GPT Party 3.0, the largest Russian-language networking event dedicated to artificial intelligence, took place in Silicon Valley on March 9-10. More than 450 people gathered at Plug and Play to meet leading experts, entrepreneurs and investors, discuss the latest trends in artificial intelligence and gain practical knowledge.
In the discussion “How to use AI in a modern company”, Nikolay Oreshkin and Mikita Mikado analyzed the experience of using artificial intelligence in business using the example of PandaDoc, and also shared their vision for the development of AI in the future. The moderator of the discussion is Nikolay Oreshkin.
Among mutual acquaintances, you are called a tumbler man. You always find a way to get up, despite the competition and market difficulties. You chose a very difficult segment, where there were already large players, but you managed to build a serious business with revenues of tens of millions of dollars. Tell us what helped you with this?
Mikita Mikado: “At first there was fear: I was very afraid of failing. I constantly thought that I could ruin everything. But then, when I dealt with the fear, it became interesting to me. I really like what I do. I like to build, invent new things, sell. I am talking mainly about ideas, visions, strategies. And I like it even more when people buy what I offer. Actually, at first there was fear, and then – interest.”
What logical point do you expect for the completion of PandaDoc? Are you planning to further develop the business, or are you considering the possibility of selling the company, or creating your own new technology? Maybe you have something to share on this matter?
Mikita Mikado: “Like any software company, we are constantly trying to come up with something new. In our industry, if you don’t do this, you quickly fall behind. We recently launched an electronic notary service. If someone needs to frequently notarize documents, we offer to do it with us – inexpensively and efficiently.
Further, we plan to continue building and developing the company. As long as my team and I enjoy it, why not continue? As for IPOs or strategic partnerships, everything will depend on the market and circumstances. Too many factors influence such decisions
I also wanted to talk to you about Growth Hacking. One of the growth hacking examples that impressed me personally was the creation of templates. When people googled something like “invoice for conference organizers” or “contract with a plumber”, they found templates published on PandaDoc. These templates could be quickly and easily signed with just a few clicks. Did you develop these templates yourself?
Mikita Mikado: “Yes, in the beginning, we did create a lot of free content to generate demand for our product. Part of this was because I had no experience in selling software. But eventually, we created hundreds or thousands of basic and essential templates that people were actively searching for. They could find these templates and sign them instantly through PandaDoc. This was one of the key things that helped us attract users and strengthen our presence in the market.”
Back then, was it manual work or did you already use some technology to create these legal templates?
Mikita Mikado: “We used the freelance market and over a hundred different lawyers, paralegals, and sales consultants to help us create templates. I think if we could have used AI to optimize this process, we would have saved more money and resources. However, I don’t think we would have been able to completely abandon the services of people in creating a template base, because everything written needs to be re-read and verified again.
About four to five months ago, we also implemented AGI in our product. Interestingly, most of our users – and this is a fairly large sample, we are talking about thousands of people – still do not fully trust generative AI and still prefer that important documents, such as sales contracts, be verified by lawyers or a third party.
Do you think AGI can threaten businesses, including SaaS and Enterprise segments?
Mikita Mikado: “I think that any software business is constantly facing threats. It is a rapidly developing industry, and something new happens every year. You have to run, run, run, otherwise you won’t have time. However, expectations are often higher than the actual speed at which changes occur.
Personally, I look at artificial intelligence as the Internet. Has the Internet killed any niches or industries? Yes, it has. Does retail still exist? Yes, it does. Can a symbiosis of traditional retail and online be successful? Yes, it can.
Actually, I think the same is true for artificial intelligence. It is an incredibly powerful tool, and it can cause great damage to a business. But at the same time, this same tool can be used to benefit yourself and your company.”
What about employees? How many people do you have? And do you think that new tools will be able to optimize the business in such a way as to reduce the number of jobs?
Mikita Mikado: “We employ about 700 people. I believe that the efficiency of each employee will increase when working together with AGI. About two years ago, we introduced a chatbot that helps answer customer inquiries. Thanks to this, we have not increased the number of employees in the customer support department for about two years, although the company’s revenue and the number of customers are growing.”
How do you see the use of AGI in your life outside of the work segment? Do you think AGI will affect anything in your life?
Mikita Mikado: “I will make fewer mistakes. Maybe I will send fewer stupid emails, maybe not. To be honest, in my everyday life I almost never use AI. Sometimes I generate funny pictures and that’s it.
In work tools, for example, in CRM systems or marketing automation, of course, artificial intelligence is used. However, I don’t even think about it. And also, for example, in PandaDoc there are many functions based on machine learning or integration with some LLMs, but users don’t know about it and hardly even think about it.”
