Braze vs Clay

Made for this: How Braze is providing new ways to build, support, and extend your campaigns

New blog posts include product announcements from Forge 2026, Torchie Awards winners, and a spotlight on BrazeAI Decisioning Studio™ Go.

Braze Announces Strategic Collaboration with AWS and New AI Capabilities

Braze signs strategic collaboration agreement with AWS to advance AI-powered customer engagement, and accelerates AI innovation with new agentic AI capabilities.

10-Q Financial Filing Analysis for Braze (2026-09-09)

Braze, Inc. reported its financial results for the second quarter and six months ended July 31, 2026, demonstrating continued top-line momentum across its cloud-based customer engagement platform. Second-quarter revenue increased 26.2% year-over-year to $227.2 million, driven by balanced growth from existing customer expansion and new customer additions. Operating losses narrowed significantly to $18.1 million for the quarter compared to $38.8 million in the prior-year period, reflecting operational efficiencies and lower relative general and administrative expenses following the integration of prior acquisitions. Free cash flow for the six-month period improved to $48.5 million from $26.4 million a year earlier, supported by strong subscription collections and working capital management. Braze maintained robust net retention rates of 110% overall and 112% for customers with over $500,000 in ARR, while executing a $50.0 million accelerated share repurchase during the first half of the fiscal year.

• Q2 revenue expanded 26.2% year-over-year to $227.23 million, with six-month revenue reaching $438.23 million.
• Trailing 12-month dollar-based net retention rate reached 110% for all customers and 112% for large customers with ARR of $500,000 or more.
• Cash provided by operating activities reached $52.34 million and Non-GAAP free cash flow was $48.54 million for the six months ended July 31, 2026.

Clay's Kareem Amin Discusses Rise of GTM Engineer

Clay co-founder and CEO Kareem Amin will speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 about the emergence of the 'GTM engineer' role. This new discipline uses AI, data, and automation to build repeatable revenue systems, replacing manual go-to-market processes. Clay coined the role in 2023 and reports about 100 GTM engineering job listings each month. The company has seen rapid growth, with ARR tripling to $100 million in a year, a $115 million Series D round at a $7.1 billion valuation, and a $1 million scholarship fund to train GTM engineers. Amin's session will explore how AI is transforming go-to-market strategies and what this means for company growth.

• Clay coined the GTM engineer role in 2023.
• Approximately 100 GTM engineering job listings appear each month.
• Clay tripled annual recurring revenue to $100 million in a year.

AI Deployment Insights at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, leaders from Anthropic, Gamma, and Clay will discuss what happens when enterprises actually deploy AI. Anthropic's Head of Applied AI, Cat de Jong, will share patterns from enterprise deployments of Claude, focusing on why some deployments succeed while others stall. Gamma's CEO Grant Lee will discuss how AI products gain adoption, referencing Gamma's near 100 million users and expansion into marketing assets. Clay's CEO Kareem Amin will bring the founder perspective on integrating AI into workflows, noting Clay's integration with Claude as a launch app. The session aims to explore the transition from AI pilots to production, the challenges of making AI a habitual tool, and what separates successful deployments from experiments. The event takes place October 13-15 at Moscone West, San Francisco.

• TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will feature a session on enterprise AI deployment with leaders from Anthropic, Gamma, and Clay.
• Anthropic's Cat de Jong will discuss patterns in enterprise deployments of Claude.
• Gamma's CEO Grant Lee will discuss AI product adoption; Gamma is approaching 100 million users.

OpenAI: AI-native firms turn workflows into operating capability

OpenAI's latest Enterprise Signals data shows enterprise AI shifting from assistance to execution, with top 10% 'frontier' AI-using firms now generating 8.3x more output tokens per active user than typical firms, up from 2.6x in January. The article profiles three startups applying AI agents to real workflows: Basis (AI agents for accounting firms) cut first-day onboarding from two hours to 30 minutes using OpenAI's Codex; Clay (a revenue engine for go-to-market teams) uses persistent workspaces and subagents to save about an hour of daily inbox triage; and Exa Labs (web search infrastructure for AI agents) automated its developer integration workflow with Codex. OpenAI outlines six steps for scaling these agentic workflows, including defining measurable outcomes, writing agent job descriptions, and building human oversight. The core message: leading firms are connecting agents to company context and tools to automate substantive work end-to-end.

• Frontier AI-using firms generate 8.3x more output tokens per active user than typical firms, up from 2.6x in January.
• Basis reduced first-day employee onboarding time from two hours to 30 minutes using OpenAI's Codex.
• Clay's persistent account workspaces with dedicated subagents save roughly one hour of inbox triage nightly.