Sports Betting Hall of Famer Sue Schneider is back with more monthly insights from the world of startups. This time, she explains how AI can be far more than a tool; it can be a teammate and a partner.
AI seems to be all anyone is talking about these days.
Established companies are beginning to make use of these tools. But there are also signs of the upheaval emerging on the employment front. Jack Dorsey’s Block company recently shed 40% of its 10,000 employees due to AI and predicted that other companies will follow. This can have some frightening implications for so many different positions that we know today.
We’ve all experienced both sales and customer service in the AI mode. One founder mentioned that, in a job he left recently, the sales figures were remarkably enhanced by AI. He said that their average salesperson closed 36% of the deals they worked on. When the company developed an AI salesperson, “Devon”, that agent was able to close deals 63% of the time. He joked that clients were calling up asking for Devon. Remarkable stories, and a bit scary as well.
It’s been interesting to hear discussions related to the use of agentic AI. For the uninitiated, MIT Sloan defines it as such:
AI agents or agentic AI is a new breed of AI systems that are semi- or fully autonomous and thus able to perceive, reason and act on their own. Different from the now familiar chatbots that field questions and solve problems, this emerging class of AI integrates with other software systems to complete tasks independently or with minimal human supervision.
These systems don’t just respond to prompts — they plan, take actions, make decisions and move toward goals autonomously.
Can AI serve as a business partner?
For startups, agentic AI offers a multitude of benefits. Examples are emerging daily. Startups are no longer just building tools that answer questions; they are building “agents” that can execute end-to-end business processes (like accounting, legal, marketing, or supply chain management) without human intervention.
Hearing how founders talk about this is quite fascinating. It’s clear that some truly think of their AI agents as teammates executing workflows, creating marketing plans, monitoring cash flow plans and so many other functions.
Some go far beyond that into another realm.
Chatting the last few months with one friend who is the solo founder of a new media company, it really sounds as though his ChatGPT agent functions as his business partner. Together, they’ve been creating investor models, building a variety of business models to determine the best options and creating self-directed systems that their customers can use. The team (the founder and ChatGPT) are even exploring possible exit scenarios, looking ahead to possible prospects for a sale with an eye on designing the company with those prospects in mind.
When I hear him talk about the interactions he has in these explorations, one would swear that it’s a human business partner. It’s definitely a new era.
In speaking with another founder that Defy the Odds works with, it’s clear that he’s beginning to get critical mass. So, I asked the question about what sort of staffing he thinks he’ll need. He illustrated that AI is helping them now with so many functions that he probably won’t need as many employees as he initially envisioned — or at least not as early. In fact, most of his needs were on the tech side, which was no surprise. (I think engineers and developers have less to fear from AI than many other professions.)
Another way that startups will benefit is speed. A number of developers I know have mentioned that what may have taken them four months to build in the past, they can accomplish in several days now. From concept stage to implementation, this will dramatically speed up the time to market and, with any luck, revenue generation.
An all-rounder of a teammate, if used wisely
So, how is agentic AI affecting startups? First of all, they have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips to determine the competitive landscape… always a favorite topic of mine. They’re able to keep the headcount low in their early days, critical especially for those bootstrapping. Given not only salaries but the cost of any benefit packages offered, this can be a substantial savings.
Sales and customer support are clearly good functions for agentic AI. This can kickstart what a first sales hire might offer. And as backup support, it helps identify good leads, rank them, do the outreach in a personalized manner and book meetings. As the outbound approaches scale, a founder can begin to add independent contractors or part/full-time employees to give it a human touch.
Marketing is something most point to as being tailor-made for AI. Writing the material, designing graphics, managing targeted databases, evaluating responses, and retooling the whole system on a continual basis can make life easier on that side of the business. It offers the opportunity to test out campaigns and run experiments on ads, SEO and social media to gauge effectiveness and adjust the spend based on performance.
Tying in with accounting programs, founders can utilize lots of processes for forecasting revenue, automating invoices or — of special need for the startup — tracking their runway. The same goes for legal, compliance and regulatory functions, a critical need in our highly regulated industry. This can minimize the need for a CFO in the early stages, maintain lower operational overhead and offer cleaner and more sophisticated reporting for investors.
A new world at the fingertips
So, founders are well placed to take advantage of agentic AI in a way that benefits them even more than a traditional established business.
It’s an opportunity to not have to completely reinvent the wheel but take advantage of a wealth of information and experience that’s out there. It really allows a small team to maximize their time. It allows entrepreneurs to take the most advantage of the technology rather than starting out with a lot of staff positions to chew through limited capital.
The technology doesn’t sleep or take days off. It’s working when you’re not. And, it offers a structure that will help guide not only the work, but how the team interacts.
It’s unknown how this will all sort out in the long run. But, for today’s founders, it’s clear that they have an array of tools available to them that has never been seen before in the world of startups. Use it as you will.
