Email will be dead by 2015 – Bill Gates/Mark Zuckerberg and everyone has declared it since 2009. EV’s will kill every ICE engine and by 2030 all cars will be EV. While many other technologies have been transformed, this kind of hyperbole sells well.
This is 101 of attention – and I used the same to catch your’s!
Hyperbole and extreme predictions sell. But they rarely work in real life and even when the transformation is happening, it usually takes longer than predicted. The factual reality is that no one really knows how long a particular transformation will take place. Including me.
I will also admit – there are other forms of feedback and intelligence tapping that will become mainstream – think interviews/conversations at scale for discovery. However, this kind of transformation (like EV, Email->Instant Messaging) et al – all take time and more often than not it’s NOT a zero sum game.
New mediums expand the total scope. The total volume of email is still larger every year today, but other mediums like WhatsApp, Slack have expanded the total communication volume. Similarly in Research, Customer Experience, User Experience and Employee Experience – capturing feedback and processing them will expand in scope and will allow for multiple mediums / models.
My opinion is that this transformation will take time and adjustments to the whole eco-system that has been built over 40+ years. We will be part of this transformation and support both sides; continue developing and building upon our core Survey platform + invest in new innovation and ideas that AI allows for.
Uber, Yelp, Google, Netflix – all of them have one thing in common – they still use a user generated rating system for top-level metrics. At scale qualitative models work well for validating and conforming hypotheses. However for discovery of new ideas – qualitative research – anecdotally or at scale can help with expansion of hypothesis or discovery of new ideas. This is why we have invested in our Qual & UX Platform also – because they serve different purposes.
We also understand that the world of AI has changed how we think and execute. We are not oblivious to that. It’s all about tools that integrate well with workflows. Workflows being the operative word – instead of simply tools. A good example of this is a workflow we co/developed with one of our clients – First Party Data / Surveys for PR.
We co/developed an AI Agent that will;
– Every day – look at all the headlines and news articles around a topic area (Politics, Entertainment/Gossip et al.)
– Pick the 5-10 stories that match some criteria – (Eg. Gossip -> Divorce – “Who do you side with?”)
– Real-time design and publish a survey to capture opinions/feedback about each of the stories
– Publish the survey and collect responses (gen-pop)
– Draft a story around each of the surveys / first party data that was collected.
Now – normally without AI this would be a headcount. This would need someone to do the research on a daily basis, run the survey and then create the story around this. With an AI Agent – we can compress this workflow to under 20 mins – so our marketing team can simply review the final output and make a judgement on which of the 10 stories we should publish daily – instead of creating 10 stories a day.
Workflow AI Engineers
We are now offering our Workflow AI Engineers to our customers at scale also.
No – this is not free. We have to feed our kids too! (and ride Motorcycles and Rickshaws 😉
We have however standardized our solution models into 3 simplified buckets ;
a) Simple – AI Workflows that are relatively simple & easy to implement – think 2-5 hours of work. (~25K)
b) Medium Complexity – Workflows that take 10-20 hours – to complete. (~60K)
c) Multiple/User Decision – Complex – Workflows that not only take more time but also reasonably complex & nuanced decision criteria. (~100K+)
Our AI Product & Engineering team will look at your current workflow and obviously they know our systems (MCP, AI Agents that we already have) and recommend an automation / solution that can trim out time by a factor of 10x at least.
My opinion is that – if we can’t get 10x acceleration – then it’s not worth investing AI into a workflow.
Wait – is this a sales email / pitch?
Yes. Kinda – but you actually don’t need to use our services even for workflow automation. We have already released all our tools via Headless / MCP / API formats. This means you design your own AI / Workflow automations using Claude, Gemini & ChatGPT Agents if you want.
Nothing is preventing you from doing the exact same thing we are suggesting – but if you want us to work on automating your workflows – we need to get compensated for the time our AI engineers are investing.
You can direct your own AI / Automation / Technical folks to questionpro.com/headless for MCP support for AI Agents. We are helping clients who do not have the internal resources to do this AI Workflow enablement and operationalize AI into their workflows.
We are also limiting this to clients who have been with us for 3+ years or have a 3 year contract with us. TBH we also have to focus on clients and partners who have invested and believe in us! A partnership is a partnership – which is bi-directional.
The World is Changing – Take some steps
I started this email with the hyperbole of “death” – but I also believe that companies that operate the exact same way we operated last year are not taking advantage of the opportunities around us. The world indeed is changing rapidly and I will also admit – it’s choppy out there. Every 6 months a new concept is out – that supercedes the previous idea!
Anyone who tells you that they can see the future is obviously bullshitting and has a vested interest. I am laying the groundwork for agility.
Agility is the core capacity to change – given new circumstances and opportunities.
Focus on Customers & Employees
At QuestionPro – I’ve always been focused on Customers first and then Employees. Not Investors. We are NOT Private Equity Owned / Backed and we don’t have Debt / Artificial deadlines for valuation. So investors don’t even factor into the equation for our decision making. We are 100% founder / employee owned and we are proud of that.
TBH – the fact that I don’t have to worry about debt, valuation and investors – allows me to sleep at night. I am already worried about customers and employees – I don’t need more brain aneurysms!
This creates a culture of focusing on our customers first and then making sure employees are taken care of. This comes naturally – cause this is what we actually believe in.
Yes – this position also hurts us many times. We don’t have the capital to make big investments – and do splashy marketing investments like paying or Barack/Michelle Obama at our conferences. (Yes – I did look into that – but chickened out after getting a 650K-900K price tag) – But we are still doing what we think is the best for both us and our customers within our prudent budget. Some examples include;
- Hosting a Research Agency CEO / Roundtable at XDay Austin for leaders of research agencies to think / share / talk about AI and Operations.
- Workshops along with our conference for actual hands on learning for Customer Journeys, AI in Research Flows et al.
- Embedded Learning & Certifications for all our tools.
We think all these ideas help you in your own business and not focus on extracting a dollar out of you cause my PE overlords want to upgrade from the G650 to the G800!
Good Times!
PS: Here is a great writeup on “Email is Dead” meme;
