Incorporating Generative AI Today
Issue 008
Welcome back to Surfacing, a monthly newsletter from Emergence Capital. Subscribers receive the most relevant news, thoughts, trends, and jobs in the B2B SaaS ecosystem.
🔦 FEATURED CONTENT
How to think about incorporating generative AI into your product
By Jake Saper, General Partner at Emergence
Earlier this month, we shared our thoughts on the current limitations of generative AI and why the technology is not yet tuned for B2B. Despite these limitations, we still believe we’re in the early innings of a transformative shift in the B2B app ecosystem.
We’re continuing to develop our thinking on generative AI and where the biggest opportunities lie. One way we’re doing this is by talking to builders who are figuring out the best ways to incorporate this technology into their applications today. Cai GoGwilt, the CTO of Ironclad, is one of those builders. Earlier this year, Ironclad released AI Assist, which brought generative AI technology to legal contracting and is helping their customers draft and close contracts more quickly.
Here are a few takeaways from a recent chat we hosted with Cai, Zack Kass (Head of GTM at OpenAI), and a group of our portfolio executives:
On deciding what to build with LLMs: As you look to develop your longer-term product roadmap, focus on how you can bring forward features you thought weren't going to be available for your users for a few more years. Instead of looking at this AI technology and wondering what you could build with it, focus on features you always wanted to deliver and consider how this tech can help you accelerate your development. In other words, focus like a laser on the core problems to solve, not the shiny new tech.
On how to deploy LLMs: Given the concerns around accuracy and model hallucination today, it may make more sense to apply LLMs in "multi-round" scenarios, meaning those that involve a human who can oversee the model and give it feedback. Here, UI/UX design work will be essential to build the LLM seamlessly into workflows and to focus the worker's attention, turning the AI into their most useful coach.
Ease of use: Because of the ease of use of these models, it’s likely you won’t need machine learning or data science expertise to get started with these models. What's more, fine-tuning the model might not even be a prerequisite for your use cases. While proprietary data, particularly those tying inputs to outcomes, will be an important differentiator over time, speed and quality of integration into existing workflows will be critical in the near term.
We will continue to publish our thoughts on this evolving topic throughout March + beyond. Follow Emergence on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay up to date.
🚀 GO-TO-MARKET ADVICE
Evaluating sales compensation in a downturn
From Doug Landis, Growth Partner at Emergence
In 2022, more than 75% of companies missed their revenue targets. As a result of downward pressure, many execs are being asked to do more with less. This often means increasing revenue targets, even after layoffs and shrinking budgets. Pavilion surveyed 300+ executives across SaaS companies of all shapes and sizes and released a new compensation report for 2023. This report highlights some changes Pavilion has seen in compensation and expectations, which we recommend referencing as you evaluate compensation changes for this year.
If you have any questions, please reach out to doug@emcap.com.
🔗 TRENDING TOPICS
What we’re reading at Pier 5
Laid-off tech workers are leading a new startup surge. “Some early indicators suggest a surge of new founders. Startup accelerator Y Combinator saw applications increase by 20 percent in 2022.”
Stanford is developing domain-specific LLMs to produce more efficient systems for domain-specific downstream tasks. Their first publicly-available model was trained on biomedical data but Stanford researchers hope to apply learnings to other domains such as law or finance.
ChatGPT is coming to Snapchat as the latest consumer app to adopt the AI technology.
Generative AI is coming for the lawyers. “Legal applications such as contract, conveyancing, or license generation are actually a relatively safe area in which to employ ChatGPT and its cousins.”
AI at the doctor’s office. We’re witnessing the early days of how physicians and medical professionals can leverage AI to speed up diagnoses and determine the best course of treatment.
📰 PRESS
Our team featured in the news
Fortune | How to get a job in venture capital featuring Lotti Siniscalco
Insights by Angular Ventures | Lessons Learned From Investing Early in Over a Dozen SaaS Unicorns featuring Jason Green
💸 PORTFOLIO NEWS
ASAPP earned a spot on the 4th annual Forbes AI 50 List.
Guru was named a 2023 Top Workplace USA.
Zoom announced more AI features for its meeting summary technology.
Gusto (#8), Ironclad (#25), Mezmo (#159), Upkeep (#189), and Convex (#211), were named YC Top Private Companies for 2023.
🔮 PORTFOLIO JOBS
Looking for your next role?
Check out the open opportunities at our portfolio companies.
G&A & Operations
Oyster: Counsel, Employment (Remote)
Project44: Commercial Counsel-Americas (Chicago)
Top Hat: Chief Financial Officer (Toronto or Austin)
UpKeep: VP of Finance (Los Angeles)
Eng, Product & Design
Betterworks: VP of Engineering (Remote)
Gusto: Head of Product Management, Tax Credits (Remote)
Top Hat: Chief Architect (Remote)
Zoom: Head of Zoom for Government (San Jose)
GTM & Business Operations
Gusto: Head of GTM Analytics (Denver or Remote)
Mezmo: Director, Product Marketing (Remote)
Top Hat: VP, Customer Success (Austin)
Xapo: Head of Client Services (Remote)
We have ~854 more jobs on our portfolio jobs site. Check them out!
👀 EMCAP HAPPENINGS
We’re hiring a Community Lead! 👋
We’re excited to share that we are looking to bring a Community Lead onto the Emergence team. This cross-functional role on our Platform team balances marketing strategy, community building, program design, events strategy, and execution. Priorities will be to (1) strengthen and build the Emergence community and brand, (2) scale up our Expert Network, and (3) more broadly extend our reach into the enterprise software ecosystem.
Interested in applying? Learn more specifics here.
If you have any questions or referrals please reach out to careers@emcap.com.
