Contrary Research

[NEW REPORT]: We've released an updated report outlining Sierra's business and how the company: • Reached $100M+ ARR in just under three years • Is powering hundreds of millions of interactions • Are building for a future with ChatGPT as a dominant consumer channel Plus... • How Sierra competes against incumbent giants like Salesforce's Agentforce, Genesys, and NICE; and why their distribution advantages may matter less than expected • The AI-native rivalry with Decagon, Ada, and PolyAI, and where each company is making different bets on orchestration, voice, and pricing • Why outcome-based pricing is more than a gimmick and how it structurally locks in expansion revenue in ways seat-based incumbents can't match • The "build once, run everywhere" architecture that lets a single agent operate consistently across phone, chat, SMS, email, and even ChatGPT • Inside the product stack: Agent SDK, Agent Studio, Ghostwriter, Insights 2.0, the Agent Data Platform, and Live Assist; and how they fit together as an operating system rather than a chatbot • The shift from cost center to revenue protection: How Sierra is moving beyond ticket deflection into churn saves, win-backs, and identity-gated upgrades where the value per resolution rises sharply • Market sizing across three converging pools: Conversational AI, contact-center software, and the $120B+ in U.S. customer service wages alone • The Bret Taylor founding story including the lunch with Clay Bavor where they decided to start a company with no product idea, only a conviction • Key risks that could derail the thesis, including how a single high-profile agent failure could reshape enterprise willingness to automate sensitive workflows • The international expansion playbook: SoftBank investment, the Opera Tech acquisition in Tokyo, and offices opening across Asia and Europe in under six months • What Sierra's valuation actually assumes about labor automation economics, and how it compares to compressing CCaaS multiples at Five9 and NICE

Today, we’re launching The Anduril Thesis, a 300-page book 2 years in the making. Of 500+ companies we’ve covered, Anduril could be the most important of all. Because if it mission is successful, it could single-handedly deter a catastrophic global conflict. Here's the story: