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The job of so-called \u201csolutions professionals\u201d \u2014 people like sales engineers, solutions architects and consultants \u2014 revolves around pitching complex enterprise tech to potential customers. It\u2019s important work. But despite this being the case, rarely are solutions teams adequately staffed and resourced, according to entrepreneur Dan Chen.<\/p>\n
\u201cSolutions teams <\/span>bring technical credibility to the selling motion and help the customer understand exactly what they\u2019re buying and why,\u201d Chen told TechCrunch in an interview. \u201cThey\u2019re the unsung heroes of the business-to-business sales organization, yet they\u2019re consistently overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n Chen, previously a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital and the co-founder of Hero, a Salesforce support app that HR startup People.ai acquired in 2021, believes the answer lies in AI \u2014 specifically generative AI. So with his friend Michael Graczyk (with whom Chen also co-founded Hero), he created Quilt<\/a>, a platform that hosts AI assistants for solutions sales teams.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo things happened in 2022 that made Quilt possible,\u201d Chen continued. \u201cFirst, the market correction caused an abrupt 180 from \u2018grow at all costs\u2019 to \u2018do more with less\u2019 \u2026 Second, the launch of [OpenAI\u2019s] ChatGPT<\/a> in late 2022 led to an explosion of new products and services built off of publicly available pre-trained [AI] models.\u201d<\/p>\n Quilt\u2019s core products are AI-powered assistants designed to help solutions engineers with tasks like filling out requests for proposals, answering basic technical questions and prepping for demos. The assistants, Chen says, can complete security and due diligence questionnaires, field questions from reps via Slack and summarize the contents of notes, calls and research ahead of customer meetings.<\/p>\n That all sounds like pretty standard workflow automation stuff. But Chen insists that Quilt is uniquely able to incorporate engineers\u2019 technical knowledge and \u201cunderstand context.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cQuilt saves [teams] time with routine tasks so they can spend more time with customers and help win more deals,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n But what about generative AI\u2019s tendency to \u201challucinate<\/a>\u201c? It\u2019s no secret that models like ChatGPT and Microsoft\u2019s Copilot make mistakes in summarizations<\/a> \u2014 including, problematically, in meeting summaries<\/a>. In a recent piece, The Wall Street Journal cited<\/a> an instance where, for one early adopter using Copilot for meetings, Copilot invented attendees and implied that calls were about subjects that were never discussed.<\/p>\n Quilt\u2019s AI can automatically fill in forms and questionnaires, drawing on data from solutions teams and company databases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Chen asserts that Quilt is less prone to such hallucinations because its models and training procedures \u201cseparate facts that the model \u2018knows\u2019 from facts in enterprise data.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMost AI startups continue to understate hallucinations and how they can damage customer trust,\u201d he said. \u201cSales teams won\u2019t use tools that make things up and fill in details with fake information.\u201d<\/p>\n But what about how Quilt handles data? Surveys<\/a> show that many businesses are concerned about the privacy and security risks associated with generative AI. Apple, Samsung and Verizon among others have<\/a> reportedly limited internal use of tools like ChatGPT out of fears employees would expose sensitive information to them.<\/p>\n Chen says that Quilt doesn\u2019t share data across organizations and allows users to request that their account \u2014 and data \u2014 be deleted at any time.<\/p>\n Those assurances appear to have been enough to allay the concerns of investors, for what it\u2019s worth. Sequoia recently led a $2.5 million seed round in Quilt, with participation from angel investors hailing from DataDog, HubSpot, DoorDash, Asana, Eventbrite and a16z.<\/p>\n It\u2019s early days \u2014 Chen wouldn\u2019t reveal the names of any Quilt customers. But, fueled in part by the seed capital, Quilt has plans to grow its six-person team, scale up its go-to-market efforts and \u201caccelerate the development of the next solutions assistants,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the next two years, AI will be a key factor between the best-performing sales orgs and the worst,\u201d he added. \u201cFor large, complicated and often technical products, solutions teams are the backbone of the sales process.<\/p>\n Chen might have a point. In terms of sales functions broadly, there\u2019s a lot of interest in what generative AI can accomplish \u2014 and what applications it can expedite.<\/p>\n According to a 2023 survey by sales execution platform Outreach, 62% of sales orgs are already actively using generative AI for use cases like enhancing customer interactions, updating customer relationship management data and responding to requests for proposals. There\u2019s hesitancy among some \u2014 42% of respondents said that they were worried about the tech\u2019s inaccuracies. But the majority believe generative AI has the potential to boost productivity by streamlining existing tasks.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the kinds of customers Quilt is working with, we\u2019re well-positioned to be the preferred AI partner for solutions teams,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n