# AI adoption depends on showing people what to automate

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ai-adoption-depends-on-showing-people-what-to-automate/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Jean-Denis Greze](https://realalpha.app/builders/jean-denis-greze/) · Jean-Denis Greze is founder and CEO of Town. · Led Plaid’s EPD from $10M to $300M+ in ARR, then co-founded Town, an AI assistant for everyday work.
- Host: [Erik Torenberg](https://realalpha.app/people/erik-torenberg/) · General partner, Andreessen Horowitz · Helped build Product Hunt; founded On Deck, Village Global and Turpentine.
- Show: a16z Podcast
- Episode: [Why a $1M Startup Wasn’t Worth Building in the Age of AI](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/), Oct 19, 2026
- Moment: 45:37 to 48:58 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ai-adoption-depends-on-showing-people-what-to-automate/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2737

## Quote

> “and the unlock is, is there someone over there that **gets AI enough** to want to tinker a solution to their problem?”
> — [Jean-Denis Greze](https://realalpha.app/builders/jean-denis-greze/) at [46:32](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2792) · a16z Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Small businesses need help identifying tasks AI can handle.
2. A text box alone does not make new workflows obvious.
3. Recommend useful automations without requiring custom integrations.

## About this segment

Jean-Denis Greze says AI can solve many small-business problems, but users often have to discover and build workflows themselves. Products need to show a useful automation and deliver it for them.

From “Why a $1M Startup Wasn’t Worth Building in the Age of AI”, Oct 19, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[45:43](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2743) I'm thinking about individual anecdotes. I'm thinking about this business that rents surfboards on an island to people and then uses town to inspect surfboards and little beach buggies, whether they've been damaged to decide whether afterwards a person should get their deposit back. That's pretty cool. Yeah, but it's like, I'm like, that is not on my bingo card. It's not on my 128 by 128 board bingo card.

[46:13](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2773) It's like just nowhere on there. Really what's happening is there is a tinker at that small business who there was something that was annoying to them and then they figured out with town how they could automate comparing these pictures and deciding whether to release people's deposits. and what makes it work there is the tinker. And so my answer to you is actually we're seeing use in all the weird spots of the economy and the unlock is, is there someone over there that gets AI enough to want to tinker a solution to their problem?

[46:48](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2808) And the problem with that is that there aren't enough tinkers in the world or there aren't enough people that have the time to be tinkers to help their business. And I think that's why AI is not diffusing. The reason why it's not diffusing is because even though in Claude or in ChatGPT, there has existed for the last 12 months features that at a lot of small businesses you could use to save you so much more time.

[47:18](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2838) But instead what you're doing is you're using them as a replacement, as like a better Google search. And you're like, what's happening? And it's because the product experience can't just be a text box. And what we have to do is we have to, you can't teach someone, you have to just show the value prop to someone and do it for them. I think that's like the real unlock. And so whenever, for our product, what makes someone sick with town?

[47:41](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2861) Like it's this, they've connected their email, their calendar, and ideally one really important system of record for their business. And then they've built one custom integration. That means they've built one thing that didn't come out of the box, that was magical. And I'm trying to just get rid of the custom integration. I'm going to get each person, which is as soon as you connect your system of record, can I deliver value to you in a way that feels very you, that really helps you.

[48:08](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2888) And that's the opportunity and that's why you don't see it spread evenly. It's because in Silicon Valley, we're all working at companies next to engineers. And so we're much closer to this innate problem solving and tinker. Like we have tinkers everywhere in our firms. So yeah, our firms are using AI effectively. And most of the world just doesn't have that. And so that's the real problem. And if you can fix that, if you can make a non-tanker into getting the same value as a tanker in the world of AI, like, you could be a ginormous business today because AI can solve so many business problems. Like, you don't need more intelligence. The intelligence is there.

[48:44](https://realalpha.app/v/o_5f4N6Nq80/?t=2924) It's just how do you deploy it effectively at scale? Yeah, it feels like it's an integration problem. It's a product marketing problem. Yes. Because everybody, and it's