If you are selling an AI Software product, read this

Posted by noemit on Monday March 09, 2026 @10:21AM
from the self-post dept.

Everyone you are selling to has access to Gemini, ChatGPT, or Claude.

If its a problem worth paying money to fix, they have already tried to solve their problem with one of these tools. They may already be using these tools (along with some automation tools) for a partial solution.

They have seen how it works, or doesn't work. They have some sense of the limitations of these tools.

Example: If you make a claim of "Run your blog on autopilot" you have to show me how you have solved the common issues that appear when trying to write a blog using AI. People have tried to create blogs with AI with ample, hand-written context and many writing samples. Don't tell me you've fixed this issue I could not fix - *show me* : An example, case study - anything like that. I want to read a real blog that your AI wrote (in this example.)

There is a tendency in AI marketing to gloss over the existing pain points/limitations of AI. I'm sure some of these common limitations are solvable - maybe with smart prompting or orchestration - but it's tiring to see so many landing pages/pitches hinge on "Just trust me bro" I'm sure you can wire up automations to make it all work, but if the quality isn't there with me manually using a chatbot, why would it be there with your tool?

I share this because this is what your potential customers are thinking.

Your product will always be judged against what the general chatbots can do. If you truly can get better results, prove it. If you are pitching automation or workflows around existing results, be clear about that (some people may be happy with that offering.)

( 2 comments | on HN )

Re:If you are selling an AI Software product, read this by promptlabai on Friday March 13, 2026 @07:08PM (#47371228)

One thing I'd add from building a prompt library product: the prompts themselves are the differentiator, not the wrapper. Generic 'write me a cold email' prompts are everywhere. What sells is specificity — prompts that understand the buyer persona, the objection, the signal. When I built out 100 cold email prompts, the most-used ones weren't the first-touch templates, they were the objection-handler prompts and the re-engagement sequences. People already have openers. What they struggle with is 'they went quiet after 3 touches.'

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:If you are selling an AI Software product, read this by mongoosenewyork on Sunday March 15, 2026 @12:45PM (#47389124)

This post hits on a real frustration I've seen in the AI sales world—pitching something that feels like a shiny wrapper around what buyers already have on their desktops. As someone who's been on the buying side for tools in the marketing tech space, yeah, we've all tinkered with ChatGPT or Claude for quick wins. Like, if you're selling an AI that automates content workflows, the prospect's probably already prompted it to draft emails or generate outlines, only to hit walls with hallucinations or context loss.

The key, from my experience evaluating these, is to lean into the gaps those free tools expose rather than competing head-on. Show me the integration layer—how your thing plugs into my existing stack without me having to babysit it. For instance, in SFMC setups, I've wasted hours debugging journeys because a generic AI couldn't grasp the nuances of data extensions or automation triggers. If your product bridges that by monitoring in real-time and alerting on failures before they tank a campaign, that's where the value shines. But you gotta demo it with my data, not some sanitized example.

Buyers aren't dumb; we've got battle scars from half-baked automations. Quantify the ROI with specifics: "This cut our error rate by 40% in a live test, saving X hours per week." Avoid vague autopilot claims—focus on the unsexy reliability that lets us scale without fear. If it's truly solving a paid problem, it'll stand out by augmenting what we already use, not replacing it. Otherwise, it's just another tab in the browser.

[ Parent | on HN ]