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Just two months away from its 10-year anniversary, low-code platform maker Creatio is celebrating a milestone of a different kind: new unicorn status.
The company raised $200 million in funding in a round led by Sapphire Ventures, Volition Capital and Horizon Capital. Creatio’s The company announced Wednesday that it was valued at $1.2 billion, and it said its success is down to its generative AI-powered co-pilot tools and high customer retention.
A group photo of the Creatio Europe team taken off-site in August 2021.
Used with permission from Creatio
“Generative AI has accelerated the adoption of tools such as low-code/no-code and has made large enterprises more willing to embrace technology and automation projects in general.” Andy Dovgan, Chief Growth Officer at Creatiosaid CIO Dive.
As the company’s valuation surpasses $1 billion, Creatio joins a pioneering group of vendors that are already benefiting from enterprise AI efforts.
Attracting enterprise customers brings multimillion-dollar budgets, increasing a startup’s ability to hire more talent, add new features, and scale. Nearly two-thirds of companies Invested over $5 million In emerging AI capabilities, Solar Winds The survey released this month. one third They have already spent more than $25 million on the technology.
The tsunami of AI usage will eventually Reaching the Generative AI Market $1.3 trillion IThe next decadee — equal Florida’s annual GDP in 2023by U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis — Increasing Compound annual growth rate: 42%This was stated in a Bloomberg Intelligence report published earlier this month.
“AI stocks’ rally has been fueled by earnings, and we see room for further upside.” Black Rock Analysts say The report states: “There is no AI bubble. The profitability of the big tech companies stands in stark contrast to the unprofitable companies that drove the dot-com bubble,” he said last week.
Follow the money
Despite the companies’ enthusiasm, AI-related venture capital activity has remained relatively flat, with AI and ML deal activity reportedly down slightly last year compared to the previous year. To PitchBook analysis.
AI/ML VC deal activity declines
AI/ML VC deal value from 2019 to 2024 (as of March 31).
As the hype died down, corporate customers became an even more attractive target.
Earlier this month, Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere He told The Verge The path to revenue for his AI startup was through enterprise-focused solutions. Cisco, Salesforce Ventures, NVIDIAStartup The current valuation is Surrounding land $5 billion.
But earning and maintaining business trust isn’t easy.
Open AIhelped spark a boom in generative AI. November 2022 With the public launch of ChatGPT, the company has steadily fleshed out its strategy to attract business users. ChatGPT Enterprise last August Strengthen security and Privacy Guardrail For that service.
and Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies The startup, which started registering ChatGPT accounts just nine months after the launch of ChatGPT, had an early advantage in the market. But as AI models and solutions proliferate and permeate almost every corner of the IT ecosystem, OpenAI is Turbulent times Leadership dismissals, changes in board members and threats of mass resignations were prominent.
This drama was so unsettling Questions about relying Young start-ups, especially Impact of the incident It continues to unfold.
OpenAI isn’t alone: ​​AI startups have undergone significant change. Leadership Steps Down and Multiple vendors facing lawsuits Lawsuits have been filed by creators, musicians, and authors alleging copyright infringement, while the downstream impact on organizations using the AI ​​tools and models developed by the vendors remains unclear.
“Given the range of potential issues and concerns surrounding the use of AI technology, a degree of caution is warranted.” Thomas Humphreys, Compliance Specialist and Content Manager, Prevalent“There needs to be broader requirements around third-party management and how they are audited and assessed,” he told CIO Dive.
OpenAI’s internal turmoil has highlighted the need for companies to be careful, but it hasn’t stifled corporate interest in the technology. The startup It is valued at $86 billion. It debuted earlier this year and continues to attract high-profile clients.
PwC becomes OpenAI’s largest customer for business tools, deploying ChatGPT Enterprise 100,000 US employees. and the UK Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but it is notable that it has gained consulting firm PwC as a client. 89% of Fortune 500 companiesThe company is currently a reseller of this tool.
Professional services firms are partnering with vendors to leverage internal transformation and enhance their customer-facing capabilities. EY and KPMG Copilot adoption is widespread, and Accenture $2 billion Generative AI related bookings Its third-quarter 2024 earnings report released last week indicates that sales are expected to fall by $1 billion during the fiscal year.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation
Despite all the money and attention being poured into AI initiatives, CIOs remain in a precarious position.
Generative AI tools and large-scale language models have the potential to deliver efficiencies such as speeding up workflow processes, simplifying information gathering, and expediting the draft stage. At the same time, these solutions come with a number of risks.
“By the nature of the role, CIOs are a little more skeptical than, say, people in the go-to-market team.” Dovgan Said.
Vendors have tried various methods to speed adoption and gain enterprise trust.
PC Manufacturer OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and AWS say on-premise generative AI implementations are safer and more secure with respect to IP and sensitive data. Legal claims for copyright infringement Through conditional compensation in the contract.
“Certainly, with things like compensation, some companies will accept that and say, ‘OK, that’s good enough for me,'” he said. Andrew Cornwall, senior analyst at ForresterOthers worry about hidden legal fees and the time and resources it would take to rip out and rewrite pieces of copyrighted code, Cornwall said.
A focus on mature controls, safeguards and governance is another strategy. Creatio ships with around 200 automated controls out of the box, and also offers customers the ability to create their own controls, Dovgan says.
“Many CIOs are still figuring out how generative AI applies to their organizations,” Dovgan says, “but if you’re a CIO at a large enterprise, you can’t ignore it.”
