All Segments
The Future of Digital Workers
16 segments available
In this episode of AI + a16z, a16z Partner Joe Schmidt sits down with 11x CTO Prabhav Jain for an inside look at how AI-powered digital workers are reshaping sales and revenue operations. They discuss the evolution of agentic AI, the trade-offs between orchestration and autonomy, and the technical innovations driving 11x’s products, Alice and Mike. Prabhav breaks down the challenges of real-time voice AI, the complexities of multimodal agent interactions, and why the future of enterprise AI is about delivering measurable customer outcomes—not just automation. They also dive into the fast-moving landscape of model providers, the impact of open-source AI, and how startups can stay ahead in an environment of constant technological change. Plus, they explore 11x’s bold decision to re-architect its platform from the ground up, the lessons learned from scaling AI-powered sales automation, and what it takes to build truly effective digital workers. Key Takeaways: - The difference between true AI agents and complex orchestrations—and why it matters. - How 11x built Alice and Mike to deliver human-like sales performance at scale. - The cutting-edge advancements shaping AI voice assistants and real-time multimodal interactions. - Lessons from rebuilding an AI platform while supporting a fast-growing customer base. - How AI startups can balance rapid iteration with long-term strategic bets. - For anyone interested in AI-powered automation, enterprise sales, or the future of digital work, this episode offers a front-row seat to the latest innovations pushing the boundaries of AI agents. Learn more: 11x - https://www.11x.ai/ Follow everybody on X: Prabhav Jain - https://x.com/prabhavjain Joe Schmidt - https://x.com/joeschmidtiv?lang=en Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence, including articles, projects, and more podcasts, here: https://a16z.com/ai/ Chapters: 0:00 - 00:14 | Intro 00:15 - 01:26 | 11x CTO Prabhav Jain Describes What AI Agentic Products Mean To Him 01:27 - 02:12 | Are AI Agentics More Effective Than Humans? 02:13 - 04:17 | 11x And What Products They’re Building Today 04:18 - 05:15| Where Do These Products Live? 05:16 - 08:13 | Market Evolutions, And The Decisions 11x Has Made Over The Last Year 08:14 - 11:01 | Product Rebuilds To Scale And The Challenges 11:02 - 12:40 | Architecting And Testing When Building New Products 12:41 - 13:50 | Performance And Data Determines Customer Outcome 13:51 - 16:46 | Staying On The Cutting Edge 16:47 - 17:56 | Building For Scale VS New Tools 17:57 - 19:08 | Solving Customer Pain Points And Feature Requests 19:09 - 20:29 | Multi Product Strategy And Validating PMF 20:30 - 21:14 | What He Would Have Changed When Determining PMF 21:15 - 23:37 | Design Decisions and The User Journey 23:38 - 25:49 | Hiring And Talent
Segments Timeline
| Intro
"as a company been really really obsessed with customer outcomes so if I can do something without using agents I will ultimately all that matters is is are our customers getting the results that they'r..."
| 11x CTO Prabhav Jain Describes What AI Agentic Products Mean To Him
"thank you for inviting me yeah all right so maybe we'll start this with with maybe a high level question a lot of people talk about agentic experiences today you know it's really good marketing but ma..."
| Are AI Agentics More Effective Than Humans?
"same way I guess the the thing that I'm I'm always tied to is like what what is Effectiveness and so how do how do you think about these agentic products that you're building or maybe you've seen are ..."
| 11x And What Products They’re Building Today
"about that what makes these B2B applications more complicated and harder to solve for there's a lot of people involved right so for us for example you know we s to go to market teams what makes good c..."
| Where Do These Products Live?
"question for a second and think about a spectrum of fully agentic to fully orchestrated and and maybe rules based is maybe the opposite of of tic like where do these products live today and and how do..."
| Market Evolutions, And The Decisions 11x Has Made Over The Last Year
"what works do what works exactly no if you think about like the market things have changed so fast over the last 12 months maybe walk us through the evolution of you your two products in the 11x platf..."
| Product Rebuilds To Scale And The Challenges
"know the decisions and the platform shift that you guys have actually gone through to take advantage of a lot of this Innovation it's been a total Whirlwind right I mean I think you guys basically ful..."
| Architecting And Testing When Building New Products
"talked a little bit about that we've touched on this rather of all the changes you mentioned how many different model providers there's the Deep seek news you know a month ago how do you think about l..."
| Performance And Data Determines Customer Outcome
"Point that's kind of interesting because you have so many different customers on you know I don't know how many customers we have at this point they're using it in so many different ways like on those..."
| Staying On The Cutting Edge
"Alice and Mike as like these combination of so many different tools and the model providers you just touched on like how many different products or even a part of Alice and Mike and how do you stay on..."
| Building For Scale VS New Tools
"interesting aspect of this is we you know we've grown so fast now we're we're building for scale but we're also doing all this testing and iterating so how do you think about that problem of hey we no..."
| Solving Customer Pain Points And Feature Requests
"maybe as you as you've scaled like you know you keep adding customers they're always asking for you to go in certain directions based on their business and so how do you on the one hand listen to that..."
| Multi Product Strategy And Validating PMF
"went multiproduct so early I think that would probably be against the advice of you know many senior product leaders or people that have gone before why' you make that decision and any learnings from ..."
| What He Would Have Changed When Determining PMF
"long way to go still um you know there's so much still to build but if you just pause for a moment and look back at all the decisions you made and all the product you've built what would you have chan..."
| Design Decisions and The User Journey
"and may maybe just to double click on that like what are the what are the design decisions maybe that you've now been able to make that you think you would have liked to have made earlier I think it's..."
| Hiring And Talent
"straight up magic it's like it is built for a certain type of use case no I think that's so right um things are changing so quickly in the market and AI tooling is constantly you know the whole landsc..."