The GTM AI Gap
Analysis of Lenny’s 300+ episode dataset
Lenny Rachitsky opened his podcast archive last week.
300+ episodes. Every transcript. Free to the public.
I was interested in what we can infer from Lenny’s content about the AI wave. His podcast has become a go-to for insights at the intersection of AI and business. The guests are top tier. The conversations go deep.
If anyone’s dataset would reveal where AI is actually working, it’s this one.
Here’s what I found.
Why dig here: Lenny’s pod has become an AI-first conversation
The shift is clear. In 2022, less then 10% of episodes were AI-focused. By the end of 2025, 67% of episodes were AI-focused.
And the audience is responding. AI-focused episodes average 88K YouTube views. Non-AI episodes average 35K. That’s a 2.5x difference.
Lenny goes where the action is. Right now, the action is AI.
But where exactly is the AI action?
Digging deeper, I categorized the AI conversations into three domains. I used this framework to further analyze Lenny’s archive.
Building AI-Native Products - LLMs, prompts, evals, safety, security, RAG
Engineering & Coding with AI - Vibe coding, Cursor, Lovable, Windsurf, CoPilots
GTM & Growth with AI - AEO, pricing, AI agents, lead gen, sales
All three matter. But depth and interest are not evenly distributed.
The gap
Comparing the depth and engagement across these buckets showed a clear gap. Product and engineering are riding the wave. GTM is paddling around.
I’ve expressed versions of this before. But Lenny’s dataset brought it to life in a different way for me.
The first place I saw this difference is in the number of episodes and views across categories. ~87% of the views and episodes are focused on product and engineering, with ~13% focused on GTM.
The word frequency tells the same story.
Across the 75 AI-focused episodes:
“product” appears 5,070 times
“build” appears 3,848 times
“code” appears 1,489 times
“engineer” appears 1,443 times
“marketing” appears 444 times
That’s an 11x gap between “product” and “marketing.”
And the top 25 AI episodes are dominated by product and engineering
The first GTM-focused episode is Ethan Smith on AEO at 98K views. Solid. But it’s surrounded by product and engineering content.
Product and engineering have clear winners. Cursor, Lovable, Anthropic, OpenAI. Tactical playbooks on evals, prompts, agents. Real revenue, real growth stories.
GTM is still finding its footing.
The opportunity
This gap makes sense. Lenny follows where the action is. But it also signals where the next wave lives. I think all of us in the GTM space (leaders, practitioners, and builders) should be excited to push this forward.
What’s next
I’ll keep studying this gap and bringing what I learn and see to the conversation.
If you’re working in the GTM AI space, I want to hear from you. What’s working? What’s hype? Reply and let me know.
The GTM AI wave is coming. The question is who’s going to lead it.
Tons of opportunity in GTM.