Prospecting with AI in France, Spain and Belgium: what works and what the law allows

In short

• Sales agents meant to prospect on their own have disappointed some of their first customers. The trade press reports it, and the head of one software vendor admits it.
• Writing without prior consent to a prospect who is not yet a customer: in France, it is possible at a person's business address, if the message relates to their profession. In Spain, it is forbidden; to be safe, count companies in as well. In Belgium, only impersonal addresses (info@) are allowed.
• Our recommendation: AI searches, sorts and writes drafts. A person approves every send and replies themselves.

Software vendors sell “AI salespeople” able to prospect on their own. One of them, Artisan, ran a billboard campaign with the slogan “Stop hiring humans”. Its CEO admits in TechCrunch that it was “mostly to get attention”.

This article looks at three questions. What does published feedback show? What does the law allow in France, Spain and Belgium? How can you use AI without damaging your reputation?

This article is not legal advice. Before a campaign in a country, have your approach reviewed by a lawyer or legal adviser from that country.

Autonomous sales agents: what published feedback shows

An “SDR agent” (from sales development representative, the salesperson in charge of first contact) is software meant to find prospects, write to them and follow up on its own. The published feedback is disappointing. Note: these are press articles and testimonies, not independent studies.

• 11x. In March 2025, TechCrunch quotes an anonymous employee: the company was losing “70% to 80%” of the customers who came in. ZoomInfo tested the tool for a month. According to its spokesperson, the tool did “significantly worse” than its own salespeople. 11x replies that its largest number of departures concerned its first customers, in late 2023. The company reports a retention rate (the share of customers who stay) of 79%.
• Artisan. In April 2025, in TechCrunch, its CEO admits “extremely serious hallucinations” at launch: claims invented by the AI. He also says that first-generation agents get a “fairly low” response rate and that their customers leave in a “relatively high” proportion. According to the journalist, some Artisan customers get too few replies, others too many poor ones, which humans have to sort.
• SaaStr, which organises conferences for software vendors, says it uses five agents of this kind. Its founder, Jason Lemkin, puts the time needed to run them at 15 to 20 hours a week. He writes that this is not a technology you “set up and forget”.

What we take from it: a prospecting agent needs a person who follows it closely.

Prospecting email law, country by country

None of the texts below distinguishes according to the tool that wrote the message. A draft written by an AI therefore follows the same rules as an email typed by hand.

France: possible between professionals, with a right to object

The CNIL (the French data protection authority) accepts prospecting by email to a professional without their prior consent. It bases this on the “legitimate interest” of the company writing, one of the grounds provided by the GDPR for using personal data. Three conditions:

• the message relates to the person's profession. For example, offering a quoting tool to a craftsperson: yes. An offer unrelated to their trade: no;
• the person has been told that their address could be used for prospecting, and can object simply and free of charge;
• each message says who is writing and lets the person refuse further ones by a simple means.

The CNIL states that generic company addresses (contact@, info@) are not covered by these rules. It does not expressly mention named addresses (firstname.lastname@company.fr). To be safe, apply the rules above to them, since they identify a person.

Spain: forbidden without consent, companies included to be safe

Article 21 of the LSSI (the Spanish law on information society services) forbids advertising emails that have not been “solicited or expressly authorised” by their recipients. The law defines the recipient as a “natural or legal person”, that is, an individual or an organisation. To be safe, consider that a company is protected too, and check your case with your adviser.

The only exception provided by this article: a customer with whom you already have a contract, for products or services of your company similar to those they bought. You must offer them a simple, free way to refuse, as soon as their address is collected and then in every message.

Belgium: impersonal addresses only

The basic rule is the recipient's prior consent (Article XII.13 of the Code of Economic Law). A Royal Decree of 4 April 2003 provides two exceptions:

• your customers: you obtained their address during a sale, you offer them similar products or services, and they were able to refuse simply and free of charge when the address was collected;
• legal entities (companies, associations), if the address is “impersonal”, such as info@ or contact@.

The report to the King, the text that introduces the decree, clarifies a key point. Addresses a company assigns to its employees, such as lastname.firstname@company.be, are addresses of natural persons, even if they are used for work. Without consent, you therefore cannot write to them, except to your customers. Finally, anyone can ask a sender, free of charge and without giving a reason, to stop sending them advertising.

The grid

LinkedIn: why no automation tool

LinkedIn's help page is clear. The network allows no third-party software, in particular browser extensions that scrape data or automate activity on the site. People who use them risk having their account restricted or closed.

The risk is not only contractual. On 5 December 2024, the CNIL fined the company Kaspr €240,000. Kaspr sold an extension for the Chrome browser. It supplied the contact details of people whose LinkedIn profile you were viewing, including when those people had restricted the visibility of their contact details. The CNIL ruled the collection of these restricted contact details unlawful: none of the grounds provided by the GDPR justified it.

Your LinkedIn account matters to your business: do not put it at risk. AI can prepare a message; you send it yourself, by hand.

The right split: AI researches, sorts and drafts; a human approves and replies

At Kendu Intelligence, we call this autonomy level 1, “systematic approval”: the agent prepares, a person on your team approves, corrects or rejects each action before it goes out. For a first sales contact, we recommend not going beyond it.

Let us take a typical scenario: an SME with 30 employees that sells industrial maintenance and prospects production managers in France. Every Monday, the agent suggests about twenty company profiles, each with a draft. The sales manager discards some, corrects some, sends some. When someone replies “stop”, the agent excludes them from any follow-up. At the slightest doubt about an address or a country, it stops and asks.

Deliverability: the rules of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft

Deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach the inbox rather than junk. Three technical settings matter: SPF (the list of servers allowed to send for your domain), DKIM (a signature that proves where the message comes from) and DMARC (the instruction given to the recipient if these checks fail).

Three major email providers have published rules for sending to their consumer inboxes:

• Google requires all senders to personal Gmail addresses (@gmail.com) to have SPF or DKIM, and a spam report rate below 0.3%. It even recommends staying below 0.1%. Above 5,000 messages a day, you need SPF, DKIM, DMARC and one-click unsubscribe. Since November 2025, Gmail has applied these rules more strictly: non-compliant messages can be rejected, temporarily or permanently.
• Yahoo sets similar rules: SPF or DKIM, a spam rate below 0.3% and, for large senders, unsubscriptions handled within two days.
• Microsoft has required SPF, DKIM and DMARC since 5 May 2025 from domains that send more than 5,000 emails a day to Outlook.com accounts. Otherwise, messages go to junk, then may be rejected.

Google states that its rules do not apply to messages received on Google Workspace, its email service for businesses. You will probably also send far fewer than 5,000 messages a day. We still advise applying these settings from the first send: they help prove that your messages really come from you.

Google also writes that, over time, spam reports lower your domain's reputation, and your later messages are more likely to be classed as spam. Our advice: do not prospect from the domain that sends your invoices. If it loses its reputation, your emails to your customers suffer.

Channels where the prospect comes to you

Some channels avoid the question of prior consent, because the prospect comes to you or because the request is public.

• Your website. Anyone who fills in a contact form is asking to be contacted. An agent can qualify the request and prepare the reply; a person approves it.
• Partners. Accountants, chambers of commerce, industry software vendors: they can recommend your offer. The prospect contacts you, or agrees to be put in touch. It is more solid than an email sent to someone who does not know you.
• Public tenders. The EU's TED website publishes the supplement to the Official Journal of the EU devoted to public procurement. Its data is open and reusable, including for commercial purposes. An agent can sort the notices; you decide whether to respond.

Going further

• Our method and autonomy levels: an agent only gains autonomy based on measurements and with your written agreement.
• Our standard AI agents, in preparation, including the Quotes and Prospects agent, which will qualify your incoming requests.
• Request an audit: we look with you at where AI can help your sales approach. The audit costs €490 excl. VAT.