The “Why GenAI” problem It is now without question that GenAI is the transformative technology of our times. While the business world is grappling with policy, change management, and “general technophobia,” as this HBR article calls it, I see it as being similar to the early days of the internet. At first, it seemed like a novel technology. Then, people were scratching their heads at its application beyond academia, defense, and other niches, followed by an outpour of startups as infrastructure developed and costs reduced, a dot-com crash, and up to where we are today as a society that runs mostly digitally. All that is to say, GenAI has the footprint of a disruptive trend that will be integrated into all aspects of society. What remains to be seen is the pace at which this integration happens in various parts of our lives. A lack of this understanding is probably why we’re seeing businesses say that they’re unclear about investment priorities when it comes to GenAI: In short, despite realizing the need to increase their investments in AI, too many organizations are slow to embrace the revolution. - BCG | From Potential to Profit with GenAI So, businesses are unsure why they should be using GenAI even though they are interested in the technology.  I think that startups and teams working in this space have the opportunity to educate and evangelize the technology in a way that businesses understand the value directly. Topline and bottom line approach While considering this, I wanted to explore how businesses should be thinking about the technology: As a way to enhance customer value and add new revenue streams (top-line growth)


As a way to enhance operational efficiency and reduce costs (bottom-line growth) I think it's important to think of top-line and bottom-line growth when adopting GenAI. For businesses, it helps to be very clear on what capabilities of the technology they need to hit the specific growth area. Topline GenAI Businesses are often looking to add new lines of revenue by innovating with their products and services. If a business has customers that have these needs, then GenAI is a good fit to solve those needs and add a new source of revenue to them: Customers want to synthesize the information they create on the business’s platform
Customers want to search and find information without having to do mental gymnastics
Customers want to share their knowledge with others on the business’s platform, and they want to be creative and effective in their message.
Customers want to be less involved in doing mundane and routine tasks on the business’s platform. Some examples of topline GenAI integrations are beautifully captured by the folks at Obvious Ventures: Almost all of the products and services above have integrated GenAI to enhance the value they deliver to their customers. In doing so, these businesses seek to increase user engagement and, therefore, have a solid “why GenAI” answer. Bottomline GenAI While growing user engagement and revenue streams are always great, businesses need to sustain topline growth by thinking about their bottom line, i.e., costs. In fact, I think GenAI is most obvious for internal deployment within a business to make operations vastly more efficient and cost-effective. McKinsey agrees: We estimate that gen AI could offer savings opportunities of $1.4 trillion to $2.6 trillion across operations functions, including customer service, R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and procurement, alongside its impact on the back office.\ Plenty of research has been done on what sectors have the potential to benefit, as shown in the PWC report. However, the use cases aren’t always obvious from reading reports such as these. If you are a developer or a founder, you would want to know more about the value proposition that you can build, which you will not always find in reports like these. So, let’s talk about the use cases briefly…. Any business has these needs where GenAI will be a great fit: Saving time drafting, summarizing, and following up on internal communications (meetings, emails, posts, and chat threads)
Saving time creating documentation, Customer troubleshooting guides, etc., for knowledge management
Assisting employees in their training, learning, and development programs
Synthesizing customer feedback efficiently
Assisting in the creation of impactful marketing assets easily If you focus on these needs and the GenAI capabilities, you should be on the right path to delivering a compelling value-prop to your potential customers in the sectors mentioned above, and possibly even more. GenAI Feature - Business growth fitness summary I’m not going too in-depth with how I rate the problems and how capable GenAI is at solving them, but I think this table is useful for thinking about what problems you’d want to solve for businesses. This will help your team craft a value-proposition that businesses find immediately valuable: GenAI features

How big of a problem is it today?

How well does GenAI natively do it?

Top-line examples

Bottom-line examples



Automated summarization

Low

Very well

Publishers, Content platforms

Business reporting, Meetings, and internal communication, Knowledge Management



Creation

High

Good enough

Marketing businesses, content creation platforms

Documentation, internal communication



Synthesis of information

High

Very well

Learning, wellness&healthcare, habit trackers, personal finance apps, productivity apps

Learning and Development, Business Analytics, Research, Feedback processing



Search in natural language

Medium

Very well

Broad applicability

Learning and Development, Knowledge Management, Feedback processing, internal communication, Documentation



Automated Actions

High

Additional skills and fine-tuning to be added for each new use-case

Productivity use-cases, payments, home automation, community moderation

Customer support, Meetings, Internal communication, Incident response Takeaway So, if you are thinking about a B2B GenAI idea or are someone looking to adopt GenAI for your own business, I hope this is useful to build a mental model of where GenAI can be leveraged in your case and which specific capabilities deliver the highest ROI for you and your customers. The “Why GenAI” problem It is now without question that GenAI is the transformative technology of our times. While the business world is grappling with policy, change management, and “general technophobia,” as this HBR article calls it, I see it as being similar to the early days of the internet. At first, it seemed like a novel technology. Then, people were scratching their heads at its application beyond academia, defense, and other niches, followed by an outpour of startups as infrastructure developed and costs reduced, a dot-com crash, and up to where we are today as a society that runs mostly digitally. the this HBR article this HBR article All that is to say, GenAI has the footprint of a disruptive trend that will be integrated into all aspects of society. What remains to be seen is the pace at which this integration happens in various parts of our lives. A lack of this understanding is probably why we’re seeing businesses say that they’re unclear about investment priorities when it comes to GenAI: In short, despite realizing the need to increase their investments in AI, too many organizations are slow to embrace the revolution. - BCG | From Potential to Profit with GenAI In short, despite realizing the need to increase their investments in AI, too many organizations are slow to embrace the revolution. - BCG | From Potential to Profit with GenAI In short, despite realizing the need to increase their investments in AI, too many organizations are slow to embrace the revolution. - BCG BCG | So, businesses are unsure why they should be using GenAI even though they are interested in the technology.  I think that startups and teams working in this space have the opportunity to educate and evangelize the technology in a way that businesses understand the value directly. Topline and bottom line approach While considering this, I wanted to explore how businesses should be thinking about the technology: As a way to enhance customer value and add new revenue streams (top-line growth) As a way to enhance operational efficiency and reduce costs (bottom-line growth) As a way to enhance customer value and add new revenue streams (top-line growth) As a way to enhance customer value and add new revenue streams (top-line growth) As a way to enhance operational efficiency and reduce costs (bottom-line growth) As a way to enhance operational efficiency and reduce costs (bottom-line growth) I think it's important to think of top-line and bottom-line growth when adopting GenAI. For businesses, it helps to be very clear on what capabilities of the technology they need to hit the specific growth area. Topline GenAI Businesses are often looking to add new lines of revenue by innovating with their products and services. If a business has customers that have these needs, then GenAI is a good fit to solve those needs and add a new source of revenue to them: Customers want to synthesize the information they create on the business’s platform Customers want to search and find information without having to do mental gymnastics Customers want to share their knowledge with others on the business’s platform, and they want to be creative and effective in their message. Customers want to be less involved in doing mundane and routine tasks on the business’s platform. Customers want to synthesize the information they create on the business’s platform synthesize synthesize Customers want to search and find information without having to do mental gymnastics search search Customers want to share their knowledge with others on the business’s platform, and they want to be creative and effective in their message. creative creative Customers want to be less involved in doing mundane and routine tasks on the business’s platform. routine routine tasks Some examples of topline GenAI integrations are beautifully captured by the folks at Obvious Ventures: Almost all of the products and services above have integrated GenAI to enhance the value they deliver to their customers. In doing so, these businesses seek to increase user engagement and, therefore, have a solid “why GenAI” answer. Bottomline GenAI While growing user engagement and revenue streams are always great, businesses need to sustain topline growth by thinking about their bottom line, i.e., costs. In fact, I think GenAI is most obvious for internal deployment within a business to make operations vastly more efficient and cost-effective. McKinsey agrees: We estimate that gen AI could offer savings opportunities of $1.4 trillion to $2.6 trillion across operations functions, including customer service, R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and procurement, alongside its impact on the back office.\ We estimate that gen AI could offer savings opportunities of $1.4 trillion to $2.6 trillion across operations functions, including customer service, R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and procurement, alongside its impact on the back office .\ savings opportunities of $1.4 trillion to $2.6 trillion across operations impact on the back office Plenty of research has been done on what sectors have the potential to benefit, as shown in the PWC report. However, the use cases aren’t always obvious from reading reports such as these. If you are a developer or a founder, you would want to know more about the value proposition that you can build, which you will not always find in reports like these. So, let’s talk about the use cases briefly…. Any business has these needs where GenAI will be a great fit: Saving time drafting, summarizing, and following up on internal communications (meetings, emails, posts, and chat threads) Saving time creating documentation, Customer troubleshooting guides, etc., for knowledge management Assisting employees in their training, learning, and development programs Synthesizing customer feedback efficiently Assisting in the creation of impactful marketing assets easily Saving time drafting, summarizing, and following up on internal communications (meetings, emails, posts, and chat threads) summarizing, Saving time creating documentation, Customer troubleshooting guides, etc., for knowledge management creating Assisting employees in their training, learning, and development programs Assisting Synthesizing customer feedback efficiently Synthesizing Assisting in the creation of impactful marketing assets easily creation If you focus on these needs and the GenAI capabilities, you should be on the right path to delivering a compelling value-prop to your potential customers in the sectors mentioned above, and possibly even more. GenAI Feature - Business growth fitness summary I’m not going too in-depth with how I rate the problems and how capable GenAI is at solving them, but I think this table is useful for thinking about what problems you’d want to solve for businesses. This will help your team craft a value-proposition that businesses find immediately valuable: GenAI features

How big of a problem is it today?

How well does GenAI natively do it?

Top-line examples

Bottom-line examples



Automated summarization

Low

Very well

Publishers, Content platforms

Business reporting, Meetings, and internal communication, Knowledge Management



Creation

High

Good enough

Marketing businesses, content creation platforms

Documentation, internal communication



Synthesis of information

High

Very well

Learning, wellness&healthcare, habit trackers, personal finance apps, productivity apps

Learning and Development, Business Analytics, Research, Feedback processing



Search in natural language

Medium

Very well

Broad applicability

Learning and Development, Knowledge Management, Feedback processing, internal communication, Documentation



Automated Actions

High

Additional skills and fine-tuning to be added for each new use-case

Productivity use-cases, payments, home automation, community moderation

Customer support, Meetings, Internal communication, Incident response GenAI features

How big of a problem is it today?

How well does GenAI natively do it?

Top-line examples

Bottom-line examples Automated summarization

Low

Very well

Publishers, Content platforms

Business reporting, Meetings, and internal communication, Knowledge Management Creation

High

Good enough

Marketing businesses, content creation platforms

Documentation, internal communication Synthesis of information

High

Very well

Learning, wellness&healthcare, habit trackers, personal finance apps, productivity apps

Learning and Development, Business Analytics, Research, Feedback processing Search in natural language

Medium

Very well

Broad applicability

Learning and Development, Knowledge Management, Feedback processing, internal communication, Documentation Automated Actions

High

Additional skills and fine-tuning to be added for each new use-case

Productivity use-cases, payments, home automation, community moderation

Customer support, Meetings, Internal communication, Incident response GenAI features How big of a problem is it today? How well does GenAI natively do it? Top-line examples Bottom-line examples GenAI features GenAI features GenAI features How big of a problem is it today? How big of a problem is it today? How big of a problem is it today? How well does GenAI natively do it? How well does GenAI natively do it? How well does GenAI natively do it? Top-line examples Top-line examples Top-line examples Bottom-line examples Bottom-line examples Bottom-line examples Automated summarization Low Very well Publishers, Content platforms Business reporting, Meetings, and internal communication, Knowledge Management Automated summarization Automated summarization Automated summarization Low Low Very well Very well Publishers, Content platforms Publishers, Content platforms Business reporting, Meetings, and internal communication, Knowledge Management Business reporting, Meetings, and internal communication, Knowledge Management Creation High Good enough Marketing businesses, content creation platforms Documentation, internal communication Creation Creation Creation High High Good enough Good enough Marketing businesses, content creation platforms Marketing businesses, content creation platforms Documentation, internal communication Documentation, internal communication Synthesis of information High Very well Learning, wellness&healthcare, habit trackers, personal finance apps, productivity apps Learning and Development, Business Analytics, Research, Feedback processing Synthesis of information Synthesis of information Synthesis of information High High Very well Very well Learning, wellness&healthcare, habit trackers, personal finance apps, productivity apps Learning, wellness&healthcare, habit trackers, personal finance apps, productivity apps Learning and Development, Business Analytics, Research, Feedback processing Learning and Development, Business Analytics, Research, Feedback processing Search in natural language Medium Very well Broad applicability Learning and Development, Knowledge Management, Feedback processing, internal communication, Documentation Search in natural language Search in natural language Search in natural language Medium Medium Very well Very well Broad applicability Broad applicability Learning and Development, Knowledge Management, Feedback processing, internal communication, Documentation Learning and Development, Knowledge Management, Feedback processing, internal communication, Documentation Automated Actions High Additional skills and fine-tuning to be added for each new use-case Productivity use-cases, payments, home automation, community moderation Customer support, Meetings, Internal communication, Incident response Automated Actions Automated Actions Automated Actions High High Additional skills and fine-tuning to be added for each new use-case Additional skills and fine-tuning to be added for each new use-case Productivity use-cases, payments, home automation, community moderation Productivity use-cases, payments, home automation, community moderation Customer support, Meetings, Internal communication, Incident response Customer support, Meetings, Internal communication, Incident response Takeaway So, if you are thinking about a B2B GenAI idea or are someone looking to adopt GenAI for your own business, I hope this is useful to build a mental model of where GenAI can be leveraged in your case and which specific capabilities deliver the highest ROI for you and your customers.

This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.

Walkthroughs, tutorials, guides, and tips. This story will teach you how to do something new or how to do something better.

The is an opinion piece based on the author’s POV and does not necessarily reflect the views of HackerNoon.

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