Customer Success Manager - Strategic

Zillow, Realtor.com and NAHB join forces on a housing supply campaign. A group of competing real estate companies and trade groups launched Let America Build on Sept. 15, a national awareness campaign aimed at local zoning, permitting and land-use rules. No budget was disclosed. Two listing portals that compete for the same agents, rival brokerage brands, the homebuilders' lobby and Habitat for Humanity put their names on the same document Sept. 15, launching a national campaign built on a single argument: if the country wants more homes, local governments have to let people build them. The campaign is called Let America Build. Realtor.com announced it from Austin, Texas, and the founding participants named in the announcement include Realtor.com, Zillow, T3 Sixty, eXp Realty and NextHome, the National Association of Home Builders, Veterans United Home Loans, Habitat for Humanity, ICON, Land Use Labs, HomeServices of America, the Asian Real Estate Association of America, the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance and the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. No budget was disclosed. The campaign describes itself as a public awareness effort rather than a lobbying operation, and the announcement states plainly that it "does not endorse or oppose candidates, political parties or ballot measures." The three numbers the campaign is built on. The participants anchored their case in research each of them owns. Realtor.com's housing supply gap analysis puts the shortfall at 4.03 million homes. NAHB's work on regulatory cost holds that government regulation, taxes, fees and related costs add more than 26% to the price of an average new single-family home. And Zillow research found that putting one home on each of the more than 300,000 small vacant lots currently listed for sale would close 6.3% of the national deficit. Those figures point at the same target: not federal money, but the local rules that govern what can be built, where, and how long approval takes. What the campaign is asking for. The campaign site hosts explainers on land use, permitting, housing types and construction methods, plus a toolkit aimed at residents who want to raise the issue with local officials. The pitch is that the decisive fights are municipal. "If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together, and with a problem as big as America's home shortage, it is time we go together," said Damian Eales, CEO of Realtor.com. "Earlier this year, I challenged the industry to come together and unify. Let America Build is a result of that call." Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman was more specific about the asks. "We know what's driving it and we know what will fix it: streamlining permitting, modernizing zoning and unlocking land that's already there," he said. NAHB CEO Jim Tobin framed the effort as aimed at "removing inefficient zoning rules, unnecessary regulations, permitting delays and other barriers that keep builders from delivering more affordable, attainable homes." Sara Bronin, CEO of Land Use Labs, brought the group's most concrete claim about scale. "Our team - which has sifted through 1.4 million pages of zoning codes - sees the consequences of red tape up close, day in and day out," she said. Other participants tied it to their own constituencies. Nathan Long, CEO of Veterans United Home Loans, said that for many veterans and military families "the challenge today isn't the desire to own a home - it's simply finding one they can afford." Chris Kelly, president and CEO of HomeServices of America, said the supply problem "has been years in the making." Alex Cruz, executive director of the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance, said expanding supply is part of removing barriers his members' clients face. Leo Pareja, CEO of eXp Realty and NextHome, called for "more options, fewer barriers, faster paths from plan to reality" at the local level. Timed to a new federal law. The launch follows the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the bipartisan law that ties federal housing grants to local home construction and gives states and localities new tools and incentives. The campaign's framing is that the law shifted the action downward - Washington has set terms, and what happens next depends on city councils, county boards and planning commissions. Let America Build grows out of an earlier Realtor.com campaign introduced at SXSW in 2025, now widened into an industry-wide effort under its own banner. Why this one is unusual. Awareness campaigns are cheap to announce and hard to measure, and this one arrives without a stated budget, a legislative agenda or a target list of jurisdictions. What makes it worth noting is the roster: Zillow and Realtor.com compete directly, eXp and HomeServices compete for the same agents, and builders and brokerages do not always line up the same way on local land-use questions. Getting that group to sign one statement about zoning is itself the news. Whether it moves anything is a separate question, and the answer will show up in permit counts rather than press releases. Recent local action has cut both ways: San Jose, Calif., has moved to quadruple allowable density in single-family neighborhoods, while affordability has kept deteriorating nationally, with NAHB's own cost-of-housing index worsening in the second quarter as higher rates bit.

AI strategy must match corporate reality. Companies often invest heavily in artificial intelligence hoping for tangible business value, yet many initiatives stall before delivering results. According to recent surveys, 42% of companies abandoned the majority of their AI initiatives in 2025, up from 17% in 2024, and on average, 46% of proof-of-concepts were scrapped before reaching production. This disconnect frequently stems from a misalignment between ambitious innovation goals and a company's underlying value chains, operating models, and technology stacks rather than limitations in the technology itself. S&P Global Market Intelligence found that only one-third of organizations achieve significant ROI from their AI investments, even though 73% spend more than $1 million annually on the technology. Two key dimensions for success. Research indicates that AI success depends on where a company falls along two key dimensions: value-chain control and technological breadth. Value-chain control refers to the degree of influence a firm has over the journey from idea to market. Companies with high control can test, iterate, and scale innovations quickly because they own or strongly influence product design, manufacturing, distribution, and customer engagement. Samsung, for example, can roll out AI-powered display or camera improvements across its entire product portfolio because it controls everything from chip fabrication to global retail outlets. At the other end of the spectrum are companies with low control, such as tier-two suppliers in the automotive sector or brand licensors, which must rely on others to validate or distribute innovations. The second dimension, technological breadth, refers to the range and interdependence of the technologies a company must integrate to compete. High-breadth sectors, such as semiconductors, autonomous vehicles, and life sciences, require AI to be woven into a fast-moving web of other technologies like sensors, robotics, materials science, and cloud architecture. Low-breadth industries, such as food processing, building materials, and basic logistics, tend to operate with more stable technology stacks, where AI is used to refine existing processes rather than redefine the environment. These dimensions are dynamic forces that evolve across functions, geographies, and time, meaning a company may have high technological breadth in R&D but low breadth in customer engagement, or exert strong value-chain control in one region while depending heavily on intermediaries in another. It is common for organizations to assume that a single, overarching AI strategy will apply uniformly across all functions. However, the reality is often more fragmented, with different parts of a company operating in different quadrants of this framework. A global consumer goods company might apply focused differentiation strategies in its supply chain while simultaneously engaging in platform leadership for its digital products. This complexity requires leaders to recognize that strategy may begin in one quadrant, but success is built through a system that adapts to the specific constraints and opportunities of each area. Four strategies for realizing AI potential. Four strategic approaches for companies. Four distinct approaches emerge from this framework, each suited to a specific organizational position. The first, focused differentiation, applies to companies with limited value-chain control and low technological breadth. These firms operate in mature industries and use AI to fine-tune and optimize products or processes within a defined domain rather than redesigning the system. The global spice manufacturer McCormick & Company narrowed its focus to flavor development. In 2019, the company partnered with IBM to build SAGE, an AI system trained on decades of sensory data, recipes, and consumer insights. The tool has since become central to McCormick's product development process, helping the company accelerate innovation. The chief risk for companies in this quadrant is an excess of ambition; Zillow's home-flipping initiative, which relied on its AI-derived pricing model, spectacularly failed to scale, resulting in a $304 million inventory write-down and the cancellation of the entire Zillow Offers business. The second strategy, vertical integration, suits companies with strong value-chain control but relatively limited technological breadth. These organizations embed AI into the processes they already own, linking insights across internal systems to reveal synergies and efficiencies. JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce giant, embedded AI across its logistics network, using real-time data to optimize warehouse inventory, delivery routing, and labor scheduling. During the pandemic lockdowns, JD.com's intelligent system rerouted deliveries based on containment zones and dynamically reassigned inventory to match regional surges in demand, maintaining uninterrupted service while competitors struggled. In the energy sector, ExxonMobil used AI to interpret seismic data and optimize drilling paths in Guyana, cutting average well-drilling time by 15% and saving millions per site. GE, however, sought to become the Microsoft of industrial AI with its Predix platform but scaled back its ambitions after spending more than $4 billion due to siloed data, internal resistance, and shifting leadership. Thriving in complex ecosystems. The third approach, collaborative ecosystem, applies to companies operating in technologically complex ecosystems but lacking control over how solutions reach the market. Success here comes from partnering strategically rather than going it alone. Novartis and Microsoft created an AI innovation lab aimed at accelerating drug discovery, with tools that helped identify new biomarker combinations for oncology trials, cutting trial design time by more than 30%. BMW Group's alliance with Intel and Mobileye contributed distinct capabilities - processing power, computer vision, and vehicle integration - to develop autonomous driving solutions. Pfizer's collaboration with BioNTech during the Covid-19 pandemic saw BioNTech's AI models screen more than 10,000 mRNA candidates in days, selecting the formulation that became the vaccine, while Pfizer's global regulatory and manufacturing capabilities accelerated production. IBM's high-profile collaboration with the cancer center MD Anderson aimed to transform cancer care with its Watson-powered Oncology Expert Advisor, but the project struggled with organizational and integration challenges and never moved beyond the pilot phase. The final strategy, platform leadership, applies to companies at the apex of both dimensions - high technological breadth and broad value-chain control. These organizations create infrastructure and ecosystems as well as build products, focusing on setting standards and opening APIs. Bloomberg's launch of BloombergGPT, a finance-specific large language model trained on more than 700 billion tokens, was a strategic move to define the next generation of financial AI. Siemens Healthineers has achieved a similar position in medical imaging with its AI-Rad Companion suite, which integrates directly with hospital systems to analyze X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs. Microsoft's platform approach combines infrastructure, tooling, and ecosystem orchestration, with GitHub Copilot contributing up to 40% of code written in supported languages and Azure OpenAI Service serving as the enterprise backbone for generative AI. Google's foray into healthcare AI through its DeepMind Health, however, faced setbacks when the team accessed millions of NHS records without proper consent, leading to public backlash and the absorption of the initiative into Google Health. The human factor in AI adoption. A survey of 1,600 enterprise leaders and employees by the AI firm Writer found that 31% of employees admitted to actively pushing back on their company's AI initiatives - often because they feared being replaced. One in 10 went even further, saying they had tampered with performance metrics or intentionally generated low-quality outputs to undermine adoption efforts. When Rent a Mac, an Apple device rental company, launched an AI-driven inventory management system, it triggered anxiety across its workforce, leading to a seven-week delay in implementation and a loss of about $85,000 in expected efficiency savings. However, by appointing AI champions to demonstrate real use cases, the company saw engagement levels triple from 31% to 89% in just a few months. Colgate-Palmolive recognized the importance of employee engagement when it launched its internal AI Hub that empowered employees to develop their own assistants, thousands of them, without coding experience, resulting in better workflows and buy-in. The role of the manager is shifting in AI-powered organizations. Beyond coordinating people, managers must help teams learn to collaborate with algorithms, interpreting machine insights, redesigning workflows, and translating technical progress into human progress. This often requires a cultural shift: creating space to experiment, to fail fast, and to learn in real time. The most successful organizations treat AI not as an answer but as a question: How can Indochina Discovery work smarter, together? This approach ensures that AI is used to enhance human capabilities rather than replace them.

Former Zillow VP Matt Gilliland joins ASI as chief product officer. Gilliland will be tasked with helping shape the future of the ESP+ platform and accelerating development of new AI-powered tools. Key Takeaways - ASI has hired former Zillow VP of Product Matt Gilliland as chief product officer. - Gilliland will lead product strategy, oversee ESP+ and drive development of new AI-powered tools for distributors and suppliers. - The appointment creates separate leadership for product and technology at ASI, with Gilliland focusing on product innovation and CTO Ryan Hutchison concentrating on the company's technology infrastructure. Matt Gilliland has found a new home at ASI. The former vice president of product at Zillow is taking on a new role as chief product officer at ASI, the company announced today. In the position, Gilliland will lead the company's product organization, help shape the future of the ESP+ platform and drive development of new AI-powered tools for distributors and suppliers. Matt Gilliland will start his role as chief product officer at ASI on Sept. 14. "ASI has spent decades building something technology alone can't create: deep industry expertise, trusted relationships and a thriving community of distributors and suppliers," said Gilliland, who will begin his role on Sept. 14. "I'm excited about the opportunity to combine that foundation with modern technology that takes work off our members' plates, amplifies what they're capable of and lets them spend more of their time on relationships, creativity and their customers." Gilliland joins the technology, marketing and information provider with more than 18 years of product and tech experience. He began working at Zillow in 2014 and moved up the ladder to director and senior director, before eventually landing the position of vice president of product. Before Zillow, Gilliland held roles at Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft, ADP Dealer Services and Holland America Line. Gilliland will report to ASI CEO Ashish Mittal and join the company's executive team. "Promo is moving too fast for incremental thinking," said Mittal, who became ASI's CEO in April. "Matt knows how to take complex technology and turn it into products people want to use every day. His experience at Zillow is especially relevant to ASI because both businesses sit at the center of large, fast-moving, two-sided marketplaces. We're building the technology our members will need next - and Matt is exactly the kind of leader who can help us get there faster." ESP+ gives distributors access to more than 1.2 million promotional products from more than 3,000 suppliers, with search tools to quickly narrow results. Distributors can then turn product ideas into branded presentations, quotes and orders and manage client relationships within the same platform. In July, ASI introduced the AI-powered Inspire Design Studio, allowing distributors to create realistic lifestyle images, find company logos and generate original visual assets without jumping between multiple AI tools, design programs and websites. With the hiring of Gilliland, ASI's Ryan Hutchison will now focus solely on technology as chief technology officer, leading the infrastructure and technology behind ASI. The company says the new structure gives ASI dedicated leadership across both product and technology, helping the company move faster as it develops tools that make it easier for distributors to sell, create and run their businesses.