44:22How Amplitude Went From Skeptics to “All In” on AI
• Amplitude initially approached AI with skepticism, viewing its capabilities as "jagged" and facing frustration from external pressure to adopt it without a clear strategy. • A turning point for Amplitude was recognizing the transformative effect of AI on software engineering, leading them to seriously invest in AI adoption around October 2024, marked by hiring a new engineering leader and acquiring Command AI. • The company's pivot to AI involved a significant internal effort, including an "AI week" for training and hackathons, to get the existing team bought-in and proficient with AI tools before focusing on building new AI-native products. • Amplitude's core strategy shifted from a customer-driven "faster horse" approach in traditional SaaS to a technology-first understanding of AI capabilities to map them to product solutions, acknowledging that customers cannot always articulate needs for novel AI functionalities. • The transition required organizational restructuring, including reorganizing the engineering, product, and design teams twice within a year and moving away from leaders solely focused on the pre-AI SaaS modality.