How We Got to the Knownwell Intelligent Enterprise Operating System

Knownwell started with the observation that most of the AI conversation was focused on technological advancement. It was either all about the LLMs or all about ChatGPT. And the balance of the conversation was dedicated to very narrow applications around using generative AI to enhance individual productivity in areas like producing content, writing code, and performing research.

Conversation after conversation in the early days of Knownwell showed us that business leaders were paralyzed when it came to AI. They didn’t know how to get started and couldn’t find resources to help.

We also heard two competing problems in organizations. First, they have so much data that they can’t make sense of it. 89% of leaders report that the growing number of data sources has limited their company’s success, and 86% say that more data has led to less confidence in their decision-making. They simply don’t know how to turn all that data into actionable intelligence. Second, the vast majority of organizations aren’t even looking at their richest information sources. Their natural communications and routine information flows typically comprise over 80% of enterprise information yet they aren’t considered part of the “modern data and business intelligence stack.”

We also learned that boards and CEOs are craving a vision for the future. They want to know what business will look like in 5 years. Where are we headed? Many couldn’t figure out what first step to take because they didn’t know where they were going.

How do you take your first steps with a technology that has been heralded as more revolutionary than fire and electricity? Wrapping your head around the possibilities is a daunting task for even the most visionary leaders.

Seeing this need, we started to craft a vision of what the future holds. We imagined a world where a fundamentally different type of company exists. It runs on an Intelligent Enterprise Operating System. This type of company will surpass legacy operating methods, will apply to all businesses, and is already proven by the likes of Amazon, Airbnb, and Microsoft. In this new digital operating model, software algorithms and AI models aid and enhance the human contribution in how an enterprise delivers value directly to the end customer.

What would this look like? What if we removed the need for organizations to create a modern data stack in the first place? What if we removed the need for leaders to digest an ever-growing number of data points and interpret data? What if we included emails, Slack messages, and video calls as part of the “enterprise data” set? What if the platform actually interpreted all of this information for you and told you what is important and helped you plan and prioritize?

Then, you’d have what we call an Intelligent Enterprise Operating System. It would digest the natural information flows of business, proactively surfacing issues and scaling your leadership, turning all your data and information into actionable intelligence.

People loved this vision when we shared it with them, and frankly, so do we.

We believe so strongly in this idea, in fact, that we decided to pivot the organization to go all in on creating this future. Knownwell is the future of business. We are building the Intelligence Platform that will run tomorrow’s business.

But, this is tomorrow’s world, and you can’t build a business off a dream. So we started to look for real, tangible pain that we could solve today with this vision.

The biggest pain we heard in the boardroom was the inability of leadership to get their hands around customer retention. Despite the nearly $1T a year that organizations are spending on customer experience/success (up from $500B just 5 years ago), organizations simply don’t know what customers are at risk and why.

The solutions the world has deployed are managing the process of customer retention and many of our interactions, but, they are not helping us understand our customers and what is important to them. In fact, the vast majority of our conversations—especially in professional services—are not even considered part of the data set.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’re opening the waitlist for Knownwell Client Intelligence. Knownwell Client Intelligence will help leaders reduce customer churn. It will help leaders understand why clients are at risk and identify new growth opportunities.

This is the first of many intelligence offerings that we will build on the Knownwell Intelligent Enterprise Operating Platform. We’re starting with it because all operations should be oriented toward optimizing the customer value proposition. The customer should drive all operations—and now, it will.

Interested in getting early access to Knownwell Client Intelligence? Sign up to join the beta waitlist for early access to a next-generation platform that revolutionizes the way your business operates.

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