In this episode of the Presales Podcast, Jack Cochran and Matthew James sit down with Dean Shu, CEO and co-founder of Arphie, to explore the evolving landscape of AI in presales. From his experience at Scale AI to founding Arphie, Dean shares insights on how AI agents are transforming the industry while emphasizing the irreplaceable nature of human expertise in presales roles.

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Listen to the full episode now!

The Evolution of Presales Leadership

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The conversation begins with a deep dive into the current challenges facing presales leaders. Dean highlights the critical need for presales teams to elevate their position within organizations, moving beyond traditional support roles to become strategic partners. This evolution requires stronger partnerships with other functions like product, marketing, and customer success, as well as greater executive-level presence.

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"There's this strong desire for sales engineering teams, SE leadership to have a stronger voice and partnership with all the different functions, whether it's products, marketing, customer success, of course, sales," Dean explains. "What we're starting to hear a lot, and I think there's a lot of consensus around, is that there's this need for sales engineering to have a much stronger voice in presence at the executive level."

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Understanding AI Agents

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Dean provides a comprehensive breakdown of AI concepts using an innovative car navigation analogy that makes complex technology accessible:

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• Large language models function like cloud-connected GPS systems with extensive coverage but slower processing. They contain comprehensive information but require more time to process and deliver results, similar to downloading detailed map data.
• Small language models operate like offline maps - faster but more limited in scope. They excel at specific, localized tasks and can provide quick responses within their defined parameters.
• Generative AI adapts to circumstances like a navigation system creating new routes based on real-time conditions. As Dean explains, "It doesn't retrieve sort of old data; it creates something new using patterns that it's learned."
• AI agents function like an autonomous chauffeur, handling multiple tasks independently. "Think of a Generative AI as a self-driving chauffeur that not only navigates but also predicts weather conditions, can help refuel the car when needed, even books a hotel if your trip is long," Dean illustrates.

The Future of Presales and AI

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A key theme throughout the discussion is the relationship between AI and presales professionals. Dean strongly emphasizes that AI won't replace SE teams anytime soon, pointing to Salesforce's recent move to hire 1,000 go-to-market professionals alongside their AI investments as evidence that AI and human expertise go hand in hand.

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"My personal strong belief is that at least when it relates to SE functions, AI won't replace SE teams and leaders anytime soon," Dean states firmly. "Teams that advertise AI as a teammate are misguided at best, predatory at worst."

Evaluating AI Solutions

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For teams looking to adopt AI solutions, Dean outlines three crucial criteria:

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1. Request a demo on the first call to verify the product's reality. "I would highly encourage you to push for at least a short five-minute demo on that first call to understand if it's a real product," Dean advises, noting that many solutions in the market are still in prototype phase.
2. Look for proof points from similar companies and industries. This includes verifying successful implementations in organizations of similar size and complexity to ensure the solution can handle your specific use cases.
3. Verify security practices, including SOC 2 certification and Zero Data Retention (ZDR) agreements. As Dean emphasizes, "The questions that people should be asking here is, do they have things like ZDR agreements? Can you ensure that the data you're providing to these platforms aren't being used for model training?"

Getting Started with AI in Presales

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The episode concludes with practical advice for presales teams beginning their AI journey, emphasizing the importance of:

• Aligning AI exploration with team goals by conducting a "clean sheet exercise" to understand where people are spending their time and identifying opportunities for automation
• Creating dedicated time for sharing AI findings and best practices across the team
• Starting with administrative task automation to build confidence and demonstrate value
• Running focused proofs of concept with clear success metrics, as Dean suggests: "Run a pretty tightly scoped POC... give them all the same input and the same output data"

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"Not all AI is created equal," Dean reminds listeners. "AI is not just a checkbox of a platform has AI or doesn't have AI. Ultimately, how you save time is the quality of the AI, such that it will save the team time."

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Presales LIVE airs every other Tuesday at 8 AM Pacific, 11 AM Eastern, 4 PM GMT. Episodes of the Presales Podcast are available the following Monday. Join the Presales Collective Slack community at presalescollective.com/slack to stay updated on future episodes and community initiatives.

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