone calls and answers your existing number when forwarded to a Rocketship line at $5 a month. It does not send LinkedIn connection requests or DMs, and it does not send from Outlook.
For email, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide applies even when the recipient is a business: accurate sender information, a physical postal address, an opt-out honored within 10 business days, and penalties of up to $53,088 per email. The responsibility stays with you even when a company sends on your behalf.
For phone, the rule is stricter. On February 8, 2024 the FCC announced a Declaratory Ruling that recognizes calls made with AI-generated voices as "artificial" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, so the same standards apply to them as to prerecorded calls. In practice that means you need to check consent rules before an AI voice calls anyone. We are not lawyers, and whether AI cold calling is legal goes through the details. Rocketship's AI calls tell the person they are speaking with an AI assistant.
What an agent is good at, and where it stops
Good at: the repeatable parts. Finding 200 people who match a description, reading each company's site, sending a first email that mentions something true about it, following up on day 3 and day 7, answering "what does it cost" with the number you gave it, offering two times and putting one on your calendar.
Not good at: anything where trust is the product. It will not run a video demo, negotiate a discount, close a deal or read the room when a buyer's tone shifts. It also cannot rescue a vague offer. The agent will repeat your message faster, whether it works or not. For the larger version of that question, can AI replace a sales team says where we land.
A one-week test for any agent
- Describe your buyer in one sentence and ask for the first 25 names. Count how many you would email.
- Ask it to show the first 10 emails before sending. Check one fact in each against the company's website.
- Send to 10 to 20 people, not the whole list.
- Reply to one email yourself with a question about price and see what it does and how fast.
- Reply with "stop emailing me" from another address. Confirm it stops and logs it.
- Open the log and check you can see everything it did.
What it costs
AI sales agents run from a few dollars to a few thousand a month. On the dates I checked, Salesforge listed Agent Frank at $499 a month billed quarterly, AiSDR $1.50 per person prospected, and Artisan and 11x listed no price. Rocketship starts at $12 a month for Starter; what an AI salesperson does goes through how that maps to the job.
If you want an agent that runs alone by default but can be set to show you first, Rocketship is one place to try that: the 7-day trial asks for a card at the start.