Rebecca Balan hosts a discussion with Chris Taylor and Eddie Siegel, former co-founders of Fractional AI, about their new venture Ode with Anthropic. Ode is an AI-native services firm backed by Anthropic and Blackstone that helps enterprises implement bespoke AI solutions to unlock business value, focusing on high-impact projects with small, elite teams.
Summarized by Podsumo
Ode is a new AI services company formed by a JV between Anthropic and Blackstone, aiming to be the defining company in the emerging AI-native services market.
The firm targets non-AI companies that can become big winners by adopting AI correctly, using small teams of elite generalist engineers (many former founders) to deliver custom solutions.
A key metric of success is measurable business value within 3-6 months, often tied to revenue growth or efficiency gains, not just technical deployment.
The company prioritizes CEO-level priorities and uses close collaboration with clients, iterating every few days with rigorous evals to ensure ROI.
Ode differentiates itself from traditional consultancies by focusing on deep technical engineering, process redesign, and leveraging Anthropic's models and tools like Claude Tag for internal efficiency.
"The basic founding belief of Ode is that non-AI companies are going to be among the big winners of this whole AI moment if they adopt the technology the right way. — Chris Taylor"
"Our headquarters are in San Francisco and in New York. These are like top tier experienced generalist engineers. Over half of them are former founders. — Eddie Siegel"
"If you look at the really successful previous generation services businesses... the opportunity to like at scale be doing four person engagements where those four people can transform a whole business is an AI phenomenon. — Eddie Siegel"