Newsletter: Block & Tackling the New AI Arena
Plus new product releases from the biggest AI companies like Brixo and Anthropic
Brixo Latest
Our product team has been very busy lately with two updates in the past week including:
New filters for analyzing cohorts of users by intent, topics and sentiment
Improved navigation and general UI improvements to make it a seamless and speedy experience
Introduced team management so you can now invite your teams to join you.
All of this is in prep for upcoming big releases - stay tuned!
What Stood Out
You’ve been kicked out of the arena, you just don’t know it yet
by Claire Vo, founder of ChatPRD.ai and host of How I AI
Claire is a super-influencer in the product/AI space. I highly recommend following her podcast.
She provides a great breakdown of the tension between AI startups and Incumbents:
Most companies are in AI denial
Your real competition is AI-native startups
Old processes signal you’re out
Can’t ship same-day? You’re cooked
Incumbents have vacated lucrative markets
Startups should steal talent & customers
Survival requires radical, uncomfortable restructuring
Sound Familiar?
What We Read/Listened/Watched
Block & Tackle: Job Cuts & the AI Narrative
A thoughtful breakdown of the real reasons behind Block’s massive layoff and what it means for future layoffs.
Anthropic’s Enterprise Agents Briefing
This is Anthropic’s latest webinar announcing new features for a variety of verticals. The sentiment on X was quick to say this was the end of SaaS, software etc, but Deutsche Bank had a different take:
“After watching Anthropic’s Enterprise Agents briefing event, we have even greater conviction that model providers are unlikely to displace software incumbents and are instead positioning themselves and their agents to be an orchestration layer on top of existing and incumbent systems” - Deutsche Bank
Garry Tan, President & CEO of Y-Combinator
“the new skill is not “code faster.” It’s taste, direction, and leadership.”
series A has become a slaughterhouse
Auren Hoffman, GP @ FlexCapital and Former CEO of Liveramp on the trends happening between seed and Series A.
Final Brick
I find myself enjoying content like this more because it’s a reminder to stay grounded and focus on building a great product.
You wouldn’t blame anyone for not entering the water bottle market but people do, and new winners emerge.
Wait… are you seriously telling me my Hydro Flask isn’t the trendiest water bottle anymore? 😭