Go-to-market teams are drowning in tools and starving for action. They can see more about their customers than ever, but seeing isn’t the same as doing, and the space between the two is where growth stalls.
This week, 2X acquired Knownwell, and together we’re building the first human-agentic GTM services company: one organization unifying marketing, sales, and customer success, with people, agents, and technology working as a single system. As part of the acquisition, Knownwell founder and CEO David DeWolf has been appointed CEO of 2X, with 2X founder Dom Colasante continuing in his roles as founder and board member.
In this special episode of AI Knowhow, recorded in person at 2X headquarters in Malvern, PA, David and Dom join host Courtney Baker to talk about why software and services are converging, what humans should own in an agentic world, and more.
Software and Services Are Converging
For decades, the market drew a hard line between software and services. That line is rapidly dissolving. Software companies are bolting on services because they crave client intimacy and differentiation. Services firms are bolting on proprietary apps because they crave leverage and scale. As Dom puts it on the episode, you see SaaS firms masquerading as services firms and services firms with an analytics tool tucked under one arm, but no one has built a company that is equal parts both, fused so completely you can’t tell which is which.
That fusion is the company 2X and Knownwell are building. In Dom’s words, the customer doesn’t care whether it’s technology, product, or people. They care: did you get the job done? A company that can answer yes, with humans, agents, and platforms working together, is what he calls the killer app of this generation.
Go-to-Market Means All Three Motions
When David and Dom say go-to-market, they mean marketing, sales, and customer success as one integrated motion, not three departments in a tug-of-war. Dom shares a stat that should stop every revenue leader cold: roughly 90% of your revenue target each year comes from retaining last year’s customers, yet most organizations spend about 90% of their energy chasing new logos.
Every organization also carries a unique fingerprint of technology across those three motions. No two companies share the same CRM, MAP, data, and analytics stack, which means orchestrating a unified customer journey requires tying into hundreds of systems. That is too much for humans alone and too messy for platform integration alone. It takes both, and AI agents finally make the combination practical.
Why Human + AI Wins
David starts with the anthropology behind the acquisition. AI holds more knowledge, has better memory, and digests infinitely more data than any person ever could. What it cannot do is exercise judgment, read the situation, or create something truly novel. The practical answer, he argues, is humans doing what only humans can do and relying on machines for what machines do infinitely better, without confusing the two.
Dom adds a layer that surprised even Courtney: accountability. When a customer hands off a problem, what they are buying is a person who says “I will get that done” and doesn’t let them down, regardless of how much of the work agents perform behind the scenes. His rule of thumb: all work should have a human in the work. That doesn’t mean a human does all the work. It might be half a percent. But that half a percent is what makes the whole system something you can count on.
Moving Intelligence Up the Stack
More than 85% of enterprise data is unstructured: emails, Slack messages, video transcripts, the everyday communication where relationships actually live. Knownwell built its commercial intelligence platform to read those signals for customer success teams. The single biggest request from customers has been to move that intelligence up the stack into sales and marketing: surfacing win themes, sharpening ICPs, and flagging pursuits that are drifting off course.
The combination makes that possible, and then goes a step further. With 2X’s execution engine attached, the intelligence doesn’t stop at a recommendation. As David says on the episode, customers no longer want a system of intelligence. They want a system of action: send the email, launch the campaign, close the loop.
Not a Departure, a Partnership
Acquisitions usually mean a founder exits. This one doesn’t. After nearly a decade building 2X at roughly 70% compound annual growth, Dom steps into the role he is wired for: founder, storyteller, and market-maker for a category that has to be created, because no other company is doing this or even naming it this way. David, a multi-time services and AI operator, takes the CEO seat to scale the business and deliver on the promise.
The two have known each other for years, and the roles split along what each loves to do. As David puts it, when you have the relationship and the trust, one plus one can equal seven.
In This Episode, We Discuss
- The big news: Knownwell is now part of 2X, and together we’re building the first human-agentic GTM services company
- Why software and services are converging, and why the customer only cares whether the job got done
- Go-to-market fragmentation: why marketing, sales, and customer success have to operate as one integrated motion
- The 90/10 retention paradox: most of your revenue target comes from existing customers, most of your energy goes to new ones
- What humans uniquely own in an agentic world: judgment, creativity, and accountability
- Moving Knownwell’s commercial intelligence up the stack from customer success into sales and marketing
Key Takeaways
- The category that wins is equal parts services and AI. Customers buy outcomes, not categories. The first company that fuses human expertise, agents, and technology into one accountable system defines the next era of GTM.
- All work should have a human in the work. Agents can carry the cognitive load, but accountability, judgment, and trust come from a person who owns the outcome, even if the human part is a fraction of the effort.
- Intelligence has to become action. The signals that predict churn and expansion live in conversations and relationships, and the next step is acting on them across the whole customer journey, not just reporting them.
Ready to see what human + AI will look like in action? Watch or listen to the episode below.
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Show Notes
- Read the press release: 2X acquires Knownwell
- Connect with David DeWolf on LinkedIn
- Connect with Dom Colasante on LinkedIn
- Connect with Courtney Baker on LinkedIn
- Learn more about 2X
