Glitzy new artificial intelligence startups are popping up everywhere, and they’ve taken a bulk of venture capital checks written over the last year and a half.
But it’s not just early-stage startups that are building the latest AI products. Seasoned tech companies, especially those in the Southeast, may have made their name in a specific tech vertical, but they are now major players in AI innovation.
Take Salesloft for example. The company made a name for being hyper focused on the sales world. But the reality is that Salesloft has been an AI-focused company for the last seven years. The Atlanta-based team filed its first AI patent back in 2017.
The sales automation platform, which reached a $2.3 billion valuation in 2021, launched its Conductor AI earlier this year as a tool to help sales teams streamline the prospecting and deal closing process and Rhythm in 2023 that helps tailor a better end-customer buying experience.
Frank Dale, Salesloft’s EVP of Product, told Hypepotamus that the company’s focus with AI is important for the ever-evolving sales world.
“We’re hired to help salespeople be more productive,” Dale told Hypepotamus. Today, that often means helping salespeople keep track of upwards of 40 deals at a time by recommending next step activities, keeping up with follow up notes, and spend less time on administrative tasks.
AI In Your Inbox & In The Cloud
AI has impacted most tech industries in one way or another. That is particularly true for those working in cloud computing, John Gleeson COO of Atlanta-based Storj, said, where a whole new industry based on a new hardware solution stack has spun out of the AI boom
“Cloud providers and private data centers alike scrambled to gain access to massive numbers of high end GPUs with demand far outstripping supply. Small to midsize entrants into the space face supply chain challenges driven by huge purchases by the largest players in the space,” he told Hypepotamus. “Supply chain constraints and the high cost of HPC infrastructure have driven a need to keep expensive infrastructure working almost constantly to achieve the required ROI. A new industry of distributed compute marketplace providers has emerged to service AI customers for access to high end GPUs for model generation and inference on an OpEx vs. CapEx acquisition model. These providers can accelerate time to value for those in need of GPU resources, but those customers also need to be able to quickly and efficiently move training or inference data to those compute resources.”
Gleeson said that Storj was an early innovator in machine learning, and is now “uniquely well positioned” as AI takes over because of the foundations it laid with its security model and economical cost.
“AI has had an impact on Storj’s business and how we think about our offerings. While early traction and strong growth have come from both the backup and media & entertainment solution spaces, AI is emerging as a third area of rapid growth. We’re especially excited by the convergence of AI and M&E for video production. We’ve made significant investments in partner integrations like the integration with Valdi and also other tools like Replit.com to capitalize on the rapid growth in the space.”
Other Atlanta-based giants are also focused on developing more AI tools for their current user base.
Mailchimp’s name is synonymous with emails and as the most successful bootstrapped companies in Atlanta tech history. But now as a full-scale marketing suite, the Atlanta giant is rolling out AI automation tools.
That includes the recent announcement of its new revenue intelligence technology, which helps marketers find untapped revenue streams by “pinpointing potential customers ready to convert.”
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Featured photo provided by Mailchimp
