Founder

Jay Tyagi.

Founder & CEO - Cognlay - Founder-led product

Built Cognlay after 110+ automation builds across 30+ industries, where the same outbound pattern kept appearing: teams had more data than ever, but the next email still ran on a fixed script.

hello@cognlay.com
Platform
Cognlay
Focus
Governed AI SDR
Before Cognlay
110+ automation builds
Built around
Outcome learning
Founded
2026
Contact
hello@cognlay.com
Timeline
2022

Started with automation

Built 110+ automation workflows across 30+ industries, learning how teams actually route work, lose context, and patch decisions by hand.

2023

Hit the outbound wall

The work was solid, but pipeline still depended on cold outreach that felt too manual, too brittle, and too easy to get wrong.

2023

Tested the usual stack

Sequencers, inbox tools, templates, better data, and new copy. Useful pieces, but the decision loop still lived in a human spreadsheet.

2024

Found the real gap

Outbound tools tracked opens, replies, silence, bounces, and timing. Then most of them still sent the next fixed step anyway.

2024

Built the first loop

A system that reads lead state, checks sender risk, drafts the next safe action, and learns from replies and meeting outcomes.

2026

Turned it into Cognlay

A governed AI SDR for teams that measure qualified meetings per 1,000 sends, not just email volume.

What Jay believes

Outbound should learn from outcomes, not vanity metrics.

Replies matter, but qualified meetings, held calls, no-shows, cancellations, and sender risk tell the real story.

Follow-up is where deals are made or lost.

Most tools obsess over the first email. Cognlay is built for what happens after the first touch.

Guardrails are not optional.

AI should not get to damage a domain, invent claims, or push a thread forward when a thoughtful rep would pause.

Founder-led support is a feature.

hello@cognlay.com goes directly to Jay. If a workflow is confusing, risky, or not producing signal, he wants to know.

"I didn't build Cognlay because outbound needed another AI writer. I built it because the old way made good people sound careless."

- Jay Tyagi, Founder