ATRIUMsearch → argument graph
DefinitionVideo · 49:09 — 49:52

Decagon's product is an agent that follows business processes, not merely an agent that does customer support.

Decagon intentionally built a general business-process-following agent, which enables expansion from customer support into sales, operations, and other workflows. ✦ AI generated

Asha · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-31 · original ↗

starts at this moment · 49:09

Elicited by

do you want to talk about what the distinction between those two actually is and in practice like what that means for both your sales teams and your product teams?

the thing that we built and we kind of built this intentionally from the start was not an agent that does customer support well but rather an agent that follows business process well right and executing on operational workflows doing sales lead qualifications on certain customer support questions at the end of the day is just an agent following a business process. And we kind of built it flexibly enough to kind of do all these things because we realized that hey at a certain points the models are going to get better and they have.

verbatim transcript · starts at 49:09

Transcript · around this moment

49:09workflows, right? So uh we are able to now proactively reach out to them once we start seeing um any kind of issues on on that on that customer's account. Um because ultimately at the end of the day the thing that we built and we kind of built this intentionally from the start was not an agent that does customer support well but rather an agent that follows business process well right and

49:34executing on operational workflows doing sales lead qualifications on certain customer support questions at the end of the day is just an agent following a business process. And we kind of built it flexibly enough to kind of do all these things because we realized that hey at a certain points the models are going to get better and they have. >> And what do they specifically get better at that allows you to do that?

49:55>> It is specifically the ability to follow instructions. Well, right. So when you had um models, you know, let's say a few years ago, you'd have to give it very very tight guidance, very specific instructions that you didn't want it to deviate from. And as the models got smarter, you could kind of give it broader and broader guidance, bigger and bigger instructions, and just trust that the models have good enough sense to

50:22interpreted like a human would and kind of fill in any missing gaps, right? Because for again for customer support, you can have a very tight path that the model should follow. And that's all you really need. Whereas for sales qualifications, you kind of want to ask open-ended discovery questions. The conversation is going to kind of bob and weave. And so you need the model to kind of fill in with reasonable things. So

Related moments