{"id":460,"date":"2025-05-09T20:09:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T20:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hamanship.com\/?p=460"},"modified":"2025-06-02T15:41:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T15:41:29","slug":"the-ai-messaging-pivot-happening-across-saas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hamanship.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/09\/the-ai-messaging-pivot-happening-across-saas\/","title":{"rendered":"The AI messaging pivot happening across SaaS"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow <\/strong>– read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.<\/em><\/p>\n In 2023, we saw a surge of SaaS brands adding anything \u201cAI-powered\u201d or \u201cAI-driven\u201d into their website headlines. A quick use of Wayback Machine for the top 100 SaaS brands will show you just how pervasive it was.<\/p>\n The optics were that if AI wasn\u2019t integral to your roadmap and marketing, you were losing relevance.<\/p>\n Many venture capital firms shifted their investments almost entirely into AI startups.<\/p>\n As this flood of AI messaging hit, a lot of people quickly became numb to it.<\/p>\n Now in 2025, AI promises have simply become baseline expectations. Describing your product as \u201cAI-powered\u201d is like saying it\u2019s internet-connected in 2005. It\u2019s expected, not a value add.<\/p>\n With this expectation, we\u2019re now seeing companies ditching AI messaging in their website headers.<\/p>\n Companies are testing, and the results are showing. We see brands, such as Notion, testing the impact of:<\/p>\n In the test example below, AI messaging in the sub-header won out over having it in the header.<\/p>\n They kept the focus on the core value proposition of helping teams write, plan and collaborate to create better workspaces, while still having the AI inclusion.<\/p>\n This trend of AI reinforcing and amplifying the core UVP (unique value proposition) is gaining momentum.<\/p>\n We see this shift towards having no AI in the hero header (but including it in the sub-header) across dozens of top SaaS brands: Klaviyo, Monday, Freshworks, MongoDB, Snowflake, Braze, Cloudflare, GitLab, ActiveCampaign and countless others.<\/p>\n For example, here is how Freshworks positions it:<\/p>\n In a market where almost every product claims to have AI, differentiation can\u2019t come from the tech itself. It has to come from the outcome<\/em>, the problem you solve<\/em>, and the clarity of your message<\/em>.<\/p>\n If you’re building or marketing an AI product, use this simple 3-step framework to test and refine your positioning:<\/p>\n 1. Start with the pain (what\u2019s broken?) For example: \u201cSellers spend 40% of their time manually triaging email.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n 2. Move to the outcome (what improves?) For example: \u201cOur users reclaim 4+ hours per week and use it to close deals.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n 3. Then show how AI enables the outcome Bad: \u201cWe use AI to streamline sales workflows.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Better: \u201cOur AI automatically categorizes, prioritizes, and drafts replies \u2013 so reps can focus on revenue.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A quick cheatsheet for better AI messaging:<\/strong><\/p>\n Leading with \u201cAI-powered\u201d used to signal innovation. Now, it risks blending you into the noise. Companies are putting product value back at the center and letting AI show up only when it adds clarity to that story.<\/p>\n
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3-step AI messaging differentiation framework<\/h3>\n
\n<\/strong>Don\u2019t lead with tech. Lead with the real problem your buyer is facing. Make it visceral, specific, and urgent.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Next, show what your product actually helps people achieve.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Now that the user cares<\/em>, you can explain how AI helps make that happen. But avoid buzzwords, make it visual and concrete.<\/p>\n\n
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