In the Age of AI, You Need a Point of View
Let's compare and contrast the point of view of a handful of tech companies
Whenever there are big changes in the market, there is a lot of uncertainty about what the future might look like. For technology buyers, this uncertainty makes it really hard to make purchase decisions, particularly those with longer-term implications.
As vendors, it’s important for us to remember that prospects are very different from us when it comes to the learning curve for breakthrough new technology. The buyer of your product at a manufacturer, a hospital, a retail chain, or an insurance company isn’t spending their day reading Reddit and Hacker News. They typically aren’t reading hot takes on LinkedIn about AI or subscribing to a half-dozen techie Substack newsletters. It’s just not their job.
When a company evaluates a solution they might want to buy, the first thing they need to do is educate themselves. Now, imagine actually wading through the firehose of information they are about to be exposed to related to AI. How much of that information can they trust? Research shows that buyers are using an average of 7 information sources. Less than half list AI as one of those sources, but when they do, 69% turn to sales reps to validate even those AI-generated insights.
“Reps remain the most important information source when buyers are researching a business problem or need, identifying a preferred supplier and securing internal support, and finalizing the purchase.” Gartner Group
Folks might prefer not to interact with a rep at all, but for now, they often have to. What they are looking for is insight. Prospects want to hear your company’s take on the market. And in particular, they are looking for your point of view on the future. They want reassurance that if they buy your stuff today, they won’t regret it in 5 years.
Point of View is not Product Vision
A point of view isn’t the same thing as your product vision. Your vision for what your product will be when it grows up is important - for the team working on the product and for investors. But customers will ultimately only give you today’s dollars for today’s product. If your vision is compelling but today’s product isn’t, the buyer will simply delay the decision and tell you to come back in 5 years when you have the cool stuff. The last thing you want to do is give a buyer who is already highly predisposed to delaying a purchase decision any more reasons not to buy your stuff today.
Your point of view is about what you believe the future of your market will look like. It should reflect the underlying assumptions you use to decide what your product roadmap should look like. It encapsulates your opinion about what the future of “good solutions” in your space looks like in general.
Your Point of View is a Perspective Rooted in Your Distinct Strengths
To understand how to develop a well-articulated point of view it helps to look at some examples. In general, your point of view should be rooted in what you can do better than any other vendor in the market.
When OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, says he envisions a world where “…AI is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter.” That is a very particular view of the world. OpenAI’s point of view is that AI is a generalized consumer technology. That makes a lot of sense for a company whose business model primarily relies on consumer purchases.
Contrast that with Anthropic’s Dario Amodei stating that AI “will be able to write 100% of code within 12 months.” That’s a different view of the future and one that is more rooted in B2B, specifically the part of the market (coding) where most of Anthropic’s revenue comes from.
When we zoom out and look at the point of view of many large traditional software businesses, we see a very different perspective. For example, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella says that “Models are becoming a commodity. The performance of an AI app depends on how well data is brought into context. The differentiator is context engineering.“ Models, schmodels - we’ll have loads of those! What matters is “context.” What and where is that context, you might ask? It’s hiding in Word docs and PowerPoint slides and sitting in your Outlook inbox and SharePoint. Microsoft owns the context of a typical business; naturally, its point of view on the future of AI centers on this strength.
Let’s contrast that with a big SaaS company. ServiceNow’s Bill McDermott said recently, “Workflows and governance are the whole ballgame.” “AI intelligence is commoditizing – models are not the future differentiator - governance and execution are the key to expanding agentic AI adoption safely.” Forget models, forget “context,” what we really need is workflows plus governance. Guess what vendor has a lot of those workflows and governance built out already? That’s right, ServiceNow.
Does Your Company Have a Point of View?
Now, stand back and look at how you currently talk to your prospects. When they ask about the future, do you have a point of view? Are you building your roadmap based on principles you believe will hold true in the future? Are you communicating that in a way that customers understand? What about your competitors? What picture are they painting of the future and how do you stack up against that?
Ultimately, your point of view helps customers understand why you make the choices you do when building your product and designing its roadmap. Communicating that clearly helps prospects understand whether they like or agree with your choices and whether they will ultimately decide to take the trip with you.
I’m in London next week for Mind the Product - see me there and say hi!
I had a great conversation last week with one of my favorite business thinkers, Rita McGrath, who has a podcast called Thought Sparks. Check out the video on YouTube, or the podcast on Apple or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I generally take a break over the summer months and spend some time in the woods. I’m reading a lot of science fiction these days. Got any good book recommendations? Drop them in the comments because everyone wants to hear them!
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April
Great article, April!
Id add that a strong pov is now necessary to attract and retain the best talent - They don’t want to align themselves with a flash in the pan either.
Here’s the progression I’ve seen for enterprise B2B founders related to this topic:
- Early stage - founder mode: individual is more likely to pitch the product and product roadmap in customer convos (because they are the only one who can).
- Growth stage - founder has enabled someone else (sales, marketing, product functions) to give the product pitch and roadmap. That allows the founder to focus on the longer term pov.
As an added bonus - Having a founder who can discuss trends and synthesize a compelling POV about the future is an excellent “carrot” for sales to pull in more senior buyers in their sales cycles too.
Not sure what you've already read and liked, but some series I'm really into:
Yoon Ha Lee: Machinations of Empire/Hexarcate
Ann Leckie: Ancillary Justice series (Imperial Radch) - there's a new book out!
Tamsyn Muir: Locked Tomb (if you haven't read them - they're really weird!)
Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos (Endymion) - glad he finished before he died 😬
Arkady Martine: Teixcalan series
James SA Corey: The Expanse - and their new series is pretty good!