How to Build a GTM Bot on AQ That Finds Buyers and Drafts Replies

Published November 14, 2026 · by the AQ team

A GTM bot is an AI agent that watches the places your buyers talk, finds the people who are ready to switch or asking a question you can answer, and drafts a reply or a short outreach note for each one. A person on your team reads the draft, edits it and sends it. To build one on AQ, you create a bot, tell it the job in plain words in its chat, ask it to run that job on a schedule, and keep everything it writes as drafts for a person to send.

AQ is where teams build bots that run the jobs that repeat: a GTM bot on AQ checks the sources you choose on a schedule, drafts replies into your chat with it (or into Gmail drafts where Gmail is available), and leaves posting and sending to a person on your team.

A GTM bot helps you reach people at the moment they say, in public, that they have the problem you solve. Starting from that signal makes each reply shorter, more useful and easier for a person to stand behind.

What you need

• An AQ account and a machine for the bot. On the Free plan the bot runs on your own Mac with the AQ Mac app. On the AQ Pro plan it can run on a cloud machine.
• A model. Your own connected subscription (such as Claude or Codex) or AQ models on AQ credits.
• A list of sources where your buyers ask questions in public: forums, community sites, review sites, job posts, or a tool you already use that can call a webhook.

The example in this guide

The examples use a made-up company, Brightfold (an example, not a real customer): a five-person team that sells scheduling software to small physiotherapy clinics. Brightfold wants to find clinic owners who complain about their current booking tool or ask how to cut no-shows, and reply with something useful.

Step 1: Create a bot and write its job in plain words

Screen: the + menu in the sidebar, then New bot. The bot's chat opens.

Give the bot a name, then tell it the job in its chat, the way you would brief a new teammate: who you sell to, where to look, what counts as a match and what to write. A starter job you can paste and fill in is further down this page. For Brightfold, the first message might start: "You are Brightfold's GTM bot. We sell booking software to small physiotherapy clinics..."

Step 2: Pick a model or a connected subscription

Screen: the bot's chat, and Settings, Connections for subscriptions.

A bot has a default model, and each routine can use its own. Connect a subscription you already pay for in Settings, Connections, or use an AQ model, which shows its per-token price before you pick it. Then tell the bot which one to use, for example "use my Claude subscription for this bot". A run on your own subscription counts against that plan's limits, and AQ adds nothing on top.

Step 3: Add routines and connect your accounts

Screen: the bot's chat, and Settings, Connections.

A routine is a job the bot does on its own, with one trigger. Ask for it in words, for example "check these sources every weekday at 8:30 and 14:00 and draft replies", and the bot creates the routine in your time zone and tells you in the chat. Triggers that fit a GTM bot:

• Schedule: at set times on the weekdays you pick. The most common choice for watching public sources.
• Every N minutes: every 5 minutes or more, for a source that moves fast.
• Webhook: a private address your own systems call, with a secret in a header, so a form, a CRM or a listening tool you already use can hand the bot a new lead or mention as it happens.
• GitHub or Linear: a new issue on a repository you connected, or a Linear label, if your buyers reach you there.
• New mail: unread Gmail that matches a search, where Gmail is available to connect.

The bot can read public web pages with a real browser. For your own accounts, connect them in Settings, Connections. Each connected account has a permission per tool: Allow, Ask or Off, and a routine keeps the permission you chose. A tool set to Off is not available to the bot at all.

AQ's Gmail connection searches and reads mail and writes drafts; it has no tool that sends email. If you connect an account that can post or send messages, such as Slack, set its posting and sending tools to Off. A permission belongs to the connected account, so it applies everywhere you use that account in AQ.

Step 4: Set the rules: drafts only

Screen: the bot's chat (the job) and Settings, Connections (the permissions).

"Drafts only" combines the bot's job, connected-tool permissions and a person's review. The job tells the bot to write drafts and never post or send. The tool permissions take the sending and posting tools of your connected accounts away: a tool set to Off is not available to the bot. Off covers those connected tools only. The bot also has a browser, and Off does not limit what it does on a website, so the job and your review of each run are what keep it to drafts there. Do not sign the bot's browser in to any account that can post or send.

Then decide what reaches the chat. By default a routine posts only when something happened, so a run with nothing worth a reply stays quiet. You can ask for every run instead, or none. To keep the cost of AQ credits at zero, run the bot on your own connected subscription. You can pause one routine or all of them at any time by asking the bot.

Step 5: Run a test

Screen: the bot's chat.

Ask the bot to run the routine now. A run now is a real run: it reads real sources and uses real credits or subscription usage, which is why the Off permissions from Step 3 matter before your first test. It reports in the chat when it finishes. Open the run from its row in the chat to see its record: why it woke, what it did, what it produced and what it cost. Read the drafts as a skeptical buyer would, then tell the bot what to change ("too long", "do not mention pricing", "skip posts older than 3 days"). Run it again until the drafts are ones you would send.

Step 6: Share it with the team

Screen: Share in the bot's chat.

Share the bot with specific people or the whole team. Each member's chat runs as that member, on their own accounts, and stays private to them by default. This is how a sales lead, a founder and a marketer can each get drafts for their own channels from one bot. Sharing a bot needs the AQ Pro plan. Details are in AQ Docs: Bots.

Step 7: Measure replies, visits and signups

AQ does not track your replies, visits or signups for you; measure them where they happen. A simple setup:

1. Count what you sent. Ask the bot to keep a running list of the drafts it wrote, with a link to each post, and mark the ones you sent.
2. Tag your links. Ask the bot to add a campaign tag (for example ?utm_source=gtm-bot) to any link in a draft, so visits show up in your own analytics.
3. Count replies and signups in the tools you already use: your inbox, your CRM, your product's signups.
4. Review weekly. Add a Friday routine that summarizes the week in the chat: drafts written, drafts sent, and the numbers you paste in. Then tighten the job: drop sources that never produce a sent draft.

A good early signal is the share of drafts a person sends with light edits. If most drafts need a rewrite, fix the job or the sources before adding more.

Starter job text

Paste this into the first message of your new bot and replace the parts in brackets.

You are the GTM bot for [company]. We sell [product] to [who it is for].

Your job: find people who are ready to switch to a product like ours, or who
are asking a question we can answer well, and draft a reply a person on our
team can send.

Where to look: [the public pages, forums, feeds or channels you choose].
Only use public posts, or messages sent to us.

For each match, write:
- A link to the post and one line on why it matters
- A fit score from 1 to 3 (3 = asking for exactly what we do)
- A short draft reply: helpful first, in plain words, under 80 words,
  with no claims we cannot back up. Mention [product] only if it really
  answers the question.

Rules:
- Never post, send, comment or message anyone. Write drafts only.
- Skip anyone who asked not to be contacted, and anything older than 7 days.
- If nothing is worth a reply, say NOTHING_NEW.

Then add the schedule in the same chat: "Run this every weekday at 8:30 and 14:00."

Safety: how drafts only works

• Drafts only is the workflow you set up. The job tells the bot to write drafts, and the sending, posting and scheduling tools of your connected accounts are set to Off, so the bot cannot use them. Off does not cover the bot's browser, so keep the job explicit, keep the browser signed out of accounts that can post, and read each run's record. A person reviews every draft and sends it from their own account.
• Gmail stays in drafts. AQ's Gmail connection reads mail and writes drafts. It has no tool that sends email.
• Keep it to public posts and messages sent to you. Write that into the job, and check your sources' own terms before you point a bot at them.
• Routines run as a person. Each routine runs as the person who created it, on their accounts, so every draft has an owner.

Related reading: AQ Bots, how bots, routines and threads work, AQ integrations and pricing.