From LAER to DARE: The New Customer Engagement Model for the AI Era
Overview
Challenges
Artificial intelligence is changing how technology providers create, deliver, and prove customer value. The traditional LAER model—Land, Adopt, Expand, Renew—helped companies scale during the SaaS era, but it wasn’t built for AI-driven outcomes. AI requires deep integration, continuous optimization, governance, and shared accountability for measurable business results.
Summary
This ebook introduces DARE: Design, Activate, Realize, Evolve. Built for the AI era, DARE replaces adoption-focused engagement with an outcome-driven model that helps providers assess readiness, create early value, sustain results, and continuously optimize performance. It also explains the DARE Progressive Continuum, a four-level pathway for evolving from a tool vendor into an outcome-oriented partner.
Key takeaways
- LAER can’t sustain the AI outcomes economy
AI's hidden complexity—data quality, integration, governance, operational debt—demands more than land-and-expand.
- DARE redefines the customer lifecycle around outcomes
DARE replaces account expansion with a lifecycle built on readiness, early wins, measurable value, and continuous evolution.
- Service-led growth is the new path to AI profitability
In the AI era, forward deployed engineers, managed services, and governance experts aren't support—they're the growth engine.
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