AI
Brand
Leaders
Service AI is the new and unexplored frontier of self-serve software products. Startups compete for leadership in tomorrow’s AI-powered world, akin to the primordial internet companies of the early ‘90s competing for the dot com kingdom. The stakes are high. When the dust settles, the most dominant players will be crowned brand leaders and earn the perks that come with brand supremacy (word-of-mouth advertising, discounted marketing costs, customer loyalty, brand advocacy, etc.). Some may even become the namesakes of the category they dominate. The Googles and Slacks of the 2030s are incubating in the 2020s.
Photoshop the pics, print a
PDF, highlight with a
Sharpie,
Wite-Out the rest, add a
Post-It-Note with the
Tweet and throw the
Xerox in the
Dumpster.
BRAND
LEADERS
Even if not to the widest audience, ChatGPT is capturing collective awareness as The AI chat, gaining popularity faster than Google, Facebook, or Jesus. But GPT is only the nail that broke the dam. Barriers to entry continue to decline, and AI-powered startups sprout like mushrooms after the rain.
Inundated by the paradox of choice
These are AI writing tools from Futurepedia (one of many AI tool aggregators). As of 2023, there are nearly a hundred different tools in the ‘writing’ category alone and over five thousand in the entire directory. The number of options is growing daily, and there could be many tools that weren’t added to this specific directory. (And if these tools aren’t enough, you can make your own; there’s an app for that). Though there’s some variety, most options provide similar solutions and look like they were made in the same factory.
The annals of startup history are filled with “me too” companies riding the popularity wave without differentiating or adding meaningful value. Few survive; most fade out of existence; some with a whimper, others with a bang, dragging down entire markets with them (e.g., dot-com bubble). I’m young enough to remember the blockchain gold rush of 2016, when apps, APIs, and SaaS products of all sorts flooded the market within months of Bitcoin’s sharp rise in value and crypto’s increase in public awareness. Eight years on, and I can’t name three mainstay blockchain brands. But unlike blockchain, AI is swiftly penetrating every fiber of society, and its adoption steadily advances from early enthusiasts to early majority.
The question is not whether to use AI, but which AI to use
During the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, 50,000 hopefuls raced to earn a piece of land by staking a flag on the plot they were trying to claim. To claim a positional stronghold in the vast and uncharted terrain of service AI, startups will need to commit to a specific quality, utility, feature, or benefit, and stake their flag in our collective consciousness .
The two ways to earn a place in people’s minds are:
getting there first, or impressing the most
FIRST TO
THE MIND
The positional battle starts at the beginning of the customer journey. With thousands of options available at the click of a button, there’s truly one chance to make a first impression and earn an early mover advantage. But primacy doesn’t guarantee supremacy. To survive and thrive, contenders for dominance will need to claim a meaningful value proposition, position a distinct brand, and delight users with a seamless experience that keeps them coming back and spreading the word.
UVP – claim it
BRAND – say it
EXPERIENCE – prove it
There are many roads to brandom, and most of them start with meaningful differentiation and a unique value proposition. Every single company that dominates its market today started off being the best or most known for one specific thing. Google—search, Netflix—mail-order DVDs, Amazon—books, etc.
UVP
An effective UVP is a claim to an unclaimed quality, utility, feature, or method of delivery (ideally based on a competitive advantage), that differentiates the brand, providing reasons to stand in line and pay a premium price.
BRAND
Becoming the default option people default to when using a service, brands need to anchor a brand with a distinct identity, story, and message.
Identity: What it looks, sounds, and feels like shapes what people think, feel, and do.
Story: The essence of what the brand does and what makes it special.
Message: A succinct,
byte-size narrative that propagates the story on autopilot.
EXPERIENCE
As with their SaaS predecessors, AI-enabled software products live and die on customer attention and retention. People may act and interact with the product based on the messaging, but whether they stick around depends on their experience with the product and the brand.
Generic, complicated, and unreliable, or intuitive, engaging, and pleasant? Which would you choose?
On the scale of simplicity, where Apple is ten and the DMV is one, human-centric brands that focus on customer experience and delight with intuitive simplicity score the highest.
Where the internet, computers, and smartphones succeeded, crypto, VR, and other breakthrough innovations floundered. The simplicity test acts as the great filter. Products that sift through are easily accessible to the lowest common denominator—the lazy layman (crudely defined, but in reality, most of us are, myself included).
In the race to simplicity, the experience that provides the most while requiring the least usually wins.
The survival of the simplest
Testing and iterating to simplicity requires traffic. The word is going to get only to as many people as it can reach. If you truly have something to be proud of, share it. A generous freemium model that allows people to have a taste before buying projects confidence, attracts attention, and—if the experience is consistent with the message—increases conversions.
The message a mattress company sends by offering free returns for six months is that the mattress is so good that no one returns it. Even if there’s a cost to it, a freemium is a marketing expense that will more than pay for itself from the increase in traffic.
Give freely
AI is gradually integrating into our lives, creating new experiences and behaviors. After replacing the currently human-provided services, AI companies will contend to fulfill wants and needs we didn’t even know we had. (The TV guide and TV tray followed the invention of the TV set.) The potential for AI-powered services is constrained only by the entrepreneurial imagination. But not every tool is a company, and not every company is a brand. As hard as it is to build a SaaS product, it’s much harder to get traction and become the brand of choice.
To become the brand leader…
Differentiate, substantiate and dominate
-Sean A. Cooper
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