Anna Hyclak

"95% of GenAI pilots fail to deliver measurable ROI" was the headline of MIT's recent State of AI in Business report. I sat with Lekha Doshi, our VP of GTM Operations at LinkedIn, to unpack why that stat doesn’t tell the full story—and how GTM leaders can drive impact. Key takeaways: ✅ Execution, not technology, is the challenge ✅ Workflows need to be reimagined ✅ Adoption starts with building AI fluency, particularly for leaders ✅ Grassroots champions matter as much as the tools themselves ✅ Centralized initiatives (e.g. AI hackathons) can scale adoption ✅ Success should be measured through impact on input metrics, not just revenue The question for every GTM leader: ➡️ Is AI embedded in your team’s daily rhythm, or is it a set of initiatives that you expect a specific ROI from? Watch the full discussion here 👇 #GTM #AI

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Last night we brought together CX and ops leaders from Wise, Monzo, Barclays, and others for our first Gradient Labs dinner. 🍽️ One big question dominated the table: 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁? Here are a few themes that stood out to me:  • There is a lot of noise in the AI agents market; vendors make wild marketing claims but it’s hard to know what will really work without trying side by side  • In financial services, frontline support is just a small part of CX; to create exceptional experiences, you need to care equally about the back-office processes that largely shape the experience  • AI in customer ops is rarely about cost primarily, CX improvement is the predominant motivation (that's how fintechs pull away from traditional banks and the gap will widen) We’ll be hosting more of these conversations soon. If you’d like a seat at the table and join the next conversation, follow the Gradient Labs page to stay updated.

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I can’t stop thinking about this new role. It blends AI, automation, and creativity — and it’s scaling quietly across top GTM teams. Meet the GTM Engineer 👋 Let’s break it down, and why it’s realllllllly got my eye for impact ↓ ------------ What is a GTM Engineer? ⤷ A GTM Engineer builds revenue systems using AI, automation, and data. ⤷ They’re not coding products — they’re coding growth.. Imagine if someone could: • Automate all your lead research • Pull custom signals on every account • Score, sort, enrich, and route your inbound • Spin up 1:1 outreach with zero manual work …so your team could focus on strategy, selling, and creative execution. That’s a GTM engineer. ------------ There are 2 major shifts that happened to spark the creation of this role: 1. Stale sales outreach playbooks aren't cuttin' it Your inbox is proof — generic emails don’t break through anymore. The best teams are rethinking systems from the ground up. What worked in the 2010 era is falling flat today. 2. AI unlocked a new level of creativity You no longer need an engineer to build your GTM motions. AI + no-code + tools like Clay = launch targeted experiments fast, then scale what works. Think days (even hours) vs. quarters. ------------ What does it look like in practice (to spark some inspo!✨)? Companies are using Clay to power GTM engineering workflows like: ⤷ Anthropic enriches + scores every lead, generates prep notes, and flags fraud — 3x their data coverage. ⤷Vanta tracks 4 buyer signals at once and triggers personalized outreach. ⤷ Cursor scans YouTube, Reddit, X, and LinkedIn for customer mentions in real-time. ⤷ Rippling uses Google Maps + commute distances to optimize direct mail. One GTM engineer = 10x multiplier on sales and ops. These aren’t hacks. They’re repeatable systems built by modern GTM teams. One GTM Engineer = 10x multiplier on ops and revenue execution. ------------ Cool, cool, cool. But how big is this, really? ⤷ 400+ GTM Engineering roles posted in 4.5 months ⤷ $160K median salary — 20% above RevOps roles (Pave) ⤷ Dozens of GTM Engineering agencies scaling to $1M+ ARR in under a year …. & Clay just announced yesterday they raised $100M Series C round at a whopping $3.1B valuation after more than 2x growth this year to power GTM engineering – powering this profession with turning ops teams into growth architects. 😱 (Kudos to the team!) If you’re in Demand Gen, RevOps, Sales Ops, or Marketing Ops — you won’t just consider hiring for this role in the future. You’ll need it to stay competitive. I know I'm constantly in deep research mode figuring out how to apply this mindset to how to implement for scaling my work. #ClayPartner

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From time to time, I revisit key conversations that continue to resonate. Earlier this year at the Abundance 360 Summit, we had an insightful discussion with Jared Kaplan, co-founder & Chief Science Officer at Anthropic. As Europe now accelerates its sovereign AI journey, Jared’s messages feel more relevant than ever. 👇 My reflections below:

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I’ve been building products at Google for over two decades, so I’ve built through multiple major platform shifts (e.g., mobile, voice, visual).  With each, there’s naturally some uncertainty about the future.  But time and again, we’ve proven that platform shifts are expansionary moments that grow the pie overall. Now there's an important conversation happening about what AI means for Google Search, the health of the web, and traffic to sites.  As someone who spends a lot of time with the teams building the future of Google Search, I can tell you firsthand that we deeply care -- perhaps more than any other company in the world -- about the health of the web.  So in this new blog post from Elizabeth Reid, Head of Google Search, we share more on our approach and what our data actually shows… https://lnkd.in/gitWB4YX  

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Incredible The Josh Bersin Company case study has just launched detailing how HiBob supports team.blue across 60 different portfolio companies spanning 20 counties to deliver 💡 AI Insights at scale 👏 84% adoption across all global employees ✍ 95% reduction in manual tasks Link to complete case study in comments

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I am incredibly stoked to announce some of our exciting innovation today as the Cornerstone OnDemand team arrives at #HRTech2025. A System of Agents that make people extraordinary. Where it's all about AI-powered experiences with human-centered design! - Conversational AI agents powering hyper-personalization and confidence! And oh, built natively...not patched up :) - With Model Context Protocol (MCP) support, Cornerstone agents connect seamlessly cross-platform collaborating agent-to-agent with Microsoft and Salesforce tools. - Announcing Cornerstone AgentReady...guardrails, trustworthiness, and compliance...for #digital_workers - Admin agents powering productivity. Work more with humans and less with systems! And Content agents transforming static libraries, often locked in formats like SCORM, into conversational experiences...you know, like humans :) - Cornerstone AI Fluency and Mastery Programs: curated, role-based learning journeys that build confidence with AI at every level. - And one of my personal favorites Cornerstone Workforce Intelligence: skills-centered, Labor Market Index-powered SkyHive by Cornerstone ...organizations can identify capability gaps against the broader market, plan for the future, and measure success with external context. Ready for today, prepared for tomorrow! Exceptionally proud of our teams who have poured their hearts into these offerings...innovation with purpose and soul! Take a look at these and more...https://lnkd.in/g7kB7hjb

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