What did Clay announce at Sculpt 2026?
Clay's recap of Sculpt 2026, its second annual user conference, held in San Francisco on 8 October 2026, covers three announcements: an agent-first way to build in Clay, Clay Workflows, and a preview of an Inbound SDR Agent. Clay's Sculpt recap says 2,000 attendees from 30 countries came. Of the three, only Workflows was available to all Clay users on the day, as a beta.
| Announcement | What it does, as Clay describes it | Status in Clay's recap (8 Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Agent-first way to build | You give Clay an outcome, such as finding contacts at high-intent companies and building a campaign. It plans the work from your ICP and positioning in Knowledge Hub, sources contacts, picks signals and drafts a sequence for you to review. | Available to Sculpt attendees on the day; Clay said it would roll out to users in its early access programme in the coming weeks |
| Workflows | A visual canvas for plays, where each step can branch, loop, run code or call an agent. You can describe a play in plain language, and results write back to Clay's Audiences data layer. | In beta for all Clay users and launching this autumn. Clay announced the open beta on 11 August 2026. |
| Inbound SDR Agent | Qualifies inbound leads in a voice conversation, demos your product in a sandbox with a use case that fits each lead, and learns how to demo from your best sellers' call recordings. | Preview only. Clay is signing up pre-beta partners through a waitlist. |
Clay calls the Inbound SDR Agent its first agentic seller. Its product page, checked on 20 October 2026, adds that the agent enriches website visitors in real time, routes qualified leads to the right rep and books meetings. The page shows a waitlist form and no price, and its FAQ says the product ships in phases starting in autumn 2026.
How much did Clay raise in its Series D?
Clay raised $115 million in a Series D at a $7.1 billion valuation, announced on 9 September 2026. Wellington led the round, with participation from Sequoia, StepStone, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Perennial, Meritech, DST, CapitalG, BoxGroup, Boldstart, Bloomberg Beta and Evolution, according to Clay's announcement and its press release on Business Wire.
Clay also gave its own growth figures, which are company-reported: 4x revenue growth in 2025 and more than 17,000 customers, including 80% of the Forbes AI 50. The same release announced a $1 million scholarship fund to train GTM engineers, the people who build revenue systems inside companies.
Kareem Amin, Clay's co-founder and CEO, said in the funding press release: "Now we're building agents that can help grow your company for you." Sculpt, a month later, was where Clay previewed what it calls its first agentic seller.
Why is Clay's first SDR agent aimed at inbound?
Clay's recap pitches it on coverage. It says the Inbound SDR Agent will engage and convert every lead in the inbound funnel, including the ones reps don't have time to work, and that Clay already powers inbound enrichment, routing and replies for hundreds of companies.
The product page also pitches speed. One section is headed "Increase speed to lead with more booked meetings", and it says leads who arrive outside SDR hours get an instant demo. Clay also says it expects companies that run both a product-led and a sales-led motion to see higher conversion from self-serve leads after a tailored demo. The recap presents that as an expectation for a product still in preview.
Clay already sells cold outbound. On 1 September 2026 it announced that its Sequencer, which it describes as end-to-end cold outbound in one place, was generally available on its Launch, Growth and Enterprise plans. Its first selling agent, though, is aimed at leads that are already waiting.
Our reading: an inbound lead has already chosen to talk to you, and a cold prospect has not. When a company with more than 17,000 customers by its own count builds its first selling agent for inbound, we take that as a hint about where pipeline is easiest to lose.
Should a small team fix inbound before automating cold outreach?
For most teams of 1 to 5 people, yes. This is our advice, and we are not citing a study for it. Four reasons:
- You have already paid for inbound leads. Ads, content, events and referrals cost money or time. A slow reply wastes spend you have made, while cold outreach asks for new spend on lists, data and sending.
- The fix is small. A booking link, an alert and a reply rule take an afternoon. A cold programme needs a target list, verified emails, sending setup and copy testing.
- Inbound tells you what to say cold. The questions inbound leads ask show which problems and words land. Clay's agent is built on a similar idea: the recap says its conversations feed recommendations on ICP, positioning and competitive differentiation.
- Cold email carries sending risk. Google's email sender guidelines ask senders to keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and never reach 0.30%. Google adds that people who want your messages are less likely to report them as spam. Someone who filled in your form has asked to hear from you.
Cold comes first in one case: when inbound is close to zero. With nothing to speed up, outbound is how you find your first conversations. Even then, set up the booking link and alerts below, because replies to cold outreach become inbound conversations too.
How can a 1 to 5 person team fix speed-to-lead this week?
Measure your current reply time, remove the wait for ready buyers, and set a target you check weekly. Six steps, about three hours in total:
Measure your reply time
Export your last 30 inbound leads: demo requests, contact forms, trial sign-ups. For each, note when it arrived and when a person first replied. Write down the median and how many got a reply the same working day.
Put a booking link where the lead lands
Add it to the form's thank-you page and the automatic confirmation email, so a buyer who is ready can book without waiting for you. Siela's built-in booking pages check every connected calendar and send reminders; any booking tool that reads your real calendar will do.
Send alerts to where you work
Route new-lead notifications to your phone or team chat, and name one owner per day. On a team of three, rotate the owner so nobody assumes someone else replied.
Ask two questions on the form
Team size and what they want to solve are enough to write a specific first reply and to spot poor fits. Keep the rest of the form short.
Write three replies in advance
Good fit: thank them, answer their question in two lines, share the booking link. Unclear fit: ask one question. Poor fit: point them to a guide or a partner. Our meeting request email templates are a starting point.
Set a target and check it every Friday
Pick a reply-time target you can keep during working hours, such as within one hour, and compare each week's median with Monday's number. Also count how many inbound leads booked a call.
When should you add cold outbound, and in what order?
Add cold volume once you hit your inbound reply target most weeks. Here is the order we suggest, from cheapest to most involved:
- Instant acknowledgement and a booking link. No AI needed, and it covers buyers who are ready now.
- Enrichment and routing. Each lead reaches the right person with company context attached. The recap lists enriching and routing inbound leads as a use for Clay Workflows.
- AI qualification of inbound. Worth it once inbound volume outgrows the people answering it. Clay's Inbound SDR Agent is one to watch; on 20 October 2026 it was still a preview with a waitlist, which Clay says ships in phases starting in autumn 2026.
- Cold outreach aimed at buying signals. Funding, hiring and people asking how to solve your problem give you a reason to write. Our guide to buying signals for small teams lists the ones worth tracking.
When you reach step four, start with fewer, better-fit people. Siela's AI SDR, for example, scores every lead hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason, and with Hot leads selected it contacts only people with a buying signal right now. Whatever tool you use, keep the inbound reply target on your Friday check so new cold volume doesn't slow your replies to people who asked first.
Frequently asked questions
When will Clay's Inbound SDR Agent be available?
Clay has not given an exact date. Its Sculpt recap, published on 8 October 2026, describes the Inbound SDR Agent as a preview and invites companies to join a waitlist as pre-beta partners. Clay's Inbound SDR product page, checked 20 October 2026, says the product ships in phases starting in autumn 2026, and shows a waitlist form and no price.
What is Clay Workflows?
Clay Workflows is a visual canvas for building and running go-to-market plays, where each step can branch, loop, run code or call an agent. Clay announced an open beta on 11 August 2026. At Sculpt on 8 October it said Workflows was in beta for all Clay users and launching this autumn.
Who led Clay's Series D, and at what valuation?
Wellington led Clay's $115 million Series D at a $7.1 billion valuation, announced on 9 September 2026. Sequoia, StepStone, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Perennial, Meritech, DST, CapitalG, BoxGroup, Boldstart, Bloomberg Beta and Evolution also took part. Clay says it has more than 17,000 customers.
How does Clay's Inbound SDR Agent qualify leads?
According to Clay, the agent qualifies inbound leads in a voice conversation, asking qualifying questions and updating lead scores in real time. It then demos the product in a sandbox with a use case that fits the lead, or books the lead with a rep. Clay says it learns from existing call recordings of your best sellers.
How do I measure speed-to-lead on a small team?
Take your last 30 inbound leads and note when each arrived and when a person first replied. Calculate the median gap and how many got a reply the same working day. Repeat the count every Friday against a target you set, such as one working hour, and track how many inbound leads book a call.
Sources
- Clay: Sculpt recap: Building the self-learning revenue engine (published 8 Oct 2026)
- Clay: Clay raises $115M to be the AI growth engine for every company (published 9 Sep 2026)
- Clay press release via Business Wire (Yahoo Finance): Clay Raises $115M to be the AI Growth Engine for Every Company (published 9 Sep 2026)
- Clay: Inbound SDR Agent product page (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Clay: Introducing Clay Workflows (published 11 Aug 2026)
- Clay: Clay Sequencer blog post (published 1 Sep 2026)
- Google Gmail Help: Email sender guidelines (checked 20 Oct 2026)