.svg)
.png)
WELCOME TO BUILD MODE
Build Mode is your insider's guide to AI innovation and the future of work. Every month, we bring you exclusive insights from top GenAI builders, CTOs, and innovation leaders who are building the next generation of technology.
THE BIG IDEA
An expert guide to bridging the AI talent gap
In November of 2022, ChatGPT entered the scene, and analysts jumped to project how many workers would be replaced by GenAI. But since then, we’ve witnessed two fascinating plot twists:
- Generative AI hitting the trough of disillusionment: According to Gartner, early half of global IT leaders said that their top barrier to implementing GenAI was that they could not demonstrate AI's value and that they lacked the talent and skills within their workforce to deploy it (Gartner).
- The big shift in the full-time vs. freelance paradigm: As Daniel Pink wrote 20 years ago in his best-selling book Free Agent Nation, there's long been an elite class of coders, consultants, and creators who eschew the shackles of full-time employment for the freedom and flexibility of going on their own. But now, it's growing fast: Our research shows 74% of knowledge workers believe layoffs have made freelancing far more attractive.
How will technology leaders move ahead? We're exploring a new paradigm of building software products with "Blended Teams" — supercharging a smaller core team with specialized independent talent to get out of their innovation rut:
- 45% of corporate leaders say that freelance talent has doubled their organizational agility
- 40% say it's doubled their quality of work
- 39% say it's doubled their innovation and scalability
How are Blended Teams different than the outsourcing of the past? Most of the traditionally outsourced dev tasks tended to be the kind of rote tasks that GenAI is — ironically — getting very good at. Blended teams mean truly embedding freelance talent inside of your existing teams to infuse them with new skills, expertise, and ideas.
In the AI age, this model has added benefits. The most common one we see at A.Team is that free agent product builders have a significant knowledge and experience advantage right now. Most full-time employees have very little experience building production-ready AI products that don't hallucinate embarrassingly or worse. On the flip side, the independent AI specialists in our network have led deployments at a half dozen companies, and that experience helps them avoid a lot of common pitfalls. We commonly see deployments that companies expect to take months take mere weeks.
By infusing corporate teams with 'startup builder DNA,' the blended teams model is allowing top innovation leaders to escape the trough of disillusionment, build useful, scalable products at startup speed, and maintain flexibility in an era where workforce planning is increasingly challenging — all the while workers maximize their earnings while doing the work they love.
Want to learn how top CTOs are leveraging blended teams to accelerate their AI initiatives? Download our comprehensive Blended Teams Playbook. It's filled with real-world case studies, proven strategies, and insights from innovation leaders at companies like GoogleX, Ford Motors, and more.
CHART OF THE WEEK
From Buy to Build
In the first modern software revolution of the early 1990s, we lived in a Single Vendor Era: IBM, Oracle, and SAP would load software onto a mainframe that lived onsite. This software was expensive, broad, cost millions of dollars, and took months to deploy.
Then, in the early 2000s, we entered the Cloud Era, which was enabled by cloud computing and dominated by companies like Salesforce. Next, in the 2010s, we entered the Vertical SaaS Era, as a wave of startups rose to develop point solutions for specific industries.
In each of these revolutions, the cost of software development got cheaper, and we moved from one expensive single-vendor product to a smorgasbord of integrated point solutions. But one thing stayed the same: As a company, you were buying software, and the main job of IT teams was to integrate these disparate solutions.
GenAI is fundamentally different: You won't get a ton of value if all you do is buy a software license. If you want to realize the true value of GenAI, you likely need to build custom products based on proprietary data that give you a critical competitive edge. In other words, GenAI forces us to shift from a mindset of buying software to building custom tech.
But here’s the challenge: Most companies' product and engineering teams aren't accustomed to building new products 0-1. To oversimplify things: If you work on the IT side at most mid-market and enterprise companies, your job isn't to build new products; it's to make sure that all of the software you've bought works well together.
Building and launching new products often requires an entirely different skill set and mindset amongst your workforce. A BCG survey found that 62% of corporate leaders said a lack of talent was their biggest barrier to AI adoption. In an Adecco survey of 2,000 C-suite executives, 66% said they will need to acquire that AI talent externally rather than developing it internally. Even some of the tech giants we work with haven’t built anything new in over a decade.
For all these reasons, GenAI innovation is more than a tech problem, it’s a talent problem. This is why blended teams are becoming so crucial. They let you rapidly inject the specialized skills you need to innovate in the GenAI era. Our Blended Teams Playbook offers a blueprint for assembling the talent you need to start building custom AI solutions today so you can be ready for tomorrow.
CLIENT SPOTLIGHT
GenAI in Action
Streamlining Workflows and Boosting Productivity by 40% with GenAI
Discover how a Fortune 500 health system partnered with A.Team to develop an AI-powered platform that revolutionized critical workflows across its network of hospitals and increased staff productivity by 40%.
Modernizing Manual Legacy Processes with GenAI in Just 12 Months
Discover how a 20-year industry veteran partnered with A.Team to build an AI-powered platform, revolutionizing manual workflows and unlocking new revenue streams in just 12 months.
How Unifying Siloed Data for Real-Time Insights Lead to 36h Saved per Week
Learn how this fast-growing company partnered with A.Team to build a real-time analytics system in just 6 months, projecting a 30% boost in customer spend, and saving 36 hours of weekly analysis time.
EVENTS
How Blended Teams Are Driving AI Innovation
On Oct 10th, we hosted a webinar on how top CTOs are leveraging alternative talent pipelines to accelerate AI initiatives. Watch the recording to get insights from innovation leaders like Jim Spare, SVP and GM of IDC, former Google X Chaos Pilot AJ Thomas, and Richard Abrich, Founder & CTO at OpenAdapt.ai on how they’re solving the talent gap, overcoming implementation hurdles, and driving forward a high-ROI AI strategy to deliver business value.
BUILDER SPOTLIGHT
The Talent Powering Blended Teams
Meet Anya and Tomi, two A.Team architects revolutionizing the world of healthcare and legal tech. From automating clinical workflows at a Fortune 500 health system to digitally transforming America's largest injury law firm, they exemplify why top talent chooses A.Team.
Hire in minutes, onboard in days with AI-powered Search
Discover the talent with the experience, skills, and expertise you've been missing.
.jpeg)
.jpg)
