Village Global Podcast Recall Sessions: AI-Native CRMs and What It Takes to Replace Salesforce | Doug Camplejohn & Patrick Thompson
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Mar 26, 2026 
Doug Camplejohn, a former Salesforce and LinkedIn product leader turned founder of Coffee, and Patrick Thompson, ex-Atlassian designer and co-founder of Clarify, discuss AI-native CRMs. They explore why now is the moment for CRM reinvention. They debate why LLMs alone fail, the heavy engineering behind true CRM replacements, migration strategies from incumbents, and how agentic interfaces and pricing models are shifting the market.
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No Good AI Without Good CRM Data
- AI-driven CRM success depends first on data quality: "you can't have good AI with bad data."
- Doug stresses keeping raw data (lakehouse) and building agentic layers so AI can act reliably on sales data.
Headless CRM And Embedded Data Contracts
- Consider headless CRM and embedded data contracts: separate API/data layer from UI so workflows can occur outside the platform.
- Patrick notes CDP-like headless designs and Snowflake-style embedded apps influenced their architecture.
Price By Work Output Not Per Seat
- Reconsider per-seat pricing: shift to work-output or usage pricing tied to agent/AI actions rather than expensive seat licenses.
- Patrick explains they give the CRM free and charge for the work AI/agents perform to broaden access across teams.