Airstride unveils Carmen AI to automate partner recruiting

Airstride has launched Carmen, an AI agent that automates the process of finding and recruiting channel partners for B2B technology suppliers across Europe.

The London-based company positions Carmen as an autonomous system that mirrors the workflow of a partnerships team. It profiles potential partners, ranks them, and contacts them via channels such as LinkedIn and email. Airstride claims the approach can cut partner profiling, outreach, and onboarding time by up to 80%.

Partner recruitment remains a labour-intensive part of go-to-market work for many vendors. Channel teams often rely on spreadsheets, manual research, and standardised outreach. Airstride is pitching Carmen as a way to run partner acquisition as an end-to-end workflow rather than a set of disconnected tasks.

Carmen searches markets for potential partners and assesses them against a scoring model, including portfolio compatibility, go-to-market alignment, target customer profile fit, buyer persona relevance, and commercial overlap. Airstride says the agent uses a 12-point scoring metric and a proprietary partner assessment framework.

Carmen is designed to prioritise partnerships where offerings complement each other rather than compete. It also checks whether both parties sell into the same ideal customer profile and engage with the same decision-makers.

Scoring Model

The workflow begins with market scanning and evaluation. Carmen analyses thousands of companies and produces a shortlist. Airstride says the process runs without manual research and can operate without human intervention.

Next comes outreach. Rather than sending generic messages, Carmen builds messaging around a value proposition for each specific pairing. Airstride says the content is personalised to both the recipient's role and the company, explaining why the partnership makes sense and how it benefits both sides.

Max Edwards, Airstride's co-founder and CEO, said the company has already run recruitment campaigns for several large technology vendors, including a major cloud services provider and a cybersecurity supplier.

"We have already run recruitment campaigns for several large technology vendors including a major cloud services provider and high-growth cybersecurity vendor that has delivered remarkable ROI in a matter of weeks," Edwards said.

"Carmen has helped our clients discover new partners while providing compelling rationales for both sides of a commercial relationship, leading to faster deal cycles and measurable revenue impact," he added.

Partner Reasoning

Hugo Rawlinson, Airstride's co-founder and CRO, drew a distinction between partner management administration and partner selection. He said many tools focus on operational tasks rather than evaluation.

"This assessment process allows Carmen to filter large markets down to shortlists of high-quality, high-relevance partners without manual research or human intervention," Rawlinson said.

"Most partner tools automate administration, not thinking. Carmen is different. She evaluates tens of thousands of potential partners the way a senior partnerships lead would, then crafts messaging around the exact joint value proposition for each relationship. This is not outbound automation. It is autonomous partnership value reasoning designed to drive partner engagement and unlock new revenue channels," he added.

Airstride says Carmen has been in development since 2024 and has accumulated data and context on more than 85,000 technology-focused partners worldwide. The company expects that database to grow as more clients use the platform.

Carmen uses natural-language prompts for setup. Airstride says channel teams can specify ideal partner profiles, target customers, positioning preferences, and commercial goals through prompts. Once activated, the agent runs outreach via LinkedIn and email. Users can also access transparency features, approval controls, and performance insights.

Market Shift

The launch comes amid wider experimentation with autonomous AI agents in go-to-market roles. Sales development and marketing operations have attracted significant automation investment. Partner acquisition has seen less change, despite many technology companies placing more emphasis on partner-sourced revenue.

Edwards pointed to early usage examples, including a campaign in which a US supplier recruited partners in the DACH region. He said Carmen produced insights in a market where the client did not have in-country resources.

"Our early users are already seeing faster partner acquisition cycles and higher response rates, without outbound sales teams or traditional partner operations," Edwards said.

"In this instance, we were able to provide completely fresh insights into potential partners within a market where the client had no in-country agents, while automating a large portion of the outreach. This saved time and delivered a more targeted campaign based on quantitative data rather than hunches, resulting in immediate new partner pipeline and commercial discussions progressing within days," he added.

Carmen is available as part of the Airstride platform, and the company plans to broaden access to technology vendors and channel teams.