metaphors

TL;DR: Casual Dating; Not a Marriage

When you buy a traditional SaaS product, from the most basic office suite to the most complex ERP, there's a core logic that does not apply to AI-powered tools. We've been trained to think of software as a big, complete thing with a fairly precisely defined set of features and capabilities. You pick one and stick with it for years or decades. It's like a marriage. It can get rocky and maddening, but you know it's very costly to move on to someone else. And when you do separate, it's an agonizing process that involves a lot of divvying up of assets.

I don't know how far I want to stretch this simile, but I think of AI-powered SaaS as more like dating in high school or college than getting married. You might see a bunch of vendors for short periods. You know from the jump that nothing is going to last very long (we’ve been hanging out with Hebbia for a few months, but we just met Harvey.ai and are intrigued). Even (especially?) the heartbreaks are valuable, because that’s where you get the most wisdom.

#Tibetan

Imagine that, for some unfathomable reason, your company decided to shift all communication from English to Tibetan. You have two options: A. There’s a great English-to-Tibetan software package. You can write everything in English and it automatically makes it accurate and grammatical. Within seconds, you're up and running, sending flawless PowerPoint presentations, memos, sales pitches, and proposals. You can go to a meeting and it will simultaneously translate for you. You don’t know a word, or letter, in Tibetan, but you’re delivering everything perfectly. B. You are offered a Tibetan language course. It is so hard. The alphabet is confounding (how is it that P-S-NG-O-S is pronounced “new” and K-R-T is pronounced “dreh”?). It takes a few months to be able to write out a basic sentence. The people who follow option A have a great few months while their Option B colleagues are struggling to get anything done. Eventually, though, the Option B folks take the lead. They understand this new language deeply. They can express themselves better. Within a few years, the only people working there are the option B people.

I happen to be studying Tibetan right now, and so this metaphor felt apropos. AI is not just software. It is a language (or several of them), a capability, a whole suite of ever-expanding tools, and approaches to work that require rethinking of all sorts of things big and small. It’s also changing, obviously, faster than anything has ever changed before.

This is very much an Option B guide. We believe you should