At SaaStr Annual’s AI Summit, we asked product leaders from some of the fastest-growing SaaS companies to share their insights on navigating the AI revolution while scaling multi-product strategies. This all-star panel of B2B product leaders featured:
- Anneka Gupta, CPO at Rubrik
- Mahesh Ram, Head of AI Product at Zoom
- Hubert Palan, CEO at Productboard, and
- Rachel Wolan, CPO at Webflow.
Here are the key takeaways from their discussion on building AI products and future-proofing existing ones:
Don’t Confuse “AI-First” with “AI-Only”
One of the strongest themes that emerged was the importance of building strong foundational workflows before layering on AI capabilities. As Hubert Palan, CEO at Productboard emphasized, “Don’t confuse AI-first with AI-only. We saw a lot of people making a mistake where they’re just building a ton of use cases kind of haphazardly. Be very thoughtful about building a sustainable business around the AI capabilities that you’re building versus just building something that is a feature but is very difficult to sustain in the long term.”
The panel agreed that successful AI implementation requires:
- A clear understanding of your core value proposition
- Existing workflows that can be enhanced with AI
- Strong underlying systems that AI can plug into
Quality Over Speed in AI Implementation
Mahesh Ram shared how Zoom approached their AI transformation under CEO Eric Yuan’s leadership: “He said, ‘I don’t care what it costs – if you deliver the highest quality with the best user experience, I will take care of the cost problem for you.'” This focus on quality over quick implementation has helped Zoom successfully integrate AI across 12 different products.
Mahesh also stressed the importance of form over function: “Think about the workflows you’re intercepting with your AI. Don’t think about the AI itself. If there are 19 steps to doing something in the world today, and you as a founder can use AI to turn 19 into 4 and save people time and money, that’s what you should focus on with your AI.”
Rethinking Product Interaction Models
Anneka Gupta from Rubrik offered a compelling vision for the future of enterprise SaaS: “ AI for us is not a separate product. It’s embedded in all of the products that we have.”
Rubrik’s AI is helping its customers respond more confidently and quickly to cyber events and figure out what’s the best next step to take. The biggest challenge in all of that has been around quality. People are not going to want to take recommendations around security and what’s happening within their data infrastructure from an AI agent unless they’re confident that what’s being told to them is going to help make their environment better and not worse. So there’s a lot of risk associated with engaging AI and using it.
The panel agreed that AI-powered SaaS applications will enable:
- More personalized workflows
- Natural language interfaces replacing traditional dashboards
- Automated synthesis of information across products
Strategic Considerations for AI Implementation
For companies looking to integrate AI into their products, the panel offered several strategic considerations:
1. Focus on Core Value: Productboard chose to prioritize AI features that enhanced their core value proposition of connecting customer insights to roadmap decisions, rather than building general AI capabilities.
2. Risk Management: For companies like Rubrik working in sensitive areas like cybersecurity, ensuring AI recommendations are highly accurate and safe is crucial.
3. Pricing Strategy: Consider whether AI features should be packaged as part of existing products or as separate offerings, based on how value scales with usage.
The Future of AI in Enterprise Software
Looking ahead, the panel highlighted several emerging trends:
– Local AI: The rise of AI PC and edge computing will enable new use cases, particularly in security-sensitive contexts
– Personal AI Assistants: The convergence of work and personal AI assistants
– Digital Avatars: The potential for AI representations of ourselves to handle routine tasks
The focus should be on solving real problems and dramatically improving existing processes, with AI as the enabler rather than the end goal.
Key Takeaways
The discussion highlighted how AI is not just another feature but a fundamental shift in how software products are built and consumed. As companies navigate this transition, success will come from maintaining a strong focus on core value propositions while thoughtfully integrating AI capabilities that enhance the user experience.
The message was clear: we’re moving beyond the era of AI simply making us more efficient, into one where AI delivers explicit customer value that can be packaged and monetized in new ways. For SaaS companies, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity to reimagine their products for the AI age.
