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Globe and Mail
8 hours ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Vancouver software company Klue Labs cutting work force in half for AI reboot
Vancouver software company Klue Labs Inc. is preparing to lay off up to half its work force, or about 100 people, to reposition itself for the artificial intelligence age. Co-founder and chief executive Jason Smith told The Globe and Mail that he informed staff about the restructuring last week and said that Klue is finalizing plans for layoffs to be implemented this coming Wednesday. 'We need to do this because it's a wake-up call for companies that aren't AI native to start to think that way,' he said, adding that the restructuring is not because of financial concerns or a lack of funding. While the number of layoffs could change, Mr. Smith said that it could affect between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the company. Klue, which makes AI-powered business intelligence tools for sales professionals to gather information on competitors, has to reboot as a result of AI, according to Mr. Smith. Generative AI tools have become more adept since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, forcing software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies founded before that date to drastically rethink operations, he said. Your brain on AI Klue has already adopted AI to a large extent internally, but Mr. Smith felt that the company was not moving fast enough. After an employee responsible for writing help documentation left Klue recently, Mr. Smith realized that AI could handle much of the work before the company would need to hire a replacement. 'That became a pivotal moment for me to think that we need to do something more dramatic than inching our way to AI improvement,' he said. 'My belief is you kind of need to shock the company.' Klue was founded in 2015 and has raised US$80-million in funding, including from Tiger Global Management, and services customers such as Autodesk and Salesforce. Its platform uses AI to analyze millions of data points, including news articles and websites, to deliver insights to customers about the competition. The impact of AI on the labour market is hotly debated and uncertain. Some executives, such as Anthropic's Dario Amodei, have argued that AI could replace large swaths of entry-level office jobs. Others contend that AI will change the nature of work but allow people to focus on higher-value tasks, while also creating new roles. Announcing layoffs beforehand was unusual, he acknowledged, but said he did so in order for employees to have time to process the news and ask questions and decide if they want to leave voluntarily. The company is offering voluntary exit packages to all employees with the same severance as involuntary layoffs. Mr. Smith said the downsizing is not about replacing employees directly but equipping smaller teams to work faster and more efficiently with AI, particularly with agents, which are tools that complete a range of multi-step tasks such as coding and developing software prototypes. 'This is about creating a reduction, so you can't turn to an automatic hire. You have to turn to see if an AI agent can help you first,' he said. A seasoned tech executive and entrepreneur, Mr. Smith said that if he were to start Klue today, he would begin with using AI agents and grow from there. Klue is the latest Canadian company reckoning with the impact of AI. Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke told employees in April that using AI is a 'fundamental expectation' and that before asking for more headcount or resources, employees will have to justify why the work cannot be done with AI. Open Text Corp. has adopted an AI-first approach, too. 'We will only hire new talent where the work cannot be done by AI,' CEO Mark Barrenechea said on a May earnings call. In the U.S., Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo on Tuesday that adopting generative AI and agents 'will reduce our total corporate workforce' in the next few years. But at least one company is backtracking. Klarna, which is based in Sweden and offers buy-now-pay-later services, made headlines last year for its attempts to cut its work force in half, implementing a hiring freeze and replacing customer support agents with AI. The company is recruiting again. Mr. Smith said that could be a possibility for Klue. 'If we need to, we can ramp back up,' he said. 'I want my company on the edge of knowing what it can and can't do. If you don't live on that edge, you're not moving fast enough.' With reports from Sean Silcoff
Globe and Mail
10-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Why sales teams are turning to this Canadian firm for a competitive edge
When a competitor falsely claimed that the Huntress cybersecurity solution lacked a specific feature – a statement that could have turned off prospective clients – the U.S.-based company turned to Vancouver-based Klue Labs Inc. for help. Klue's AI-powered competitive intelligence platform helped Huntress's sales team quickly discover and counter the misinformation. Uncovering the false claim also helped Huntress highlight its work and secure an upcoming deal. Knowing what the competition is up to is essential in the rapidly evolving cybersecurity sector. 'I couldn't do my job without it,' Dustin Ray, head of competitive and market intelligence at Huntress, says of the Klue platform that helps businesses collect, analyze and share competitive and market intelligence. Mr. Ray says 90 per cent of his sales team engages with the Klue platform weekly. In business-to-business sales, understanding your competitor's positioning is crucial, says Klue co-founder and chief executive officer Jason Smith, using a car analogy to make his point. 'If you're thinking, 'Do I buy a Toyota or an Audi?', you've got a certain perception of each,' Mr. Smith says. He argues that a savvy salesperson doesn't need to name the competitor. Instead, they highlight unique features that set their product apart. For instance, emphasizing advanced battery technology without directly referencing Toyota can subtly counter the competitor's strengths, allowing the prospect to perceive the distinction. The approach requires a deep understanding of the competitor's offerings and the ability to pivot the conversation effectively. 'It's about understanding why you're better than somebody else... and then figuring out how to talk around that in an elegant way that is authentic to your business,' says Mr. Smith, who founded Klue in 2015 with Sarathy Naicker. He says Klue's solutions make it easier for sales teams to have more meaningful conversations with potential customers by turning heaps of data into clear, actionable insights. Instead of getting bogged down in endless spreadsheets or outdated documents, reps get real-time, digestible information that helps them highlight what makes their product stand out. The approach boosts confidence and allows teams to address concerns and reinforce their product's value without resorting to negative comparisons. 'There's this big corpus of information about your competitors,' Mr. Smith says. 'How do we harness it? How do we collect it? How do we pull it down into something that is actually going to be digestible at a human scale?' To help with the heavy lifting, Klue's platform processes millions of data points daily, including news articles, blog posts, and website updates. It then takes the raw data, chooses the most pertinent points, has a human – their product marketer – help contextualize the material and then delivers a succinct, deep dive into the competition. 'Companies like ours are designed to find the right quality content and the right trade-offs and the weighting and the wrappers around it, the workflows, so that the human can add the right context and fix it to produce a really great output, not just fluff,' Mr. Smith says. 'And that's the difference.' It's all part of how AI is modernizing workflows by enhancing areas like marketing automation, distilling vast quantities of information and streamlining administrative tasks, explains Jenny Yang, senior advisor at MaRS Enterprise. 'It may not be that you need to use AI in your core business, but there are many ancillary areas of your business where AI could help,' says Ms. Yang, adding that by automating repetitive tasks, AI frees employees to focus on strategic initiatives, thereby boosting efficiency and innovation. She also warns that failing to adopt AI tools means risking inefficiency and falling behind the competition. 'If you're not using it, then you're wasting your time on those mundane tasks when your competitors are focusing that time on their core business,' Ms. Yang says. 'If you're a farmer who used to till your field by hand, but now someone else is using a tractor or a machine, you need to adjust or you're going to get left behind.' Even within Klue's own business, adopting its tech has drastically reduced tedious tasks for its employees, saving saving 150 hours of tedious work per month last quarter, Mr. Smith says. He believes humans excel when engaging in creative and strategic thinking and interacting with other people, not in repetitive tasks that 'sap our energy' and are 'not what we're designed for,' he says. 'Every series of new innovations that we've come up with in tech has just led to more creativity,' Mr. Smith says. 'And I'm confident that that's what's going to happen next.'
