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In episode 4 of This New Way, Aydin sits down with Andrew Waitman, CEO of Assent, to explore how a billion-dollar B2B SaaS company is transforming operations, product development, and team productivity with AI. Andrew shares how Assent went from under $1M to nearly $200M ARR, became one of the earliest adopters of GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT Enterprise, and how they now embed AI-driven OKRs across every team.
You’ll hear real use cases: from summarizing messy trip reports, generating synthetic bills of materials for secure testing, and accelerating supplier document reviews — to measuring impact on productivity and profitability. Andrew also offers actionable insights on how to drive AI adoption across teams, how CEOs should personally lead the AI charge, and which tools he uses daily to stay ahead.
You’ll walk away knowing how to start small, scale fast, and turn AI into a measurable force multiplier across your org.
Click here to check out the AI-generated timestamps, episode summary and transcript.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:35 Andrew’s background and Assent’s growth journey
02:37 The scale: 18,000 suppliers, 200 compliance topics
05:07 The post-ChatGPT transformation and Vista Equity OKRs
06:09 Early adoption of GitHub Copilot & ChatGPT Enterprise
08:51 Trip report improvements using AI synthesis
09:35 Generating synthetic bills of materials for safe testing
12:26 Where AI drives efficiency: entity resolution, part matching, document validation
13:12 Measuring AI’s impact: productivity, quality, and profitability
17:32 Expanding customer success capacity without adding headcount
20:37 How to drive company-wide AI adoption (hackathons, Slack, evangelists)
24:10 Andrew’s personal AI workflows & deep research routines
TOOLS & RESOURCES MENTIONED:
AI Tools & Platforms
GitHub Copilot (Microsoft) → adopted early for engineering
ChatGPT (OpenAI, including Enterprise license) → used across teams for synthesis, rewriting, summarization
Perplexity AI (Pro) → used for deep research reports
Internal AI Use Cases & Systems
Synthetic bills of materials → generated using AI to safely test software without exposing sensitive customer data
Automated document review → handling millions of supplier documents for compliance
Entity resolution → using AI to match the right supplier or part across massive datasets
Part resolution & document validation → automating complex checks in the supply chain
Company-Wide AI Adoption Tools & Methods
OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) → embedded AI goals at company, team, and functional levels
AI hackathons → internal competitions to inspire creative use cases
Slack channels → for sharing, evangelizing, and discussing AI applications internally
Personal CEO Tools & Workflows
Perplexity deep research → running 12–15 deep research reports per day
AI summarization & rewriting → e.g., turning multi-page trip reports into professional one-page summaries
