🔮 Build For The Future
Hello! Adam Thornhill here. ‘The Podcast Guy’ saving you 10 hours a week.
Enjoy the 148th Podup, with special thanks to ChatGPT Consulting - a proven 4-week program to transform your team’s productivity and creativity.
Today, you’ll learn how to craft the right AI strategy thanks to 20VC.
You have a choice: build for now or build for the future. This post explores insights from OpenAI's leaders, reminding us to think about where AI models will be in 2-3 years, not just what we have access to today.
Think bigger than now
There are 2 strategies for startups to build on AI right now.
Assume the model is not going to get better and build things on top of it
Build assuming that OpenAI will maintain its trajectory, with models improving at the same pace
It seems to me that 95% of the world should be betting on the latter, but a lot of startups have been built on the former category, and we’re going to steamroll them.
When we do our fundamental job – make the model and its tooling better with every crank – then you get the ‘OpenAI killed my startup’ meme.
Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO
Signals you won’t be steamrolled
Is a 100X improvement in the model something you’re excited about?
It’s a good signal if you’re asking when the next model is coming out and if you can be the first to try it.
If there’s a clear path to how better intelligence accelerates your product and company, then you’re less likely to be steamrolled by OpenAI.
Brad Lightcap, OpenAI COO
Why it matters
The debate often circles around which model to build on - ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. However, founders should focus more on their long-term business strategy. Imagine the possibilities when:
AI models understand and generate more human-like interactions.
AI can automate complex tasks that require specialized knowledge.
AI seamlessly integrates with different platforms and devices.
AI has more accurate predictive and recommendation capabilities.
AI can offer personalized experiences we can only dream of.
Your product strategy starts to look a little different now, doesn’t it? Sam’s observation that most startups underestimate the pace of AI innovation means many of us are building products and features that may become redundant in a few years.
With that said, I believe it’s better to build on these models than to do nothing at all. Even if your work does go in the trash, at least your team has started to develop its AI muscle, making it easier and faster to build on future models as they’re released.
Next steps
Here are some practical steps to integrate AI into your company strategy:
Conduct an AI feasibility study. Review your current offering to identify how AI can enhance or transform your business operations. Look for immediate opportunities to integrate AI that can provide quick wins.
Develop an AI roadmap. Outline specific, phased goals for incorporating AI into your products, starting with low-hanging fruits and scaling up to more complex integrations.
Upskill your team. Invest in AI literacy and technical training to enable your team to effectively use productivity and creativity-boosting tools like ChatGPT (I have a proven program to help teams adopt ChatGPT if you need a hand).
Your thoughts?
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