SaaStr 828: The AI Revolution in B2B: Insights from SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and SaaStr Chief AI Officer Amelia Lerutte, and Qualified's CEO and Founder Kraig Swensrud
episode
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
44 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 19 days ago
Transcript
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the official Saster Podcast where you can hear some of the best Saster speakers. This is where the cloud meets. Up today on the Saster Podcast. I recently had a CRO I've worked with for years, the deepest respect, reach out to me in an almost panicked email. I need to learn AI, right? I'll do anything. I'll intern for you. I'll I'll hang out with Amelia's office. I'll do whatever. And I hear this all the time. I need to learn A we hear it all, I need to learn AI, Craig. It's part of my job. I the it's the simplest advice behind all this. Like, no, you need to do AI. Don't learn it. Buying a subscription to Claude does not count as learning AI. The way you're gonna do it is pick an agent in a GenTech product.
Pick the simplest possible one use case. And I know it can be scary for some people. Deploy it yourself.
Why do leaders feel a panic to learn AI and how should they start?
Buy it. Set it up. If you need a little bit of help connecting it to your CRM or your marketing, okay, that's okay. You don't have to like do the connectors. Own the deployment. You don't know what training is? It's okay. Take your time. Do something simple. If you deploy an agent yourself, train it. QA. it, test it, you will be ahead of ninety percent of the world. Hands on. Yeah, yourself. Hey everybody at Saster, connect data, automate busywork, and empower teams like nobody's business with the one platform that grows with you every step of the way. Learn how Salesforce works for startups at Salesforce.com slash SMB. That's Salesforce.com slash SMB. Hey everybody at Saster. Finn is the number one AI agent for resolving complex queries like refunds, transaction disputes, and technical troubleshooting, all with speed and reliability.
See how Finn can deliver the highest resolution rates and highest quality customer experience at fin.ai slash saster. That's fin.ai slash saster. Hey everybody. Get excited. Saster AI London is this December, December 1st and 2nd, and we're on track to completely sell out with the playbooks for AI and B2B. Join 2,000 plus BI and AI leaders for two days, two days of practical advice on scaling in the new year. We'll have speakers flying in from OpenAI, Wiz, Clay, Intercom Fin, and all your favorite B2B companies, including yours truly with Harry Stebbings and more doing our live 20. C B C podcast. It'll be fun all in the heart of London. Don't miss out. Get your tickets. You can still go. Go to spodcast dot sastor London dot com.
That's podcast dot sasterlondon dot com for special discount just for you.
All right, welcome everybody. Uh, my name is Craig Swensrough, the founder and CEO of Qualified, and I'm joined today in Qualified Studios by two very special guests. Of course, we have Jason Lemkin, who's originally the founder and CEO of EchoSign, sold to Adobe in twenty eleven. And of course, everybody knows him today as the founder and CEO of Saster, and also Emilio Laroute, who is the chief AI officer. Yes. Of Saster, which is which is totally awesome. Of Saster, which is Thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks so much. Yeah, it's great. That's great. All right. So what does everybody want to know about in today's day and age? Agents? Uh what's going on out there in the real world with agents?
And Jason, something I read you know that you post on LinkedIn was people are wondering there's a ton of Agent platforms, agentic solutions, AI this, AI that that are on the market right now. Like where do I actually start? And and then I think somebody wrote, you know, what you know, what's better, rep lit or lovable? Which AI SDR platform is the best? What AI tool is the best for RevOps? And you had a killer answer to that.
Can you share that with us? Yeah, it it was learning because you know, we started we started twenty twenty five behind. Um we had a lot of AI speakers at Saster, but we were pretty AI lean here. We started with one general tool and now we've expanded it to twenty agents. And we use qualified and twenty tools that are sort of maybe twelve are part of our core architecture, which Amelia can talk about. But it took me a while to know the answer to that question, or to know the answer between Replit and Lovable.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:48
2
Why do leaders feel a panic to learn AI and how should they start?
0:48–5:42
3
What simple steps can you take to deploy your first AI agent?
5:42–13:44
4
How did Qualified go from zero agents to twenty in production?
13:44–19:37
5
Why is training an AI agent more important than choosing a vendor?
19:37–26:02
6
What’s the difference between horizontal and vertical AI agents and why does it matter?
26:02–32:00
7
How is the surge in AI budget reshaping SaaS buying cycles?
32:00–36:44
8
Is SaaS dead or evolving with AI agents, and what does that mean for B2B?
36:44–44:27
Speakers
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SaaStr 863: The Enterprise AI Reality Check: From Dashboard Graveyards to 30-Day Migrations with Databricks' Co-Founder and SVP of Field Engineering
SaaStr 853: The Agents #004: Tragedy Apps, Too Many AI SDRs, and Why Your Next Hire Should Report to an Agent
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SaaStr 851: The Agents, Episode 002. Managing 20+ AI Agents: Lazy Agents, Stealth Churn & the Death of 60% Solutions