OP #274: the AI Toolbox, Reading Links, and More.

Author

Darren Herman
October 29, 2024

Happy Tuesday OP Community,

I’m going to be honest. I’m looking forward to true Fall weather here in the Northeast. It’s been in the mid-to-high 70s and that just feels “wrong” for late October.

📖 My friends over at BCG sent me a new book: Personalized: Customer Strategy In the Age of AI, which looks pretty solid. I flipped through it and it has some solid charts and data to support each idea they are proposing. The primer to the book can be read here.

✨I enjoyed reading this blog post from Bernard Builds titled, AI Is Running My SEO Blog. Here’s The Growth So Far. The key takeaway for me is having the thought process to break everything into tasks which you then prompt against.

💡 My friends over at The Hunt Club posted a great blog post about building teams. The article is titled Beyond $100M ARR: G2 CEO Godard Abel Shares Inside Look at Building the C-Suite to Get Them There. The key takeaway from this piece for me, is that you need the right expertise at the right time.

🏀 I'm a sucker for a good infographic. I'm even more interested when it's about the NBA. Infographic: 5 key consumer Insights Into NBA Fans As Season Tips Off (Civic Science). BTW, does anyone in the OP Community work at/for Civic Science?

📈 My friend Jeff Bussgang breaks down a provocative statement by Sam Altman from earlier this year: a solo founder will soon reach a billion dollar valuation and leverage dozens of AI agents to do the work.

Here are some articles to get us started:

Thank you for subscribing and reading. As always, please reach out with any comments, critiques, or questions. I respond to them all. You can find a searchable database of past OP letters here.

Darren

The AI Toolbox: What the OP Community is Using Right Now

As many of you know, I sent out an AI Adoption Survey in OP #272, and we had close to 40 responses so far—still a ways from the 100 I was aiming for, but we're getting there. In OP #273, I shared insights into how AI is accelerating and impacting various areas within our organizations. Now, I want to dig deeper into the specific tools the community is using.

I've grouped the tools into categories, though some could fit under more than one header. This is all self-reported data, so keep that in mind. The reason for sharing? To spark new ideas for you to explore. These tools are actively being used by fellow OP community members—might be worth a look if you haven’t already tried them.

1. General AI Platforms & Tools:

  • ChatGPT (OpenAI): Heavily mentioned, used for everything from research to writing to customized enterprise development.

  • Claude: A standout model, particularly for customer service and product development tasks.

  • Perplexity AI: Frequently noted for AI-driven information gathering.

  • Dall-E & MidJourney: Go-to tools for image creation and creative content generation.

  • Replikate & Custom LLMs/GPTs: Custom-built GPT models tailored for specific applications.

  • Copilot (GitHub/Microsoft): Popular among developers, providing assistance with coding and automation tasks.

  • Google Gemini & Microsoft Co-Pilot: Reliable tools for AI-powered business integrations.

  • AWS Rekognition: Known for its capability in image and video recognition.

2. Proprietary AI Solutions: Several companies are building proprietary AI models for tasks like product development, SEO, recruiting, and even nursing education. Tools like Sutro, and Noon.ai are in the mix for specialized areas like recruitment and app or agent creation.

3. AI in Business Operations:

  • Salesforce & CRM Tools: AI has become part of the core CRM functionality, enhancing customer relationship management.

  • Ada.cx, EliseAI, Humantic.ai, Gong: AI-driven tools for improving customer communication, providing sales insights, and enabling conversational AI.

  • Avoma & Metaview.ai: Leveraged for meeting analysis and recruitment.

  • Fireflies.ai, Otter.ai: Used to power transcription and note-taking during meetings and discussions.

  • Evidenza.ai, AARU: Used to create synthetic AI customers leveraged for segmentation, customer research, and predictions.

4. Creative & Design AI Tools:

  • Augie, CreativeX, Ideogram, Persado: Tools making waves in ad creation, copy generation, and creative marketing.

  • Gamma.ai, Synthesia & Descript: Popular choices for content creation and transcription.

5. Automation & Integration:

  • Zapier: The go-to for building AI-driven automations across different platforms.

  • Klaviyo: Integrated with AI for marketing technology (Martech) functions.

6. AI in Experimentation & Early Adoption: Many companies are still in the experimental phase, testing AI tools in limited capacities. This reflects incremental adoption, but the potential is there for broader AI integration in the future.

Hopefully one or more of the above tools helps inspire you and your organization. If you haven’t filled out the survey but want to, you can do so here.

Below are a few articles I came across this past week that I found interesting. While I may not agree with everything in each one, I think they're worth a read. If you stumble upon an article you think I or the Operating Partner community would enjoy, feel free to share it with me. Of course, I reserve the right to decide what gets featured in the OP.

How to Hire a CEO (Vinod Khosla)

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