Tarun Thummala, founder of AI engineering agency PressW, describes how enterprise customer procurement matured after the initial generative AI hype cycle.
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“In the last year, people are now sharpening up their budgets. They're sharpening their pencils, and they're like, okay, we know AI is effective. We know it's a hundred percent going to be transformative. How? Like, what are the specific workflows, outcomes, ROI, KPIs that we can look at and how can we justify this price tag for this implementation?”
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Insight
Traditional SaaS playbook fails for AI without professional services, says Thummala
“The typical way that SaaS-type businesses, like software-style businesses, were built, scaled, and sold in the past 10 years was not going to be the same formula that was going to work in this new age because AI requires a ton more professional services, almos…”
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Thummala: AI flipped coding to 80% review and cut raw time 10x
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PredictionNot checkable as stated
AI will soon run PressW projects from sales to completion autonomously
“Technically speaking, I think we are approaching the point where our business could go from one sales call to a finished project. With very, very little human in the loop, basically just prompting a nudge.”
Tarun ThummalaJan 12, 2026▶ 39:34#2293 $2 million / year AI engineering firm
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Thummala: Businesses will eventually run hundreds of AI agents internally
“Today, most businesses have zero or one agent or AI integrated into their business.
If that in the future, I'm sure that they're going to have hundreds of agents running within their business, and that unlocks an entirely new class of problems.”
Tarun ThummalaJan 12, 2026▶ 35:21#2293 $2 million / year AI engineering firm
Insight
Clients buy business outcomes, not custom code or Zapier, says Thummala
“Who really cares about what it's made in or if it's custom or if it's Zapier, like the thing that you're, should be buying is the outcome for the business.”
Tarun ThummalaJan 12, 2026▶ 24:52#2293 $2 million / year AI engineering firm
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Internal AI coding workflows will eventually commoditize across all firms, says Thummala
“Eventually everyone's going to have the same sort of, like, technical architecture behind it.”
Tarun ThummalaJan 12, 2026▶ 32:48#2293 $2 million / year AI engineering firm
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