Superhuman 2.0: The AI edge, top productivity hacks, and the future of email | E2002
05 Sep 2024 (14 days ago)
Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra joins Jason
- A demonstration of an AI tool's ability to find specific information within a large dataset of emails.
- The AI tool can synthesize information from millions of emails and provide specific results based on the user's request.
- The speaker highlights the efficiency and time-saving benefits of using this AI tool for tasks like finding customer responses.
Rahul Vohra's background and Superhuman's pitch
- Rahul Vohra, the founder of Superhuman, pitched the idea of a faster email experience to an investor on a Sunday.
- Vohra's pitch was to create a faster email experience than Gmail, targeting the top 1% of email users who are willing to pay for increased productivity.
- The investor was initially skeptical about the idea of charging for an email service and competing with Google's speed and resources.
Evolution and early challenges of Superhuman
- Gmail was a significant contributor to laptop battery drain due to its energy inefficiency within the Chrome browser.
- Despite the success of browser extensions like Grammarly and Honey, building a business around them was initially met with skepticism in 2010.
- Extensive user interviews (700 in a year) revealed a common frustration: email taking too long, leading to feelings of frustration and wasted time.
NetSuite - Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning today! Visit
- Over 38,000 businesses use NetSuite by Oracle to manage their operations.
- NetSuite is a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that offers accounting, financial management, inventory, and human resources features in a single platform.
- Businesses can download a free CFO's guide to AI and machine learning by visiting nets.com/twist.
Superhuman's onboarding strategy and customer feedback importance
- Many founders have attempted to replicate the Superhuman model, recognizing its elegance, power, and appeal to power users.
- The decision to implement a human onboarding process stemmed from resource constraints and a desire to prioritize product development over growth in the early stages.
- The human onboarding process serves as a filter, effectively screening out casual users who may not fully utilize or appreciate the product's features, ensuring that the focus remains on attracting and retaining highly engaged users.
New features in Superhuman 2.0 and multiplayer email
- Superhuman 2.0 has been a significant business success with real revenue and a large customer base.
- Two highly requested features were multiplayer mode, allowing for team collaboration within the app, and team snippets, enabling consistent messaging across the organization.
- The speaker believes that AI will play a larger role in email, including features like automatically writing emails and summarizing content, as well as facilitating collaboration and shortening email length.
AI's impact on podcast production
- Artificial intelligence is impacting the production of text, audio, and knowledge work by either improving quality or reducing costs.
- This impact is being observed presently.
- The reduction in cost is achieved by reducing the workforce required.
Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time
- Lemon.io is a platform that connects businesses with vetted, experienced developers who have at least three years of experience.
- Lemon.io offers competitive rates and handles the integration of developers into teams, addressing the challenges of finding and onboarding tech talent.
- Listeners can get a 15% discount for their first four weeks using a special link.
Live demo of Superhuman 2.0
- Superhuman has expanded its user base to include larger enterprises, with some organizations having 2,000-3,000 users.
- Superhuman 2.0 introduces a collaborative email experience where users can share live email threads with their team, allowing for real-time commenting and eliminating the need for forwarding or BCCing.
- Shared email threads can be accessed by anyone via a link, even if they are not Superhuman users, facilitating collaboration with external parties like investors or vendors.
AssemblyAI - Get 100 free hours to start building
- AssemblyAI provides AI models that can be used to turn voice data into new features for products.
- AssemblyAI's speech-to-text AI models are simple, accurate, and fast, with a low word error rate.
- Developers can get 100 free hours of AssemblyAI by visiting assemblyai.com/twist.
Importance of documenting conversations and Superhuman for Sales
- The importance of documenting conversations, especially in business and finance, is emphasized due to their value and potential legal implications.
- There is a concern about the lack of documentation for past conversations and a desire to have a repository for important discussions.
- Email is highlighted as a valuable source of information, and a new AI-powered feature called "Ask AI" is introduced to improve email search functionality.
Live demo of Superhuman's “Ask AI” feature
- The “Ask AI” feature can search through a year’s worth of emails and calendar information to answer user questions.
- The feature can also provide follow-up questions and cite the source of the information, such as an email thread.
- One user was able to use “Ask AI” to find the 10 most positive customer responses to an email in a much shorter amount of time than it would have taken to do manually.
AI's impact on productivity and team management
- A company maintains 48 months of runway at all times to ensure stability and provide a clear message to investors and potential acquirers.
- A company size of 100-110 people is considered ideal as it allows for effective communication, manageable silos, and strong relationships between the founder/CEO and employees.
- Founders and CEOs should prioritize and communicate the expectation of increasing productivity through AI implementation and provide the necessary budget and support for adopting new software and tools.
AI tools for productivity
- Loom AI is a tool that allows for recording videos with screen capture and automatically generates titles, transcripts, and chapters from the recording.
- ChatGPT is a useful tool for generating variations of copy, such as headlines, with different attributes like being funnier or more concise.
- AI can be used to enhance productivity in creative tasks like writing by providing suggestions and sparking new ideas, even if some of the suggestions are not usable.
AI's future as a chief of staff and email management
- There are three phases in the evolution of AI features: on-demand, always-on, and AI agents.
- An AI agent could one day manage inboxes by drafting emails, scheduling meetings, and sending fully written emails on a user's behalf.
- Superhuman is working on improving its auto-reply feature by studying users' writing voices to make replies sound more personal.