Is OpenAI following Amazon's playbook?
Getting the Basics right
Amazon has a very simple playbook - look at the hottest selling product in its marketplace, clone it and launch a much cheaper version of it under its AmazonBasics brand (expectedly, AmazonBasics is more than $20Bn business).
What’s up with OpenAI?
OpenAI just showed its demo in Japan and what’s interesting is the demo of their AI sales agent which literally does what 90% of AI SDRs are trying to do
collect leads
Get info about these leads
Activates a bunch of tasks/agents: right from lead enrichment to calendar availability to sending emails*
That is, a vertical agent doing what 90% of sales tech startups are trying to do, right?
Imagine this for all sorts of ‘Digital Worker’ economy.
OpenAI might be going after the Digital Workers economy and that reminds me of Sam’s candid take on ChatGPT wrappers:
OpenAI might (and will) steamroll startups
..if a startup is focused solely on addressing specific limitations in OpenAI’s current models, these solutions may soon become irrelevant as models improve: Sam Altman
Altman advises startups to align with OpenAI's direction of advancing capabilities rather than betting against it. Instead of creating products that patch short-term gaps, he suggests that founders focus on areas where they can benefit from OpenAI’s advancements, building products that gain value as models become more capable.
In 2025, the big question is - what is it that OpenAI won’t do? Is there even a ‘limitation’?
Most importantly, OpenAI exactly knows what kind of products are successfully built (on its APIs) and given that the company has a revenue pressure - why not clone the successful / sticky ideas and sell directly to enterprises?
What’s your take? How will you safeguard your AI agentic SAAS business against OpenAI (and the likes)?
*The full video: