AI Is Here, And This Is How It Will Change Everyday Life And Business

hi everybody I'm Diane Brady I'm here
with Amit bendoff who is co-founder and
CEO of gong a meat welcome thanks for
coming in it's a pleasure to be here
Diane so let's start with uh what gong
does because I see terms like
conversation analytics Revenue
intelligence I know um Harvard did a
case study
what is it that you do now because
you've been around for a few years so
Revenue intelligence is a new type of
application
that uses AI to improve the productivity
and effectiveness of Revenue teams in
sales and customer support sometimes
product and marketing
the way that it does that it captures
all customer interactions of the company
via email
voice video it could be a zoom call uses
Ai and natural language understanding to
understand what is being said in those
conversations and then extracts insights
from those conversations it helps the
company improve in global in global and
saves a ton of work uh across the board
for the customer facing team so there's
been a lot of conversation about
generative AI I know we tend to you know
say chat gbt but there's others um how
is that impacting the business
uh it's it's fantastic uh first there
are several types of AI there's uh
classifying there's predictive Ai and
there's generative Ai and there'll be
other kinds so this is a new type that
actually uh works very well and allows
us to fulfill our long-term Vision it
also
um
makes everybody like more receptive to
this kind of Technology because when we
said in 2016
oh uh nobody's going to be typing notes
into CRM like in the future people said
oh yeah right customer really was hard
to believe and um and we struggled to
raise money
now if nobody's questioning that anymore
people say oh yeah now we don't see
ourselves
branding around AI in terms of the
ad of how you're running your business
differently and I know maybe this is
just but it seems like there was a
moment in time a couple of months ago
where in essence maybe it is just the
consumer has opened up this really
didn't change your business much at all
you know I just gives more tailoring and
more attention and more receptiveness to
the concept because sometimes people
don't believe us that the technology can
do that and when they play with it it's
oh it can recommend restaurants says
well it can understand my customers
better customer facing people so we use
it in in so many ways right
um the the obvious one it'll write like
emails for customers it'll rewrite which
is a huge Time Saver people have a
writer's block and sometimes just
getting a good start is already a
fantastic
you'll look at what kind of emails
resonated with other customers remember
we were like billions of uh transactions
that we train to model on so it can
create things that actually work
um but there are other applications for
example it could show the leader the
chief Revenue officer
what is trending in conversation right
now that I should be paying attention to
you know the people talk about the
competitors even more or is that product
uh tanking uh it almost feels like
questions it feels like table Stakes at
this point one thing you've said
um is that the sales cycle is becoming I
believe you use the term more complex
what do you mean complicated what how so
let me talk about what's how the current
environment's impacting your business
well we we're uh we're now in a more
frugal environment question which is not
not a bad thing right uh we've been uh
company's been splurging and buying left
and right whatever could make an impact
uh the shiny new toy right and some of
them were good some some were not toys
some are real tools and some were not
necessary now
everything is being scrutinized at the
uh CFO level and CEO level so it means
there is another cycle and you need to
have like a strong business case why
they should make the investment and you
need to prove it that adds more steps to
every sales cycle everybody's feeling
going if you listen to the earning calls
uh it's not a bad thing when you uh have
your act together and you have more
rigor in your sales process and you know
how to do it and you have something real
uh then you're in good shape the good
companies will benefit out of that but
you do need to work harder for the same
results one thing that that I'm curious
about is the
um I guess the legislative environment
certainly we've seen in Europe you know
when you look at privacy around data
people owning their data that
conversations more filtering into the
U.S here what are you seeing because
that's obviously having an impact on
your customers yes there are two Trends
uh first the world is becoming more
digital
uh if you look like you know today
versus like 20 or 30 years ago
everything is digital you know where
walk there there are cameras their
phones they're going to use the social
apps I use the business application
there's a lot that can be known
which is fantastic it allows us pretty
amazing things right if I want to know
how long does it take me to get from the
hotel to here
then yeah
the reason because everybody's sharing
information
right imagine our life without it but uh
with that you need the tighter
responsibility and supervision and
regulation so that's what's happening to
make sure that you know we're not
blocking it but in a way that is uh
supervised there is a gdpr and uh
consumer protection act and uh in sock 2
and a lot of other standards
gdpr in in Europe would you say when you
look at the business climate in Europe
versus the US has that had an impact
because that's been a couple of years
now that that's been in place to privacy
regulations yes because first there are
multinationals so I think Europe is is
tighter right uh for privacy it's not a
bad thing uh and I'm supportive we
actually when we have a multinational
client that has like 120 current we
usually apply the strictest standard so
let's say that people in Germany and
France and in the US the US will uh use
the application the same way that they
use in Germany okay uh it's just just
better to be safe once you have the uh
uh the capabilities in the software we
built
um I think 20 of our investment in
development
is spent on security and compliance and
uh gdpr and privacy and data residency
which you could call it as a tax right
because it doesn't do anything yeah but
it gives companies the comfort that they
can trust the software what I think is
interesting is the degree to which we
don't we make a lot about people
sacrificing their data people offering
up their data it really is so much is an
ambient data that it really doesn't
matter as much does it I mean I don't
know if the sophistication of the AI
what I give to you is not really where
you glean most of your intelligence
about me yes and and especially for for
gong
most of what we deal with is is business
to business right it's commercial you
know we're buying here's the pricing
like uh it's too expensive it's not yeah
private in my personal life it's to help
close the deal usually so you know most
people don't don't mind it's business
information so
so I'm in Israel right now and um being
based in Tel Aviv but before that you
mentioned other types of AI I'm really
curious you know we tend to have recency
bias we're all obsessed right now about
chat gbt what do you see on the horizon
what's on your radar that you put on
ours
um every every disruptive technology and
goes through a hype cycle right right
first there's like wow and then people
start to understand the limitation then
it thinks a little bit are we at Peak
hype no we're not yet I think we're
it'll still pick it's ill accelerating
when I see my parents talk about it you
know we're pick right uh but but it'll
it'll still hype it is
it is dramatic it is a dramatic
Improvement it's not it's not just a
hype and it'll make like a big
difference but right now it's a little
bit of people are expected to do like a
little more than it can uh and then
over time we'll find the applications
that are actually enabled by this
technology and some that aren't remember
in 2000 we had like amazon.com which is
a real business yep and we had pets.com
that wasn't a real business right so now
everywhere is like GPT this GPT bread
GPT lettuce right and GPD whatever right
yeah uh we'll find like over time what's
real and what's not and what is the
sweet spot for the uh uh the technology
I think there's uh people think that um
chat GPT is GPT GPT is a term for
General types of application they'll be
like special types you could train one
for
your conversation with the doctor right
what what gong is doing we train
on Enterprise data right if you think
about it open igpt is trained on public
domain data on anything from Wikipedia
Forbes Tolstoy Chekhov right it's like
everything thanks for putting us in that
category yeah you're contributing to uh
human uh creativity yes yes
um
and um
and that's the data that it can provide
right
but
if you look at what's behind the
Enterprise walls right there's a lot of
data inside it you can write something
is more uh accurate and reliable
for uh the application that they're
using internally right that's what we're
doing that's what a lot of other
companies will be doing create like
special purpose trained right
um generative AI that can get accuracy
there are still issues on
there's a problem of hallucination yes
right it could say things that are
totally fake with confidence so that
that's a challenge for all of us to
fine-tune it but if you special train uh
on subsets of data uh uh there'll be
plenty of opportunities to improve so
talk about the environment in Israel
right now it's any time we have an
opportunity to people come in from like
what news from the front sort of thing
how let's start with just the business
environment
the business environment uh first
overall it's it is solid the economy is
strong and the tech companies are doing
well there are two things that are
happening first the macro environment is
not making it easy for uh for anyone so
every almost everybody's kind of feeling
yeah respect just
just the growth uh is not we've been
through you know layoffs in you know
many of the technology companies you've
had some yourself yeah we had we had
like a seven percent
uh about a month ago and everybody uh is
failing it companies are still growing
they're they're well funded so there's
no or most of them there's no long-term
concern but everyone's working harder
right now for a slower growth uh so
interesting time on top of that we have
the uh political situation where for
people to know there's kind of
um
Coalition right now that is uh kind of a
perfect storm of
uh religious right-wing and uh and and
uh Prime Ministers and delicate
situation uh with a Judicial uh system
and that
uh now they're trying to pass a
legislation that would
strip the Supreme Court from any
substantial power
which would put us in the same place as
let's say like a Hungary or Poland or
Russia right which is like not uh strong
man politics I guess it's a formal
democracy right you had a great quote
but you know what happens you said was
it went to ensure everybody's like what
was it when two wolves and a sheep
decide uh what they're going to eat for
lunch that's not democracy is that sum
it up to a t yeah because there's
there's no the country doesn't have a
constitution
so human rights are not defined by some
kind of instrument so if you don't have
that instrument this is where the
Supreme Court intervenes sometimes or
legislation that just doesn't make sense
yeah right they say there's like a
there's you know there is a decision
some of the ruling that you know people
didn't want to send their schools uh
their kids to school if they're like uh
girls from Ethiopia writing the court
said no you can't do that right although
it's not written in the Constitution
it's like basic human rights that kind
of intervention and noise a lot of
people come from a different view yep
um and now they want to take it away by
a simple majority uh but there is a
there's a big
um outcry in in an uprise and a lot of
people are protesting
um including like many many circles like
uh in a company
it's it's interesting
interest partly because first of all
this is we're seeing this as a global
phenomenon and
you know Israel in particular has been
such an engine of growth also for the
Middle East you know increasingly and
and I how much responsibility do you
feel to that you have to speak out on
this as you know leading entrepreneur it
must be because we see it here in
Silicon Valley people are weighing in
more on politics is that important I
think this is uh some people would call
it politics I think it's beyond politics
so the best thing
uh politics is you know
should we be in the best West Bank or
not right this is like changing the game
it's like changing the Constitution and
changing the game it was like
irreversible once that's done there's no
way back yeah right so uh you could
um you could say that yeah now we're
extending uh the elections to every six
years right it's it's possible now do
people do it tomorrow I don't know but
it's possible Right you wouldn't have
whenever lease uh
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on your house right that allows these
kind of things right so that's the
things and you have to speak up I think
it'll it'll
first there's my personal view when I
speak personally I say this is my own
view yeah
but I really believe that this could uh
destroy the country The Innovation
um in the longer term not not
immediately right immediately right now
the shackle is down actually it's lower
as our cost there's even like a
short-term benefit and it'll take a
while but midterm
uh it could be very damaging first I
think they'll be like brain drainage uh
from the country
and second
um you know more if you take like a
historical view I think
all Innovation science or technology
comes from casting a doubt from asking
question from not believing
from questioning Authority
uh you know like a Galileo and
Copernicus right or or curiosity I mean
Shimon Perez was one of the most curious
people I've ever met and when you have
an environment kind of supports loyalty
in authority and do what I say
that's where creative people don't
Thrive and that's where we lose the
innovation
well it does feel like partly because of
Technology there is a fear you know this
this the
um the acceleration of change the
dislocation of jobs it does create an
environment that can allow people to
grab onto simplistic Solutions if that's
the right way to put it do you think
that that so I'm not saying that you're
to blame of course you're not but it
does feel like we're at a moment in
history where there's a reason why we're
seeing this around the world
right there's uh there are a few things
that are that are happening and you know
we see it in the United States
and in with brexit very much so yeah so
there's no shortage of stress there are
problems there are real problems there's
there's climate there is economy there
is uh uh coronavirus yeah Supply chains
economy uh they're real
and when time was stressed there are
people who are
um have you know are selling a solution
right where there isn't really like a
simple solution yeah uh and coupled it
with social media now you have
amplification that we haven't seen
before it is not more facts just you
have like two camps
and each one kind of reads and amplifies
their own views and that creates a clash
where in the past we had the Press which
is really like a key thing for democracy
or like Free Press independent press
that is I think we rank lower than CEOs
now on some of those trust barometers
yes which is bad uh you know you used to
do like uh
and you know even the Press sometimes
can't do the work that it used to do
right there's no time for fact checking
right because you know someone will beat
you up to the deadline right so
uh that creates a lot of like uh
agitation aggravation some extreme
movement you know the things we've seen
here like in January 66 is is
unthinkable
right so as a leader yourself and I
don't mean to put too big a burden on on
your shoulders but you know you've got
that you've got to go I think it's at
7.5 billion what's the valuation uh
seven and a quarter okay all right
that's right time that's things shift
this is real time conversation but what
do you think of as as when because
there's a great excitement about the
potential the Technologies there's great
nervousness about the environment
economically politically and otherwise
you know in terms of the decisions and
the strategy that you make as a leader
how is this impacting your own decisions
even where you based your people for
example
well we're we're you're trying to strike
a right balance understand what's real
and what's uh hype and what's in front
for example uh
um you know we had like in all hands uh
um about a month ago and people said
should we strike it's gone people in
Israel says uh strike strike yes you
wouldn't the CEO say no thank you people
uh there was like a call for a general
strike oh right the entire country yeah
and
um
and it said uh I don't think so uh it's
like it's a one-day strike uh I think
it's
it's if I have to choose to be something
that might happen uh and uh like the
legislation it might have an impact
and between something that I know will
have an impact right now if you strike
uh it'll be damaging to our other teams
uh then I would say no I'm not gonna
strike however like if someone feels
strongly about it take a day off and do
it I respect it and I send how you feel
so that's how you strike a balance in
terms of people there are some companies
who are saying
or even like employees at gong that
reached out
um you know
if these if these passes uh would you
support this is a particular legislation
you're talking yeah right if it goes and
it's probably like a couple months away
yeah would you support us relocating uh
to other places uh and my response was
first I hope that we don't need to
uh I'm still optimistic that's uh my my
nature and I think I think uh will
probably be fine uh but if it does and
someone doesn't want to be here of
course we'd want to retain you and uh
you could work out of the United States
or uh or or doubling where we have an
office or even in Greece What
specifically about this particular
legislation is it just the fat is it is
it this bloated democracy or can you be
more specific as yeah what's causing so
much fear we'll stop being a democracy
basically it gives the government it's
not it's not some people say
dictatorship it's like one person it's
not as simple but it's it's more like a
formal democracy yeah you get elected
but government has like ultimate power
and it could do whatever it's like Xi
Jinping in China right they're that
exactly yeah it falls in a way you don't
like to see it yeah
um and and even it'll drive out
investment right if you see what happens
Alibaba right and all these uh companies
that the regime can all of a sudden can
decide to do whatever they want so it's
not creating even like a great
investment environment people will be
feel safe so but if someone doesn't feel
comfortable
Israel has been thriving and it's it's
nothing short of a miracle yeah right
it's like uh look at our neighbors
right uh uh without calling out names
but this country has like more
technology companies than almost all of
Europe yeah right we don't have there's
no famously so I would say right and and
to the extent that your start you've
certainly seen more of a impetus to be
looking at the Middle East as sort of a
hub and you've seen more Israeli
companies getting very active with their
neighbors you know Abu Dhabi
um you know there's more of a
partnership there yeah so in
this wouldn't have happened without the
entrepreneurial spirit that thrives
when you don't take this the wrong way
we disrespect Authority right that's
what you're supposed to do as an
entrepreneur right
the emperoring isn't wearing any clothes
I Can Do Better some of them are right
some of them they're wrong but that's
the environment when something more
authoritarian
you know there's no innovation coming
out of Russia
China
Poland or Hungary right correct me if
I'm wrong but very little
that's not there's concerns about India
now with Narendra Modi yes it's a global
thing yeah
um
so I don't want to you know let's take
off your your I'm not going to say
political pundit because you're talking
as a as a leader with very genuine
concerns
um let's root it back to the business
and what you're seeing because you are a
global company where are you seeing the
greatest pockets of opportunity right
now
oh they're they're massive so here's a
number
um to uh to measure it so if you look at
customer facing people
um of which many of us are in some ways
right yes in sales in support uh
in in marketing there's a number of
defaults around it around 70 percent of
their time is non-productive work it's
not customer facing it's sending emails
it's filling in forms it's internal
updates it's Intel on Training 101
administrative work Soul numbing work
yeah yes uh this is according to Gartner
and Forester even Salesforce is
publishing these numbers right some some
say 70 some 75
um and
it's just clerical work that AI can
replace without a doubt right five years
ago we said that people didn't believe
now and say oh yeah you could do that
um the thought that AI is going to be
like a blue color Revolution no it's
actually like a white collar right uh
these are people that are paying
and getting paid you know definitely six
figures uh sometimes High six figures
imagine if you could
uh dream not 70 but half of that okay
that's massive saving to the economy
it's like trillions not to mention
becoming like more in four and making
better decision more successful and you
can see it after all uh in so customer
management is one application let me
give you a few others
um
project management
there is some great project management
software today right they're easy to use
the promise people don't use it the
projects do not update themselves they
rely on people to do an update let's say
you're working on downloading yet
another app who needs that so imagine
software that kind of reads internal
Communications over email and just kind
of understands where the project is
nobody needs to do anything right it is
efficiency does mean fewer people and
you're starting to I mean I just
ultimately it creates more jobs for sure
but you know one way I think to Anchor
at the end of this conversations I'm
genuinely curious about
what do you think will happen to the raw
numbers because when you trim 70 of the
fat from my job
I have to immediately find something
else to fill it but it does seem to mean
fewer people it does seem to resurrect
this conversation about Universal income
and such Why are you seeing that yeah as
a transition
I'm I have no idea how it's going to end
I'm very curious I'm sure it'll be great
and fascinating right
the typewriter are gone there's not less
work it's just different kind of work
today right you know when
um
you know before Gutenberg invented the
printing machine right people are doing
calligraphy they're like painting the
books right it's also highlights
shoemakers like don't have a job right
but there's now people manufactured uh
shoes right so it's it goes somewhere
it's really hard to predict and the
concept of you know does everybody
really need to work maybe not uh
uh speaking of Israelis like famous uh
uh research that the Orthodox Jews right
that generally don't work
in surveys seems to be like the happiest
people in the world
uh uh just happy about their lives so
maybe if the economy generates enough
wealth this could be distributed not
everyone needs to uh needs to work so I
think we will see both okay
um that's interesting well we'll look
forward to continuing the conversation
so thanks for joining us my pleasure
thank you very much Diane thank you