Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

AI product pivots must naturally extend a company's core identity

Malte Ubl · ⚡️ Ship AI recap: Agents, Workflows, and Python — w/ Vercel CTO Malte Ubl · Nov 1, 2025 · at 36:41

Malte Ubl, CTO of Vercel, discusses how Vercel navigated the post-ChatGPT AI pivot with products like v0 and the AI SDK.

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“And I think there's a lesson there to be learned for companies that haven't done the transition yet. Is that you have to do something that feels native to your company. And so the two big bets that we made early on, one being vZero and one being AISDK, I think they felt like native to Versailles in the sense that vZero was especially originally designed as a tool for making web pages. Like the full stack stuff came later when the, with the solid models. And originally it was very much a web developing tool. And AISDK was a framework for building AI apps and because we're a framework company felt really native. And I think you have to like make that You know, you have to be honest with yourself, like, what product, even if I do have to, like, change to building something else, does kind of extend naturally from what I'm doing, rather than being very, kind of, like, being something entirely different, and no one believes me that I would be the right place to buy that from.”

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