SaaStr 879: Stripe's CRO of AI on The New AI GTM Playbook

Maia Josebachvili (0:01)

I'm Maia, what I'm going to talk to you about now is how differently I would run a company today if I was starting one, and what we're seeing in our data from all the AI companies. So at Stripe, we work with the fastest growing AI companies in the world, which means we have a front row seat to what's working, what's not, and what the best companies in the world are doing to navigate this agentic era. And the headline is that the playbook for how to run a company is changing faster than any of us can wrap our heads around.

So there's very four patterns we're seeing across these companies. Number one, the top AI companies just build so much faster, and I think we're all feeling that. Two, they sell globally by default.

Three, pricing is evolving faster than, again, any of us can wrap our heads around. And four, they're adapting their go-to-market motions super fast. So building enterprise sales used to be this decade-long journey. Now it happens in year one. So we're going to dig into each of these and talk a little bit about what we're seeing from the companies working with Stripe.

So we will start with the numbers. We saw the top AI companies in the world grow by 120 percent in 2025, and then in 26 by 175 percent. That's nearly tripling in a single year. So what we're seeing is growth is accelerating, not slowing down. The top ones are even more mind-blowing. So I think you're going to hear from a few of these companies today. Lovable reported 100 million in revenue in eight months, and then eight months later, they got to 400 Cursor hit a billion-dollar run rate in under two years, and then three months later, they got to 2 billion. Anthropic went from a billion to a $30 billion run rate in just two years.

SPEAKER_2 (2:07)

You're listening to the Official SaaStr AI Podcast brought to you by.

Hey everybody, starting a business can get expensive fast. Web plate here, email somewhere else, business phone with another provider. Northwest Registered Agent gives you a complete business identity in one place, with free tools, resources, and built-in privacy from day one. Get more at northwestregisteredagent.com/sastrfree.

That's northwestregisteredagent.com/sastrfree, S-A-A-S-T-R-F-R-E-E.

Hey everyone, if you're listening to the agents, then you need to be at SaaStr AI Annual. We'll be back next May in 2027, the world's largest B2B and AI event, May 11th and 12th in the San Francisco Bay Area. Look, most conferences and content these days are about what's possible. As you know from the agents, we're all about what's happening now. The latest and greatest, and that's what we do even more so at SaaStr annual. See the actual work where we bring together 10,000 founders, revenue leaders, and VCs plus 200 of the very best speakers showing you playbooks of what's already running in production, behind the scenes, deep dive demos, and so much more. Plus over 5,000 scheduled one-on-one meetings so you can actually meet the people doing all this, not just hear from them. If you're a founder or revenue leader or you're the one who has to make this all work with agents, this is where you want to be. You already know this from listening to the agents. That's SaaStr AI Annual 2027 Go to saastrannual.com and use our code theagents for a special discount on your tickets. See you there.

Maia Josebachvili (3:46)

It's not just B2B. Our link data shows that the consumer adoption of AI has doubled from under 6 million consumers to 14 million in just one year. They're all spending more too. The top link buyers are now spending $371 on AI. That's up from $140 just a year ago. Just to put that into perspective, that's more than the average American spends on Internet, streaming, and phone service combined, which means people aren't treating AI like a streaming service they might cancel. This is a critical utility for how they live their lives.

We've got 175 percent year-on-year revenue growth, adoption doubling, billion-dollar run rates in months. What's behind all of it? We'll dig into the four patterns, starting with speed.

So, when I first started Urban Escapes, getting to a prototype took months. Okay, and I'm not kidding here, but building a shopping cart was so hard that our first checkout, when you hit buy, told customers to mail a check to my apartment in Brooklyn. And people did it.

Now, just like you no longer need months of engineering to set the payment, you don't need months of engineering to ship software. This chart shows when that really clicked. So, as late as 2024, iOS app releases were declining, and then agent decoding tools hit, and then they went up 24% months on months. And you see Delaware and corporations actually follow the same exact pattern. So, you look at that huge spike when the tools went mainstream.