Building surface-level AI chatbots and copilots will not drive extra software subscriptions
Matt MacInnis · No Priors Ep. 83 | With Rippling COO Matt MacInnis · Sep 25, 2024 · at 22:46
Rippling COO Matt MacInnis explains why Rippling prioritized deeper AI capabilities like TalentSignal over superficial chatbots and copilots.
0:00 / 0:11exact quote · 12.0s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We didn't build a chatbot. We didn't build a co-pilot. We didn't build any of these surface level obvious capabilities. We're gonna build them. They'll be in there at some point. Who cares? It's not gonna sell a single extra subscription of software.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Matt MacInnis
Tech companies pivoted to AI because their existing product roadmaps sucked
“What I would say about other companies that are doing AI products is that for the longest time, their roadmap sucked. They didn't know what their next proximal feature was going to be that was going to generate revenue. They didn't have another skew idea with …”
Rippling introduces TalentSignal, an AI tool that evaluates employee performance
“There's a new product that we're just releasing called talent signal. It's the ability of this system to read the work product of employees and like marry the data that we have. On whom you've hired into your company at what job level with what, you know, all …”
Rippling's TalentSignal evaluates performance from work product, ignoring demographic data
“And so, TalentSignal, by reasoning from the work product only, Like it doesn't have access to demographic data. It doesn't know your race, ethnicity, you know, your age, your work location. It just knows this is the source code you wrote, or these are the cust…”
TalentSignal is the first independent, factual input for corporate performance reviews
“You just imagine this is the first time in kind of the recent history of the concept of performance management in companies where there is an orthogonal input that can really upset with facts how people are doing this.”
Issuing a dividend is a terrible signal that a company lacks ideas
“And, like, even worse is a dividend, because, like, now I can't even do that. I'm just gonna, like, literally just gonna give it. I don't know what to do with this money. I'm just gonna give it back to you. Like, what would I do with this money? There's like s…”
Rippling plans an AWS moment next quarter by commercializing its data platform
“There is some new stuff coming from the company that's not directly AI related, but is about really scaled data, like super high scale data. We've already built this like really beautiful data platform underneath Rippling. It's kind of like our AWS, like we're…”