How to Build an AI-Enabled Service Company
Copilots will often be subsumed into existing software. Better to build a law firm or financial services firm from scratch, employing artificial intelligence at every step.
Roddy Lindsay (@RoddyLindsay) is the founder and CEO of Zabit, an AI-enabled health services startup.
In a blog post last year, Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg surmised that there are three large opportunities for founders in the artificial intelligence era, including “copilot for services.” Services are an attractive category, Rosenberg reasoned, because AI can help frontline service professionals—such as wealth managers, insurance brokers and mortgage brokers—more efficiently build and maintain relationships with their clients.
As an entrepreneur, I share Rosenberg’s view that the market for services represents one of the most compelling opportunities for AI-driven disruption. But startups building and selling copilots, or AI assistants, as stand-alone software offerings will rarely succeed. More often, copilots will become features incorporated into existing software from giants like Microsoft, get co-opted by offerings from foundation model developers or won’t align with the industry’s business models.