How we repositioned Gorgias as a Conversational AI platform in 90 days

By end of 2024, every SaaS company was claiming to be AI-powered. The messages had blurred together, and customers could no longer tell products apart.

At Gorgias, AI had stopped being a feature in our product and had become our core product. The helpdesk framing we had used for years no longer fit what we were building. We decided to reposition the company from AI-powered helpdesk with an AI Agent product to a Conversational AI platform, and I led this effort.

Why we decided to reposition

Several things converged through 2024, and together they made the case for change:

• The product had changed. AI had moved from a supporting layer to the core experience. Keeping the "AI-powered helpdesk" label was underselling what the platform actually did.
• We were going after a new buyer. Our traditional persona was the customer experience manager. We were now also targeting Ecommerce directors and VPs who think in terms of operational leverage and business impact rather than ticket resolution metrics. The positioning needed to speak to both.
• We were moving upmarket. Larger enterprise brands have different expectations and require messaging that signals enterprise readiness, not just feature lists.
• The competitive landscape had crowded. By Q4 2024, 10+ players were describing themselves in nearly identical terms. Without a sharper point of view, we risked being seen as the more expensive version of a generic category.
• We had 5 products across 2 personas. Telling a coherent story across all of them had become genuinely hard, and customers were feeling that complexity.

How we built the positioning

I used April Dunford's positioning methodology, which structures the exercise around a series of specific questions that force you to articulate what you actually are, not what you wish you were.

• Competitive alternatives. If we did not exist, what would customers use? The answer was generic helpdesks or a patchwork of disconnected tools that were not built for ecommerce.
• Unique attributes. What do we have that others do not? Our platform was built specifically for ecommerce, deeply integrated with Shopify, and powered by AI that could resolve full conversations rather than just routing them.
• Value those attributes create. Our AI understood a brand's store, tech stack, and customer behavior well enough to drive personalized interactions at scale, while surfacing complex queries to agents who had full context on the customer.
• Who cares most about that value. High-growth ecommerce brands looking to improve margins by automating support and driving revenue, without sacrificing the quality of the customer experience.
• The market where the value is obvious. Brands handling high volumes of repetitive support tickets, looking to scale without adding headcount, especially those running on Shopify who wanted a support platform deeply integrated with their storefront.

What this exercise gave us was not just a tagline. It gave us a framework we could use to pressure-test every message, every asset, and every conversation with a prospect.

How we aligned the company

Getting the positioning right is only half the job. The other half is getting everyone to use it consistently, and that is a project management challenge as much as a strategic one.

Phase 1: Build alignment with leadership

In December 2024, I ran a 4-week sprint with the CEO, CRO, CPO, and GTM leads. We held 3 to 4 formal workshops designed not to inform but to collect feedback and build genuine buy-in. When people feel like they shaped the positioning, they carry it differently.

Phase 2: First external launch

Early January 2025, we revealed the new brand positioning alongside 2 high-profile customers at a launch event with 300+ attendees. The reveal was the centerpiece, but the real work started weeks before: coordinated social campaigns, persona-specific email sequences, and targeted outreach designed to build anticipation and send positive signals to the market ahead of the announcement. On launch day, the website, CEO video, and final messaging waves all went live simultaneously. The launch itself is just the peak: what you do in the weeks before and after determines whether the message actually lands.

Phase 3: Deeper internal rollout

From January through March, I focused on the internal rollout. We created a central positioning document that served as the source of truth for sales, marketing, partnerships, and customer success. But a document alone does not make a company speak the same language. We ran 2 to 3 workshops with each team and their leaders to explain the why, show what good sounded like, and equip them with crispy examples, data points, and customer success stories they could use the same week.

The partnerships team got extra attention. They talk to agencies, technology partners, and ecosystem players every day, which means every conversation they have is a chance to reinforce or dilute the new positioning. We invested disproportionately in making sure they could carry the message themselves.

Then partner marketing took it one layer further. We wrote to every partner asking them to update our positioning on their own websites, and gave them everything they needed to do it: collateral, images, and copy. We ran lunch and learns to walk them through the change. Within weeks, our positioning was showing up consistently across an ecosystem we did not directly control.

In parallel, we updated the highest-leverage internal assets first: sales decks, website pages, and the quarterly business review template. We ran a quality assurance process to catch inconsistencies before they reached customers.

Phase 4: A second launch through in-person events

In May, we held Gorgias Connect, one of the major North American events for customer experience. Few gatherings like this exist in our space, so it is a rare chance for e-commerce leaders to meet each other and learn from experts in the field. Pulling it off took 1 to 2 months of preparation and a coordination effort with nearly 25 people across Gorgias, including weeks of outreach to customers, partners, and agencies. Over 300 e-commerce leaders attended.

We secured Tiana from OpenAI as a speaker, used the moment to reveal our partnership on building our AI product on top of OpenAI models, and unveiled a new product with a live demo. My personal focus was on each presentation and who should say what, distilling the positioning into everyone's message and making sure the through-line was coherent and compelling. After the event, we followed with in-product and email announcements reinforcing the message.

What we learned

Repositioning is not a one-time event. The most important communication you do is the 2nd and 3rd wave, after the launch energy has faded.

• Positioning is harder when the product is still evolving. Our product maturity affected what we could honestly claim, which meant the positioning needed to be built for where the product was heading, not where it was on launch day. Aim to position 3 to 6 months ahead, but stay honest about what is true right now.
• Repetition is the mechanism for alignment. Talking about the positioning once in a kickoff meeting does not make it stick. We talked about it weekly, trained each team with the specifics relevant to their function, and ran quizzes to test whether it had actually landed.
• A single launch does not sustain a repositioning. You need planned follow-up campaigns and events to keep the message alive. Budget for the 2nd wave before you launch the first.
• Repositioning is cross-functional and it needs a single clear owner. That person has to be both a strong communicator and a strong project manager. The strategic and operational roles are inseparable.
• Storytelling frameworks compress complexity. Product suites and customer flywheels give internal teams and customers a mental model for how everything connects. Without that model, the complexity of a multi-product company is invisible to the people who need to explain it.

How we measure success

Positioning affects everything from awareness to retention, which makes it easy to measure nothing. We picked 3 metrics tied directly to the shift we were making.

The first is AI Agent deal volume: how many new customers are choosing us specifically for our AI capabilities, not our helpdesk feature set.

The second is AI Agent close rate: whether our sales narrative is landing well enough to move prospects through the funnel. A compelling positioning should improve close rates on the deals where it matters most.

The third is AI product adoption: whether existing customers are expanding their use of AI features over time.

Beyond these, we also track:

• Conversion rates from AI-focused landing pages
• Organic search visibility for AI-related terms
• Campaign performance for AI-specific messaging

The goal is not to prove the repositioning worked with 1 number, but to build a picture across the full funnel.