How did a major 2023 trend, event, or crisis impact your sales strategy? Also, I would appreciate feedback on how you would tackle this challenge in 2024.
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The hands-on users and workers within IT are trying to be proactive recognizing needs and desires to be more secure and efficient within their organizations. They are on same page, champions to their organizations but are being pressed between a rock and a hard place. They need their jobs so only champion so much to their organizations as they are tasked with a shortage of staff to do more with less. They are viewed as wizards that the companies count on to keep things humming in their IT infrastructure within budget restrictions and continuous thoughts of depreciation toward their IT infrastructure rather than investment there. Summary: Often the needs and desires are clearly understood for the IT people, the hands on community within IT that plan to use the better tools, the better security to help drive better security, efficiencies and improvements within their organizations but the financial commitments to the IT infrastructures seemed to be overly scrutinized to such severity that the decisions are often pushed out and paused hoping they can get away with not doing it causing organizations into a reactionary and into a "we have to" approach after an IT failure within their organization, sometimes even risking or waiting for a security breach.
To give a bit of context, our customers are large enterprises with hundreds of models in use. These models are essentially applying statistical, economic, financial, or mathematical techniques to process data related to analyzing business strategies, informing business decisions, identifying, and measuring risks. We work with some of the largest Fortune 500 enterprises in areas like defense, autonomous transportation, and financial services, including banking and insurance.
The trend and event that mattered most to us in 2023 is somewhat interconnected. The major event in the financial services industry was the introduction of ChatGPT to the market at the end of 2022. This had a significant impact on our business, which focuses on protecting AI, rather than selling it. ChatGPT revealed to many senior executives the immense value of generative AI tools. Many big banks and insurance companies had already invested heavily in machine learning and AI in their back offices, but ChatGPT showcased the potential of AI in creating value almost instantly in other areas too. It opened a lot of eyes and escalated the conversation about the value of AI, but also its risks.
In the midst of this AI enthusiasm, we found ourselves in the middle of what some are calling the banking crisis of 2023. At last count, six banks had failed, managing assets worth around $500-150 billion, setting a record not in the number of banks but in the value of assets managed. Despite the crisis and a sluggish economy with rising interest rates, banks that survived had already budgeted for AI at the beginning of the year. Those AI budgets were not cut; in some cases, they were increased, recognizing the value seen in generative AI.
Our company developed what we believe to be one of the first, if not the first, LLM firewall solutions running in a Fortune 100 bank. We provided a solution that offers both the immense value of generative AI and the necessary risk management and security. This situation elevated the conversation with our biggest clients about how we could help them protect their ML and AI investments. The launch of ChatGPT thus became a trend, prompting discussions about the protection of AI investments.
Going forward into 2024, we plan to iterate, focus on research and development, add features, innovate, and build on a product that adds significant value for our clients. We find ourselves in a unique position, benefiting from a combination of circumstances including bank failures and the rise of AI. Our large language models, a form of generative AI, are crucial in this context, and we're excited about the future opportunities this presents.