Prompt Happy
When news of OpenAI’s ChatGPT broke, which now feels like a decade ago, we made that year’s meta-theme AI Everywhere All at Once.
We immediately began analyzing use cases in our industry — both those oriented to operational efficiency and those that are revenue-enhancing built into our services. We advised clients and did consulting work about their licensing strategies.
We studied 700 end users in professional settings (think sales, legal, health, engineering, scientists, teachers) about their use of GenAI. And since then, a tsunami of activity and a sea of change in user expectations in just over a year.
Goodbye to traditional interfaces; deliver answers or bust. Goodbye to traditional content creation methods; use prompts or bust. Create moats whether in community or differentiated data or both. Have a plan. Work the plan. Then adapt the plan because anyone in equity research, market research, editorial driven roles, or analyst driven roles needs to rethink their business, and their jobs.
As I wrote one exec last week — we must disrupt ourselves or watch it happen to us. I prefer the former. That is why agility is the name of the game; experimentation is too and the need for speed is essential. Long lengthy reports whose data is painstakingly collected, reviewed, analyzed, published…….? Let’s just say these are not Hermès bags. Just like there are plenty of people who like Walmart’s alternative the machines and start-ups are ready to make mincemeat out of anything slow and lumbering.
In just four minutes of searching:
Prompts for market research and CI — galore. Look at LinkedIn, Reddit, Team GPT, or professional sites like Product Marketing Alliance. Look at newbie sites like Promptdrive.ai.
Just yesterday, after speaking with one exec about machines doing 80% of the heavy lift on market analysis (vs teams of analysts) he sent me two more examples he’d just come across in the field of equity research along with the following thoughts:
After we spoke, I thought of two newer companies using technology to automate human analysis. One is Market Reader (https://marketreader.com/), whose tagline is “The Market Analyst In Your Pocket. Institutional-Grade Coverage Of Every Asset On Your Watchlist.” The other is Rogo (https://rogo.ai/), which is “Tailored for Finance: Delegate research tasks to a domain-specific personal analyst that understands finance.” Rogo just raised a $50 million Series B and aims to automate the analyst workflow. I see these examples as ways technology can complement human analysts, rather than completely replace them. They act as an enabler to monitor a wide array of sources and surface key insights….
Our lead who is doing research on M&A sentiment and the buying and selling landscape said AI is now de rigor in the diligence process. Have answers to the following or be prepared not to sell or to sell at a lower valuation:
1. Company needs a review of current customer contracts vis a vis licensing restrictions or permissions
2. Exposure to users and customers finding a DIY alternative via AI (especially something lower quality, but good enough)
3. Use of AI in product
4. Use of AI to drive efficiencies and measurable ROI
His take: investment committees at PE firms and institutional buyers are requiring an AI playbook that addresses these issues.
This is the future and it’s here. I’ll share more about our journey in the coming weeks and months. It’s one of the reasons we leaned into Outsell Accelerate! — so, stay tuned. Accelerate using an AI first mind-set; it’s a team sport.
While our analysts are looking at how agentics are shaping marketing and sales, or clinical decision support, or law — we are reshaping our business. It’s as simple as that. When a million links tell you how to do market analysis with prompts, or diligence now includes AI, you know the world has changed indelibly. It’s not going back.