Today, we’re joined by Gustavo Sapoznik, Founder and CEO of ASAPP, the generative AI platform transforming contact centers. Matt + Gustavo discuss the magnitude of challenges to overcome in this market, how their AI tech is designed to help humans, the reason smart people should choose working at a startup over Big Tech, and more. 

This session was recorded live at a recent Data Driven NYC, our in-person, monthly event series. If you are ever in New York, you can find us on Eventbrite by searching for "FirstMark Capital". Events run monthly and are free and open to everyone. And as always, if you enjoy the MAD podcast, please subscribe and feel free to leave us a comment or rating.

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Show Notes:

[00:00:45] Introducing Gustavo Sapoznik, Founder & CEO of ASAPP, a unicorn AI startup based in New York;

[00:01:00] How ASAPP started with a mission to “end bad customer service” after a frustrating phone call Mr. Sapoznik had with his cable provider;

[00:02:44] ASAPP’s product philosophy and how the customer service is a three-legged stool with companies, customers, and agents;

[00:05:11] How ASAPP automates what they can and augments the rest to make agents more productive;

[00:07:12] The evolution of ASAPP’s offerings including how ASAPP technology makes agents more productive;

[00:9:16] How ASAPP’s technology reduces response times and improves quality for agents by including transcription, auto complete, and real-time scoring of interactions for quality assurance;

[00:13:49] How ASAPP has evolved since 2014; their research-first approach, building in-house AI capabilities, training their own models, and their recent exploration of using open-source checkpoints;

[00:15:05] How Mr. Sapoznik hired the guy who ran all NLP research at Google;

[00:16:04] How cost, latency, and accuracy in their AI models differentiate ASAPP from common AI APIs available today;

[00:18:49] Agent models v. Language models and how ASAPP AI is modularized for large teams with established tech stacks;

[00:20:09] Mr. Sapoznik shares insights on selling to large enterprises and why he believes building a sales machine is equally, if not more important, than the product itself;

[00:23:08] How to recruit and retain top AI talent;

[00:27:42] Lessons learned from working with notable board members, including the three key dimensions of support from a good board: being a sounding board, providing tactical advice and connections, and instilling a sense of accountability and motivation;