The Exchanges

Q So how do you build your agents? Like you're using NADN, using Make, Zapier, like, cause there's a lot of these different platforms out there. And I feel like they all do the same, but I could be wrong.

A Our team grew up on the Microsoft C-sharp background. And so they're in that world, that Microsoft world, and they're building these agents on top of those frameworks. So the agent SDKs that Microsoft produces, uh, and allows, and a lot of it is being built. From the, from the ground up using those baselines that Microsoft provides. A key part of what we do is we integrate into the Microsoft Office platforms in the Microsoft M. Three six five platforms, because that's where, let's take a law firm, they want to operate. So we have a very Microsoft centric engineering approach to, to building these agents and deploying them as well. Um, what's been interesting with that is, you know, We see Microsoft's co-pilot out there. We also see a huge use of, uh, Claude, legal specific tools like Legora and Harvey, some of these big names that are out there as well. So while the actual core capabilities are being built with the Microsoft frameworks and the SDKs in the background there, obviously MCP is the thing that's, you know, putting that out there and making this accessible to everything else.

AI assessment note: “building these agents on top of those frameworks. So the agent SDKs that Microsoft produces”

Q So What was a typical cycle for the start to finish of one of these processes where it was human to human, where now, like to now?

A So back in the day, and this is still today, but back in the day, a system like Sapariba would produce an Excel spreadsheet That Excel spreadsheet would be sent to another, to the, the selling human to complete that and then send back. And depending on the complexity of that RFP that's received by the seller, it could take anything from two weeks to six months for the seller to complete that RFP. Again, depending on, on complexity, typically three to four weeks, uh, of cycle time there. In a energetic world, that process happens straight from the sell, from the buying platform to the selling platform. Selling, the selling platform does a bid no bid. Like, do we really want to do this? Is this in our wheelhouse to do it? Have we won this before? Qualifies in or out. It qualifies in, goes ahead and answers majority of the baseline questions. Now it can, moves past the first gate. Now we're into the high value discussions. Around the more kind of strategic elements of that, of that RFP.

AI assessment note: “typically three to four weeks, uh, of cycle time there.”

Q And I feel like the smaller companies are going to be the ones that get into agentic work much faster than the enterprise. So how do they work backwards with people that aren't there yet? Because if you say, oh, my agent will take care of it. And they're like, what's an agent?

A I think, I think the enterprise customers know what an agent is. They're, they're familiar with the concepts and the principles around, around agents. Um, And I actually think it's a better time than ever for smaller companies to be selling into the enterprise with agents, because if those agents can tackle one discrete problem and do it incredibly well, that frees up the humans to do other things, there's a real opportunity to do that. In fact, we've seen that in our industry where we're, we're kind of midsize. We've got these agentic startups coming in, And they're not focusing on everything. They're just focused on this one specific problem that the agents can solve incredibly well, and the enterprises are engaging with them and buying into, into that, uh, that approach.

AI assessment note: “I think the enterprise customers know what an agent is.”

Q And how long does that stage take? Cause it seems like the base layer should be fairly simple if both agents already have the vast majority of the knowledge they need to be able to generate and respond.

A Well, the, the first step of like the basic bid, no bid, and then answer the questions, that's going to be days, hours. Um, the real long pole in the tent there will be the human just validating that and signing off on it before it goes back in. Because that step's still going to be important for a little while until everyone trusts that the agents are going to get it right. But that could be within a day that you've passed that first gate. The second gate where it's more of the strategic stuff that may still take some time, but at least, you know, you're working on the good stuff as the seller and not just, uh, you know, you got this RFP now you need to respond to it.

AI assessment note: “that's going to be days, hours”

Q To be so large that they need, they need months or years to figure out if they want to buy something? Well,

A My example of a month to a year is something like, hey, we're RFP-ing for you to build a bridge across this huge body of water, or we need to rebuild the, you know, hangar five of big airports. So the reason it takes a year is because there's just a lot that needs to go into the planning of that, that, that RFP response. But you can imagine how expensive it is To bid on a bridge construction. And it's expensive to bid because you almost got to plan this thing quite far into it. You got to be showing pricing. You got to be showing like a draft plan on this. This is what we would do. If you can cut out the ones that you're not going to win early on in the process, you're actually saving money by focusing on bridge building that we're going to win versus just going for every bridge that we get at RFP for.

AI assessment note: “So the reason it takes a year is because there's just a lot”

Q How is all of this important for smaller companies that have a dream of serving enterprise, but have no idea what the hell they're doing yet?

A Smaller companies need to think through the strengths and weaknesses of those two entities, right? And the two entities being the agents and the humans. Because enterprise is still going to have a big human element to it, particularly in this, in this more sales type world of, of what's happening there. So what is the human strength? And we really want to drive to the forefront to free them up from the stuff that actually is the agent strength so that the agent can take care of, of those pieces. But if the thought process is just agent, It would be like the thought process being just human. Neither of those two are the complete package without each other.

AI assessment note: “Smaller companies need to think through the strengths and weaknesses of those two entities”