AI Meets SaaS with Godard Abel, CEO of G2

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Hi, I'm Nick Neda, CEO of Gatesight, and I want to welcome you to a new virtual

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series

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we've created called AI Beats SaaS.

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What we're going to talk about, how artificial intelligence is particularly

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gender to the

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AI is having a huge impact on software and service, and how all of us are

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figuring it

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out as we go.

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So what we want to do each time is bring out along a thought leader in SaaS to

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talk about

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how they're thinking about AI and their business.

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What we're going to talk about today is a long time friend, Goderd Abel, the

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CEO of

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G2.

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How are you doing, Goderd?

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Great.

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And Chad and me, Nick.

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Awesome.

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And this is an actual Goderd, or is this like an AI version of you, because you

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're probably

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another meeting right now.

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Is it an actual one?

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Let me pinch myself.

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I don't know if I can feel a little pain.

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So I don't think AI can...

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I don't know.

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Yeah, can AI feel pain?

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We'll learn that eventually.

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So Goderd doesn't really need an introduction.

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Many of you, I'm sure all of you, visited G2, used G2, partnered with that.

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We do all of the above-it-game site.

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And he's the CEO of G2, the incredible multi-time entrepreneur, ran a steel

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break before this.

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So it's a sales force, ran big machines before that.

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Amazing background.

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But one of the things I think that would be really interesting is Goderd has an

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awesome

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purview of what's happening not just in his own company, but across all

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software, because

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pretty much every software product on material size is rated and reviewed on G2

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I know I refresh my G2 listing pretty much every day to learn more about what's

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happening

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in our market.

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So we're going to dive in with a fun icebreaker because we always do that game

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site.

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So Goderd, what's one way you've used chat GPT recently, or anytime, that blew

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you away?

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I would say translation, because with my...

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Oh, interesting.

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My dad is also an entrepreneur, and he actually got involved with a window and

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door company

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in Mexico called Aventa.

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And he wanted some help with the business.

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I'm like, "Oh, we need to hire a CFO."

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And I'm like, "Oh, I don't know how to speak Spanish.

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I don't know anything about this."

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But I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, you know, how to actually be T, help me write a CFO

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job description

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for manufacturing company in Mexico."

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And first is in English, and I said, "Copy to the Mexican Spanish."

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And I sent it to my dad plus the president of the company who's Native Mexican,

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and they

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looked at it, and they're like, "This is amazing.

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It's great."

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And I just...

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Also, not to offer...

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Like, zero edits, and we were out sending it to the recruiter, but I was just

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amazed

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at both helping create the English version.

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But they didn't even amazed how it just created perfect Mexican professional

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language, and

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it worked out of the box.

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And so, frankly, I'm also like, "Oh, wow, we got to accelerate our localization

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for G2,

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because we're still in English language only."

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And honestly, I think...

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And I think also then reading about transformers when they're developed with

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Google, I think

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it was around that translation use case.

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So I do think it should really accelerate multi-language, but also global

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collaboration,

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because I think it does seem to just 100% cross-translation.

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Yeah, I totally agree, and my ninth grader is taking introductory Spanish, so

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hopefully

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she's not using CHATCP to do her essays.

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I don't think she is, but...

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Want to make sure she's learning properly.

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I thought I loved that.

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So, Shantan, I think you got the first question.

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I didn't introduce Shantan.

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He's our head of AI, again, he's quickly become the most popular person.

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He's the first day of G8, because we put a huge percent of our roadmap on the

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generative

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AI.

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So, Shantan, why don't you do the first question?

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Hi, hi, got it.

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So my first question to you is, how is T2 using AI today?

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And what are your plans with this big new technology?

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Yeah, and we're using lots of ways.

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What I'm most excited about is our G2 AI Monty.

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And we launched AI Monty in collaboration with CHATCPT, OpenAI.

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So it's built on top of their chat.

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But really, our vision is it's kind of...

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Monty was our mascot, so we said one, we met Monty's sentiment.

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But we think it can be like your best software analyst or your best eccentric

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consultant

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in AI.

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And I think it has over any analyst or any consultant as it can digest all our

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data in

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real time.

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So we've created a plugin where we inject all the G2 reviews, all the G2 data.

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And it's amazing.

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And anyone can try Monty for free at our homepage, please do.

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But the idea is we can much better guide any business professional to find the

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perfect

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app to solve any business problem they want to solve.

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And I think it's a big breakthrough because today G2, we rely on categorization

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, kind of

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a fixed human created taxonomy, over 2,000 categories.

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But most buyers, they just have a business problem.

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They're like, "Hey, I want to prove my customer retention.

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How do I do that?"

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And traditionally, we've said, "Hey, you got to search for customer success

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management

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software."

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Obviously, those are the industry.

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We know that, but most buyers don't.

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And I think this linkage using Monty AI to help people discover the best apps

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is a very

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powerful use case.

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We're very excited about it, G2.

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I love that.

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And you also have to answer one of the very popular questions I think for all

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of us, which

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is, "What do you name your general AI bot?"

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So you went with Monty.

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Obviously, there's Alexa, this theory, lots of choices.

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But let me switch to something a little more business-oriented.

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I think about pricing.

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Not just in your own business, maybe you have some comments there, but pricing

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in your clients,

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how they're pricing.

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A specific problem I think we all have is, "General AI has a real cost to it."

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Many of you know that.

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It's not just free.

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And then it's a little unclear what customers should pay or how they should pay

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for it.

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I didn't think about that.

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Now, and maybe I will start with how we're doing it, G2.

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And then I'll talk about we're doing it with clients.

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And for now, we've made our buyer, Monty, for free.

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And that's probably been our philosophy of G2 anyway.

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We want to educate the software buyer for free with the best insights.

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But it is real-class.

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Now, we're also launching an AI Monty for sellers, which is, and the idea, you

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could

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put this on your game site listing on G2.com.

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But the idea is almost like, "Yeah, no, people are doing this SDR, BDR use case

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."

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But we can train our Monty also to answer FAQs for game site, let's say.

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Yeah, because one is cool.

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The user of buyers digging in and they're like, "Oh, game site, that sounds

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pretty good."

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But now I have some real questions.

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And obviously, traditionally, we try to get them full of lead form handed off

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to you.

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But now, like, hey, why not let Monty answer those basic questions for their

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qualified,

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some point handed off maybe to your bot.

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And but we're also figuring out that does consume potentially a lot of

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resources with

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chat, GPT, and it's expensive.

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And so I think for now, we're going to do to launch it.

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We're going to launch it as a beta in November.

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We're just going to bundle it with what we call our new core or essential

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profile so

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you all can try it.

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But we're going to put a limit on it.

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We're still debating what that is.

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But it'll probably be like, hey, you get kind of up to, I don't know, like, $

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100 a year

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for free.

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And then beyond that, we'll upcharge you.

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But we want to make it kind of fictional as to try.

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And by then at some point, yeah, we do have to upcharge if nothing else to

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cover the cost.

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And of course, the other thing, there's a lot of value.

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And also, I saw this as a dream force.

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I was out at Dreamforce and made it with a lot of their executives, like Brian

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Millum,

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their president and a lot of old friends at Salesforce.

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But they also launched their Einstein 1 platform.

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And we're also a customer.

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And I asked us their Salesforce rep, do we just get this for free?

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And I think the answer is no.

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They are trying to make it an upsell add on to access to Salesforce Einstein 1

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platform.

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And because I had the same issues, right?

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A, on the cost side, it cost real money.

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And then B, obviously, if you're offering more value, you're investing a lot of

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innovation

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R&D, you've got to monetize it somehow.

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So I think most people, and I don't know, I think, and hopefully our G2

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strategy is

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a good one where we're going as they give people a taste of the AI features for

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free.

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But then put a cap on it because the compute costs can run out of, can be

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astronomical.

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And there's a lot of value, right?

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So at some point, it's also fair.

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Yeah.

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It says, "Menagers, innovators to charge our customers for it."

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I think it's a great point.

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We're actually on the whole bunch of AI features.

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We've already come out, so I'm coming out.

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Like for example, something that can help you prep the meetings automatically.

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And with the similar strategy, we're worth being basically built into the core

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cost up

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to a certain number of credit.

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And then when you want to go above those credits, you buy those.

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Because I think unlimited consumption with significant cost is not a great

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business model.

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So we all have to figure that out.

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What the others value, right?

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It's probably broader industry trend and maybe it's more consumption-based

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pricing.

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I think AI, a lot of people are saying it may do that anyway because the other

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thing,

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we all rely on, most of us rely on seats and users.

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It's licensed.

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Exactly.

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And that may become less relevant, right?

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Because if bots really do more of the work, it also means our customers, and I

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'm not saying

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this is going to happen, but some of your customers might actually have less CS

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Ms in

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the future.

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Yeah.

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And obviously, they really grow, so they need more humans as well.

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But there could be cases where like, "Hey, maybe they only need half the seats

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because

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a lot of the basic CSM support questions the bots not answering."

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And so both for your business model and for alignment with the customer, right?

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Probably some more consumption-based models like, "Hey, how many questions are

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we answering

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for you or how many customer issues are we resolving for you with our AI?"

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And so I think there'll be some interesting new consumption models that we

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probably will

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all try and probably change how SaaS is priced in a lot of cases.

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So while I'm saying, I think we're all figuring it out together.

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So good to learn from each other.

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I shout it back to you.

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Definitely a lot of these concerns are something we are right now actively

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trying to come to

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a consensus on.

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And we've touched upon each and every one of the points I just mentioned I'm

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pricing.

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Yeah.

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And I should, Shantan, I should connect you to Tim Yandor, if my co-founder, he

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's building

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our AI and I'll connect you guys after it because it's an area we're all trying

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to learn

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in right now.

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Moving on to the next question.

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What have you given that you're a premier company, that evaluates software

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sellers?

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What are some interesting things that you have seen among other companies?

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Anything innovative around AI that things stood out?

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Yeah.

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And I think, I mean right now, I see everyone's experimenting.

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I'm probably a bit still dream force brainwash.

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So I think all the things we're trying to do.

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But it's obviously not just Salesforce.

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You know, how the spot's also partner of ours.

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And I think they're co-founder of Darmesh.

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I think it's really cool what he's doing with chat spot.

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And he's also focused on it all time.

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So frankly, I see every vendor now really innovating.

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I think some of the cooler ones are like writer, where they're just like one

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specific use

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case around content writing, marketing writing.

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And I think they're, so we're starting to use tools like that to generate our

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own content.

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And so I think, obviously we all hear about BARD and OpenAI, but there's also

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all these

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startups just building really cool purposeful tools.

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But I think it's still early days.

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I think also the reality is my sense is like in the AI hype cycle, we may be,

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you know,

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if I could pass the peak and now I think a lot of people are saying, where's

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the revenue,

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right?

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Where's the business impact?

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But I'm a believer, you know, but I think we're also in that point of hype

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cycle.

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Now a lot of people have launched things, but most of them are still.

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And I saw a BCD presentation.

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Most things are still in beta head alpha.

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You know, most things are not getting commercial use.

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So I think overall, a lot of interest experimenting, but I don't know, besides

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opening, I needed

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to grow into a billion.

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But I don't know if anyone's had kind of revenue, you know, besides them had

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run away success

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in generating revenue through it.

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That's totally right.

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Yeah.

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One thing that you spoke about recently, you were a SaaSter and you spoke about

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something

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I've been thinking a ton about, which is AI can actually also disrupt the way

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people

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build user experience and user interfaces.

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Can you talk a little bit more about what you think of that?

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Yeah.

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And I think, you know, I think the most software, to be honest, like we all

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have bad interfaces.

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And I built CPQ software for years, Steel Breaknow, Salesforce, CPQ and big

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machines.

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So we always had like forms based systems where like, yeah, you have 10

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requirements

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and the features you want, right?

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But you're always filling in forms and fields as a user.

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Or like if you're using a CRM system, it's like a put in the 10 required fields

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on your

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opportunity.

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But frankly, no user ever likes it.

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Frankly, most users hate it, right?

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Which is why those systems, traditional CRM, even CPQ has a hard time off in

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getting adoption.

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You sort of have to force your users to use it and fill in all the forms and

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there's

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rules that kick off and tell you what you've entered wrong and forces you into

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more workflows

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and approvals, right?

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But it's all I think to most salespeople, customers, successpeople, all these

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traditional

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systems feel more dangerous than help.

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And obviously their managers needed, the company needs it to forecast.

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We all know why the business needs it.

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But I think AI could totally change that, right?

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And I think the vision that most people are seeing, like if you're a sales rep,

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customer

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success rep, you can just do your work, right?

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You just work in Gmail, you work in Slack, you work in Google Docs and behind

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the scenes

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and see AI is digesting all your work and then can update your opportunity for

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you.

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And we'll probably do it better.

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Because we also have that challenge with sales reps, right?

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Either they're too optimistic, too pessimistic, but there's that human element,

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whereas testing

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all your emails, it's listening to your zooms with the customer and analyzing

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all that data

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in real time, it'll do a better job than the human would anyway.

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But I think a lot of these systems will probably do it behind the scenes, you

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know?

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And maybe the users are just working in a few systems that they actually use to

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interact

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with customers, at least on the front of the business, right?

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And behind the scenes, the AI is capturing all the data, all the insights and

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feeding the forms, if you will, feeding the structured data into the system.

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So I think it could be totally revolutionary.

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And I'm sure you guys are working on that game site, but I think that

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traditionally user

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interface app, enterprise app, and I'd also say for sites like G2, we're more

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of an information

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site and traditionally rely on search.

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But even search, like I said, you have to know the category name, it's a bad

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experience

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site, but this interactive Q&A experience, that's where we're trying to go with

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Monkey.

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So we also think it's going to change websites like ours that people go to to

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learn.

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So I do think in five or 10 years, yeah, I think the UX of all apps, all sites

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will

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probably be totally different.

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That's awesome.

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I love this one.

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This is one I'm super passionate about, because I agree, software today tells

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users to go do

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things, fill up forms and then take action.

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Largely every product like that.

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And we were actually trying to talk last night about, you know, we're building

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something

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where we'll take, you know, meeting transcripts, sort of a notes automatically,

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it's not

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going to be a match and I, and things like that.

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But then the next level is how do you go do some of those action items for the

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CSM, you

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know, send the email, update, you know, update all the fields and salesforce,

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like do everything

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for them.

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So I think it's a big opportunity.

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The other time I was going to make, which I think is really interesting is like

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you go

14:12

back to leapfrogging with AI.

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You know, I feel like all of us constantly work on our user interface, change

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this drop

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down, make this thing look different.

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And ironically, I'm definitely old enough to say, I can't say go to the viewer,

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but

14:24

like, you know, having started by the kid using MS.

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DAW like the command line, it's almost like the command line typing in a prompt

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is actually

14:34

the best user interface.

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And we went through years and years of like drop down to UIs and web apps and

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we might

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go all the way back down to a command line and just typing to answer questions,

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which

14:45

is kind of like monster, you know, a new website, right?

14:47

So just type and figure out how you super human and same thing, right?

14:50

Like what are they differently in Gmail?

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It's like all keyboard shortcuts, right?

14:54

Exactly.

14:55

I think my first computer was an Apple IIE, but that was also like green screen

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commands,

15:00

right?

15:01

You just type it.

15:02

Yeah.

15:03

And ironically, maybe we're back to that, but maybe I think even beyond typing,

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I think

15:06

now with voice recognition, right?

15:08

And like, you know, maybe also we just talk to our systems.

15:11

Yeah, I mean, especially depends on the preference.

15:13

Like if you're an engineer and I, yeah, school or if you're a physicist, like

15:16

you Nick,

15:17

you know, like we probably like typing, but then probably most salespeople that

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are more

15:21

like extroverted, there's like, Hey, let me just talk.

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And probably the AI will be able to see, you know, voice to text is great now.

15:28

And then he had parts of the text and updates their CRM better than they ever

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would.

15:31

And they're just out there talking to people and selling, you know, like same

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thing with

15:35

great CSM.

15:36

They probably want to think with the AI, probably won't do like it back to the

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pain.

15:39

It probably won't be the human emotion and the human connection.

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And even people say the AI test, like it's as smart as us.

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I think that's achievable, but I don't think the AI, I can't see that we're

15:50

like connection,

15:50

feeling emotion.

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And I think in any, you know, human customer relationship, both are important.

15:57

And I think that's the part, if we can take away all the, the grind, the

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filling in forms

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of workflows and then our, you know, our teams can just really build a

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connection with

16:06

the emotional connections with customers and people.

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Like, I think that would be a great place to end up.

16:11

I agree.

16:12

Yeah.

16:13

Something.

16:14

I'll be giving you one last question, right?

16:15

Yes.

16:16

Last question from me.

16:17

So let's get to customer success because I am a customer success guy.

16:24

So what are the biggest opportunities from your perspective to using generative

16:29

AI in

16:29

CS and also what are some potential threats in this space?

16:34

Yeah.

16:35

Well, I definitely, I think we talked about it earlier.

16:37

I think the idea of just asking, answering customer questions, yeah, which a

16:41

lot of CSM

16:42

I think spend a lot of time doing it.

16:44

Yeah.

16:45

And I think customers are like, oh, how do I get the most value or how do I

16:47

reconfigure

16:48

my workflow to do this?

16:50

You know, I think those kinds of questions, I think the AI will crush and I bet

16:54

you guys

16:54

are working on that, you know, as is probably everyone in customer success and

16:57

certainly

16:57

support use cases.

16:58

Same thing.

16:59

Right.

17:00

Everyone's saying, hey, that's such a great AI bot use case because probably

17:03

most cases

17:03

can be resolved without the human, you know, by the AI and then the human is

17:07

there for the

17:08

really tricky technical or if the customer needs some emotional love.

17:11

And I think the AI can also sense that, you know, and sense when does a human

17:15

touch needed

17:16

either because of emotion or technical challenge that the AI can't resolve.

17:20

So I do think that frontline customer Q and A customer support, I think that

17:25

will get

17:26

generally the AI is one of the best, it's one of the very best use case for

17:29

generative

17:29

AI.

17:30

So I do think everyone in customer success base will work on that.

17:33

And so I do think that's a massive opportunity because the end of the day the

17:35

customer will

17:36

get quicker, maybe better answers in real time 24/7.

17:40

So I think that a lot of customer success opportunity there.

17:43

I love that.

17:44

Yeah.

17:45

When I think about, you know, whether it's Chats and PT, it's kind of aggreg

17:47

ating and

17:48

using all the knowledge of all humans to answer questions when that's basically

17:51

the way it

17:52

works.

17:53

And I think in your company, you know, this stuff will work and I'm going to

17:56

get all

17:56

the knowledge of all your team to help individual customers.

17:59

So let me close out with some rapid, rapid association.

18:03

So each one, just tell me the first thing that comes to mind.

18:07

I try to get the key.

18:12

But bought.

18:13

Okay.

18:14

All right.

18:15

AI more generally.

18:16

Yes.

18:17

Machines being sentiment.

18:18

Yeah.

18:19

Exactly.

18:20

Or like I said, soon, some days smarter than us, you know, on the intellectual

18:23

plane.

18:24

A hundred percent agree.

18:25

And then a Terminator to good AI movie.

18:28

I think of Arnold and especially I'm half Austrian, seven Austrian mom and I

18:33

just think

18:33

of Arnold, amazing Austrian American accent.

18:37

I'll be back.

18:38

I'll just say, I hope you'll be back for another one of these.

18:40

You think great, great discussion.

18:42

Obviously check out G2 if you haven't, if you're the one person who has it.

18:47

And then on the game side, we actually, you'll see a link in the webinar.

18:51

We have a great page educating our AI for customer success and obviously talk a

18:55

little

18:56

about what we're doing in a game site.

18:57

Thank you so much.

18:58

I really appreciate it.

18:59

Thank you, Sean, Ben.

19:00

And thanks you all for watching.

19:01

Thanks.

19:02

Thanks.

19:03

Thanks, Sean, and look forward to collaborating with you more on our AI.

19:06

Love to.

19:07

Thanks, MeBonzo.

19:08

Bye.

19:09

[ Silence ]