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[NEW REPORT]: We've released an updated report outlining Sierra's business and how the company:
• Reached $100M+ ARR in just under three years
• Is powering hundreds of millions of interactions
• Are building for a future with ChatGPT as a dominant consumer channel
Plus...
• How Sierra competes against incumbent giants like Salesforce's Agentforce, Genesys, and NICE; and why their distribution advantages may matter less than expected
• The AI-native rivalry with Decagon, Ada, and PolyAI, and where each company is making different bets on orchestration, voice, and pricing
• Why outcome-based pricing is more than a gimmick and how it structurally locks in expansion revenue in ways seat-based incumbents can't match
• The "build once, run everywhere" architecture that lets a single agent operate consistently across phone, chat, SMS, email, and even ChatGPT
• Inside the product stack: Agent SDK, Agent Studio, Ghostwriter, Insights 2.0, the Agent Data Platform, and Live Assist; and how they fit together as an operating system rather than a chatbot
• The shift from cost center to revenue protection: How Sierra is moving beyond ticket deflection into churn saves, win-backs, and identity-gated upgrades where the value per resolution rises sharply
• Market sizing across three converging pools: Conversational AI, contact-center software, and the $120B+ in U.S. customer service wages alone
• The Bret Taylor founding story including the lunch with Clay Bavor where they decided to start a company with no product idea, only a conviction
• Key risks that could derail the thesis, including how a single high-profile agent failure could reshape enterprise willingness to automate sensitive workflows
• The international expansion playbook: SoftBank investment, the Opera Tech acquisition in Tokyo, and offices opening across Asia and Europe in under six months
• What Sierra's valuation actually assumes about labor automation economics, and how it compares to compressing CCaaS multiples at Five9 and NICE
Sierra is raising $950 million from new and existing investors, led by Tiger Global and GV, at a valuation of over $15 billion. We now have more than $1 billion to invest in becoming the global standard for companies wanting to transform their customer experiences with AI.
We’ve never had such conviction in the opportunity for Sierra and our customers. Just a couple of years ago, we had four design partners. Now, Sierra is serving over 40% of the Fortune 50, and agents built on our platform are powering billions of customer interactions — everything from refinancing homes to processing insurance claims, returning orders, and helping people raise millions in fundraisers.
We’re deeply grateful to our customers for helping show what’s possible. If you’re not yet using Sierra, we’d love to partner with you. sierra.ai/blog/better-custom…
Today, Contrary Research is announcing The Anduril Thesis: a 300-page book covering the history of the defense industry, global conflict, and how Anduril is building a modern defense prime.
You can read more and order the full book here: research.contrary.com/report…
Anyone's game: the ATOM Open Language Model Ecosystem Report documents a continually evolving open-model inference market, with Chinese labs leading in token usage.
US trust in government regulation os AI is the lowest of surveyed countries, according to Stanford HAI's Annual AI Index report.
Princeton study finds conversational AI discussion nearly triples the selection rate of promoted products vs web search placement.
When surveyed on specific jobs, however, AI experts predict greater impacts than the general public.
Stanford HAI's Annual AI Index report puts numbers to the growing sentiment gap between the general public and AI experts on the societal impact of AI.
