Is change your friend?

There is a lot of excitement around generative AI (genAI). The old models are getting better real fast. New models are popping up all over. The big tech is taking big bets. Some open-source plays are emerging too.

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Plenty of genAI stuff being built seems magical. It’s almost too good to be true. Such euphoria makes humans err on the side of optimism. As Bill Gates said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” Are we doing the same? Are we not seeing false positives?

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It is difficult to predict what direction the genAI industry will take. Like, it is too early to say if OpenAI enables other applications or if it builds its own applications. Or, if Google will find a way to win in AI? These are early days. But in tech, being early is the same as being wrong.

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Most of the things are uncertain. But what is certain is that things will change. So how do we place ourselves such that change is our friend and not our foe?

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What if we back a new genAI model company and a better model emerges elsewhere? Change may not be our friend in that case. Hence we are being cautious about investing in new genAI models.

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We are also not optimistic about the thin me-too wrappers, mostly for the creator economy. They seem like features with no clear path to grow into products. Also, there is no reason why companies wide adoption will not build these features. Even before genAI, we have already seen Canva leverage such standalone features for its PLG.

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We are however optimistic about deep vertical plays. That’s because these startups are also building strengths outside of genAI. They are focused on their user segment. They are building for their use cases. GenAI, like any other tech, significantly improves their proposition. Change in tech has been their friend. Change in genAI tech shall be their friend too.

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That’s why we invested in Justbaat. This team is sharply focused on the TV broadcasting vertical. They know how to sell to them. They have embedded themselves into the teams of some of the large news TV channels working alongside copywriters, editors, and field reporters. They are seeing their challenges firsthand and baking those observations into the workflows while deeply integrating genAI into their product. As new tech emerges, they will leverage it to deliver more value to their clients. Change is their friend.

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Since the broadcast industry does not operate at the cutting edge of tech, it is unlikely that their clients will want to build this tech themselves. Co-creating with Justbaat is a great outcome for them. Justbaat can thus be their gateway to the world of this magical tech.