A SaaS founder's reality check vs linkedin AI hype | Vlad Zhovtenko @ RedTrack

Vlad has been online since 1997 — long enough to have seen every "this changes everything" cycle. Now, as founder of RedTrack, he's built a clear-eyed framework for what AI actually changes in SaaS, and what it doesn't. In this episode: → Why AI is the new internet — and the parts of the hype he's not buying → How iOS 14.5 quietly turned media buying from programmatic into algorithmic → The first-party data foundation every SaaS company should be building right now → What happened when RedTrack connected AI agents to three years of historical data → The four levels of AI adoption — and why most companies are stuck on level one → Why he's not raising another round, even as AI costs rise across the industry For SaaS founders trying to separate signal from noise on AI, attribution, and the "agent manager" hype. ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:06 — Internet Origins: How Vlad Found Digital Marketing 0:49 — AI vs. the Dot-Com Era: What's Actually Different This Time 3:16 — What Gen Alpha Really Thinks About AI 4:39 — The Birth of RedTrack and First-Party Data 7:33 — Is Attribution Still Relevant in a Cookieless World? 10:01 — How AI Is About to Break (and Rebuild) Media Buying 14:11 — Processing Work vs. Cognitive Work: Where AI Belongs 21:25 — Building an AI-Powered Company: Champions, Workflows, and Mandates 28:00 — Do You Need to Manage AI Agents? (Spoiler: No) 31:41 — LinkedIn Hype vs. Reality: What's Actually Happening With AI in Business 32:44 — To Raise or Not to Raise: Funding Strategy in the Age of AI 🎙️ Vlad - https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhovtenko/ RedTrack - https://www.redtrack.io Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796