Discover More for Less: How AI Transforms Business Opportunity Discovery
Beyond Automation: AI as a Catalyst for New Opportunities
When I take a broad view of what GenAI has proven to be effective at in software products, I identify three macro areas:
Task automation: AI helps workers automate tasks either totally or partially. It’s the copilot or agent model (e.g., copilot for doctors, lawyers, developers…).
Content production: Another proven use case for GenAI is content production. Whether it's text, videos, or pictures, GenAI is good at generating various types of content such as articles, ads, sales pitches, presentations, social media posts etc.
Discovery and research: LLMs excel at analyzing large volumes of data to unearth interesting insights or patterns that might otherwise be missed by the user.
Currently, most GenAI-first products I see focus on one of these components. They will do mostly task automation or content production or search. However, what is interesting is that I increasingly see products that combine these three components together to create a compelling use case: lowering the costs of discovering new opportunities. Essentially, with these applications, individuals or businesses can uncover new opportunities - whether to generate additional revenue, save money, or else - that would have been difficult to identify without AI.
It might not be so clear, so let me illustrate what I mean with a couple of examples.
Pitch: “Sell stuff faster using AI. Hero helps you identify, price, and list items for sale in seconds.”
Product: Using your mobile phone, simply show the items you wish to sell, such as a pair of sneakers, and the mobile app will automatically recognize the items and provide a selling price. It will even create the listings and publish them on major second-hand marketplaces automatically.
Lowering Opportunity Discovery Cost: Manually searching for the prices of items you own and want to sell is very time-consuming. And this cumbersome process likely deters many people from doing it.
Aidy:
Pitch: “Aidy uses AI to make it easier to apply for the $1T of grants awarded in the U.S. each year. Applying for grants is expensive and time consuming, but many startups and nonprofits rely heavily on grant funding to survive.”
Product: First you need provide information about your business and upload various documents. Then the software will inform you whether you are eligible for grants and identify which ones you can apply for. It also assists you in the application process for these grants.
Lowering Opportunity Discovery Cost: Whether in Europe or the US, many businesses probably aren't even aware that they could receive grants. This is why it makes sense to also reduce the costs of discovering such financing opportunities.
Pitch: “Stop losing money to chargebacks. We identify and dispute erroneous chargebacks for you, saving you time and earning you money.”
Product: The retailer initially connects all sources of payment data, and then the platform will flag disputable chargebacks and automatically create dispute cases for the user.
Lowering Opportunity Cost: Interestingly, the opportunities here do not involve generating extra revenue but rather saving money. Identifying disputable chargebacks and initiating the dispute process can be costly, mostly in terms of time and expertise. AI can dramatically reduce these costs.
Broader Applications: This model can be applied in many other fields. For instance, it can help restaurant owners reduce order disputes on food delivery platforms.
Pitch: “Win more public tenders, finally. With Tengo, identify, qualify and respond to all relevant public tenders in one platform - powered by AI.”
Product: After you describe your business and the products you sell, the platform will monitor all newly published public tenders and notify you about those you are eligible to apply for. It will also assist you in creating the bids.
Lowering Opportunity Cost: Similar to grants, finding and responding to public tenders is a time-consuming process that AI can automate perfectly.
Comments
Three component-based products: An interesting observation is that, at their core, all these products follow the same approach: initially, an AI analyzes input from the user. It then monitors various sources to identify relevant opportunities. Finally, most of these products automate not only the discovery but also the execution aspect.
Lowering the cost of discovering new opportunities: As briefly mentioned above, the main value proposition of these products is to reduce the costs—time, money, and expertise—of discovering business opportunities. Discovering these opportunities, whether for revenue generation or cost-saving, is usually time-consuming. Automating this process with AI makes perfect sense.
Widening existing markets: A secondary effect is that these tools not only reduce the time spent by those already engaged in these activities but also enable businesses that are not doing it (because of a lack of resources or knowledge) to now do it. It basically increases market access, which is always an interesting value prop in B2B land.
I’d be super happy to hear your thoughts on this and also to learn about any startups using this approach that I might not be aware of.