In this interview, Jason M. Lemkin and ZoomInfo's CEO discuss the health metrics that matter for B2B SaaS renewals, emphasizing seat utilization and net retention rate (NRR) as key indicators. They explore the operational pain of manually managing seat assignments and the energy required to keep software usage efficient, noting that such effort cannot be sustained month‑to‑month. The conversation shifts to the broader challenge of uncertainty in software sales, with the CEO observing that many companies have restructured leadership to better navigate this volatility and that a clearer operating model should reduce future “handbrake” moments. The core of the discussion centers on AI’s role at ZoomInfo: AI can automate the heavy‑lifting of personalization—pre‑configuring the platform with the right accounts, technologies, intent topics, and buying‑committee information for each product SKU—while also generating contextual communications based on a customer’s own case studies and website. AI also powers prioritization, triaging accounts by real‑time signals such as website visits, executive hires, quarterly performance, or job postings, allowing sales teams to focus on the most promising prospects. Throughout, the CEO distinguishes between AI features that are genuinely valuable (personalization and prioritization) and those that are merely “real” but low‑value, underscoring the practical impact of AI on reducing onboarding friction and improving sales efficiency.
Chapters
Am I using all of my seats? How deeply am I engaging across those seats? Those are the metrics that matter the most for whether you're gonna be healthy at renewal time or not.
Yeah, it's a good insight there. The high NRR, just, it, it was a generation of, of, of disguising issues from product to sales, all, all up and down the stack, right?
100%. And you would pat yourself on the back.
You'd go like, yeah, we're geniuses. We're, we're the best customer success deployment. Every—
I'm glad I made all those investments in customer success because look at this net renewal rate, net retention rate ticking up.
This small question, but curious, this to go in and say, listen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have Zoom info for Bob, but not Elena and Jim, but not Jane to save money. That does take energy.
Yeah.
It takes a lot of energy. Like, and you could do it once because there's a crisis or my boss yells at me, but you can't do this every month. Has this gotta end in a way? There's only so much time with software management.
Yeah. Look, I think this is the worst emotion for software Sales is uncertainty, and we're— we, we have been in this very uncertain time, and I think that what we're coming— you know, what we should be coming out of, yeah, in '24 is that uncertainty. Now I know where my operating levels are, I know how to operate in this environment. A lot of companies have shifted around their executive teams, brought in new people. Yeah, these people know how to operate in the environment that they are in, and so there shouldn't be another handbrake moment. Yeah, we should be understanding understanding where we're operating and how to operate under this construct.
Good.
All right.
Before we run outta time, I wanna make enough time for what's new, what's new at ZoomInfo. And, but the first part, just tell me, cuz we're all cur— or everyone that's in B2B is curious, what's real and what isn't in AI? What's demo-ware? What's moving the needle? What are you hearing from your, and what do your customers want that may be real or fake? Or not right there in general and across your portfolio? What's real?
Yeah, so I think what's real— first, I think there's a lot of stuff that's real but maybe not that valuable, and then there's stuff that's just real. So I'll talk about the real things. In our business, we see prioritization and personalization are real. Okay, so when you come into ZoomInfo today, if I want to personalize that experience for you, I want to show you the right accounts, I want to show you, you know, which— what technologies that a company's using matter to you, what What intent topics are important? What scoop topics are important? I gotta ask you a whole litany of questions, right? Yeah. And I have to ask you them by product, cuz maybe your company has 3 product SKUs and the buyer for one is different than the buyer for the other. The scoop that you're looking for is different for one product versus the other product. It's like this nightmare from an administrative per perspective. What size companies, where are they? You know, how big are they? What technologies do they use? Who's in your buying committee? It's impossible to really get someone to to sit down for an hour and onboard with you to ask all of these questions and then get to like a really solid result that allows me to personalize the interface for you.
Yes.
AI does this incredibly well and can be tuned so that whenever user comes into the platform, I have preconfigured the platform exactly to which companies, which people, what scoops, what intent, What signal is important to you? I can just deliver that to you. And then I can also deliver for you contextually what your communications to those companies should be based on your website. All that understanding that I have about you, your case studies, all that information should allow me to craft in any circumstance a really contextual communication for you. The second is prioritization. And today triangulation is how people prioritize who they're gonna reach out to. They go, okay, here's my list of accounts. In those accounts, what's happening in them? Are any of them on my website? Have any of them hired a new CTO? Have any of them had a good quarter? Have any of them posted a job for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
