Founder @ The Signal (subscribe today) → Exploring the future of GTM/tech at www[.]TheSignal.club • Playing long-term games w/ long-term people
"System of Intelligence" is the category I’m most interested in right now (and have been, for the last 5 years). It's the biggest opportunity in GTM tech. AI only exacerbates the need (and likelihood) of a “System of Intelligence” being built and adopted in GTM teams around the world. (Think: no more data silos, ability to use unstructured data, ai agents to do autonomous research, and so much more) → Where does it sit in the current tech stack? I put together a simple visual to show how I see a “System of Intelligence” fits into the existing tech stack — see image below. (In fact, I think it has the opportunity to dethrone CRM.) The question a “System of Intelligence” answers is what humans do today—knowledge work. But, slowly… when I squint—I can start to see a path for AI to actually start making 6-figure jobs obsolete. SDRs? Yes. CSMs? Yes. BUT, I don’t think AI replaces the best reps. I do think reps using AI will replace reps. Imho, the most important question a GTM Leader can ask is the following: “What Company/Person are you reaching out to this week?” Ask 20 reps at the same company that question. You’ll get 20 different answers. This is obviously not efficient, or scientific. Everyone knows it. But there still isn’t a solution. Sales engagement was an attempt to OpErAtIoNaLiZe a reps workflow. But, SEPs don’t have all the data required to train a model to be “intelligent” (sorry SEPs). CRM (sorta) and data warehouses (increasingly so) have the most data in them. GTM teams need a “System of Intelligence” (a machine) that answers this question for them. Magically. I don’t want to go into “solution mode.” (If I knew the right solution, I’d be building that right now — I don’t). But, I do have incredibly strong (and increasing) conviction that this is the biggest opportunity in GTM tech. How to execute those actions is a whole other can of worms. I think there will be several ways that emerge — when it comes to the execution/workflows. (See also: The New Playbook for Pipeline Generation is Emerging) → How will AI impact this space? Tomasz Tonguz recently published a piece that speaks to this concept a little bit. His focus is on the CRM being disrupted based on the new workflows of AI agents, compared to humans. In the article he says: > "When AI products are sold as services, they replace in-house labor. This changes internal processes. When the internal processes change, the opportunity to replace the system of record arises because the existing workflows are no longer relevant. I think this is right. As AI Agents become more prevalent, there will be a need/opportunity to rethink the CRM and the applications." →Who is building this? Innovation will happen in this space, and I’m excited to see who is building here. I’m always trying to learn. Reach out if you’re using a product that you think is a “System of Intelligence.”
Garrett O'Brien
5mo
AI-native or not, I think account prioritization products will continue to flounder doing it well requires customers having a clearly defined framework and the product offering an intelligent and defensible implementation of that framework. rare
Rohan Punamia
5mo
100%
Matt Slotnick
5mo
the intelligence layer is above the current app layer — not below it
This is on point, nice read out Brendan Short. Why don't you think Clari/Aviso/People.ai/Gong fit in the System of Intelligence layer? We've been thinking a lot about this in particular and there's a lot of plumbing that needs to be built in order to orchestrate and/or eliminate a workflow. In particular, you have to be as close to the source of truth (application) as possible so you can build the system of intelligence to replace it. It seems like applications & system of intelligence should converge i.e. if I can suggest what you should do then I can do it for you.
Brendan Short doesn’t it have to sit on the DWH/Data Lake (at least for now)? For a system of intelligence to work efficiently it has to have these three things: Accurate data In a centralized location That it can easily access If a system of intelligence replaces the human for many tasks, whether it be data science, or transformation, business intelligence, or really anything else, then that’s what a team of humans needs to be effective. I think a system of intelligence could ultimately then act as the data warehouse or data lake by compiling and storing disparate data sets and pieces of information, but one step at a time.
Scott Martinis
5mo
Evergrowth is far ahead of everyone else here
Ross Geiger
5mo
Spot on. Forwarded the long-form article to our team and have been discussing internally. Excited to watch this space
Cory Pitt
5mo
Brendan Short stop talking about us so much!
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Founder @ The Signal (subscribe today) → Exploring the future of GTM/tech at www[.]TheSignal.club • Playing long-term games w/ long-term people
5mofull post here btw: https://www.thesignal.club/p/the-system-of-intelligence