We’ve been building Nylas for 11 years now. One of the benefits of being an infrastructure provider is you get to see the broad trends in an industry unfold. Nylas APIs power all sorts of CRMs–from sales outreach tools, to real estate apps, to applicant tracking systems and vertical CRMs. We’ve had the opportunity to watch and be a part of how these apps have evolved. We’ve also had the chance to see many SaaS platforms fail because they didn’t rise to the expectations of their users.
When we got started in 2013, the idea of automatically plugging email into these apps was new. Many apps relied on a workaround–users could “bcc” a special inbox, and the emails were processed to that inbox in order to import them into their platforms. This allowed apps to offer a unified view of relevant conversations on records in their UI, keeping end users engaged and productive. BCC “worked,” but its major shortcoming was that it required end users to take an action in order to record conversations.
If you’ve ever been involved in running a sales organization, you probably remember how often you have to remind reps to update Salesforce. In engineering, it’s the same for those pesky Jira tickets–requiring end user action inevitably results in partial and outdated information. To solve this, leading-edge platforms started connecting directly to end-user mailboxes to automatically import relevant conversations.
The rocketing demand for this type of functionality powered the growth of our first product, our Email API, with companies like Pipedrive, Salesloft, and Lever using the feature as a differentiator to drive customers to gated premium plans. Users saved time, executives gained the comprehensive insights they needed, and the clear ROI boosted revenue–driving more apps to adopt the solution.
As basic email connectivity became commonplace, users wanted more from email–and the CRMs that are still standing are the ones that gave it to them. Users wanted automated, personalized sends that could operate at scale. They wanted open and link tracking to help prioritize and measure the efforts of outreach. They wanted email embedded within their platforms and more first-party data to be incorporated. They wanted exceptional email deliverability.
The best CRMs built all of these features and more into their systems–and now they are what every user expects from every CRM. Coincidentally, these features are also featured on every competitive battlecard CRMs use against each other.
Today, to be a competitive SaaS platform that meets user expectations, email connection is mandatory, regardless of what you’re building. Users expect it. It’s become table stakes. And platform builders not only need this email data to provide useful views of raw data, but to build intelligence features as well.
As CRMs adapted to user needs around written communication, expectations around scheduling and meetings also evolved. Calendly made booking a meeting through a link seamless and mainstream. Users–whether in sales, recruiting, or customer success–no longer had to exchange multiple emails just to find a meeting time.
Consumers learned a behavior and started to demand the same tools and flows at work. Similar to how Slack made instant messaging common in the workplace, single-click scheduling wasn’t going anywhere.
SaaS platforms in industries like ATS/HCM quickly realized that embedded scheduling was not just a nice-to-have but an expectation—even for large enterprises that typically lag in adopting new features. In fact, demand was even higher among large enterprises because their calendar setups were often more complicated, having distinct cohorts of people with different sequencing or break requirements. This is why we built our Scheduler (powered by our Calendar API) to help our customers offer native functionality to meet user expectations around ease of scheduling.
Embedded scheduling had become table stakes now, too. And if our customers couldn’t offer this feature, success wouldn’t be possible for either of us.
Before 2020, CRMs were competing to deliver streamlined workflows tailored to specific industries (some using Nylas APIs to do so). However, the pandemic redefined the playing field by introducing a new, previously untapped source of customer intelligence—meetings.
While video conferencing was already a well-established technology, the pandemic rapidly accelerated its adoption. Practically overnight, businesses shifted to virtual meetings and grew comfortable recording them (see above: evolving privacy landscape). Suddenly, the last frontier of uncaptured customer intelligence—meetings—was being documented.
But simply recording meetings wasn’t enough. Like emails and appointments, meetings need to be structured as actionable data. The true value lies in integrating them seamlessly into existing workflows to elevate performance–offering not just transcription, but sentiment analysis; not just documentation, but analytics and pattern recognition. Just as email and calendar connectivity became standard, meeting intelligence is now following the same path to becoming another stake at the table.
As customers interact across more channels, businesses must cast a wider net to capture every relevant touchpoint—much like the fragmentation and reassembly of cable into streaming platforms. No one wants to juggle multiple logins to access what they need. The same applies across industries: customers expect seamless access to insights, including conversational data from meetings and support interactions.
In a recent conversation I had with Justin Belobaba, CEO of Nowsite, he spoke at length about their mission to empower an underserved community of people – independent commission-driven salespeople. Finding product market fit was extremely difficult, but with over 40,000 paying customers in 100+ countries, they did it.
And they did it by engaging in a mindset shift around the CRM and what actually powered the AI they incorporated. It wasn’t enough for their platform to have AI – the AI needed to be useful. He said, “In the future, we will see AI as a trusted partner. One that is able to understand data, think strategically, think independently, execute tasks, and most importantly make helpful suggestions of what to do next.”
If every CRM is integrating AI in some way shape or form – it’s functionally not a competitive advantage. It’s how it gets integrated – and the confluence of data and user expectation that will drive results.
When evaluating a SaaS tool, you’re not just looking at its features–you’re assessing how well it fits into your tech stack, aligns with your system of record, and whether it’s a must-have or just a nice-to-have. You’re looking for opportunities to consolidate tools, streamline security assessments, simplify vendor procurement, and reduce spending. In today’s fast-changing economy, every purchase must deliver clear value and align with your broader goals.
To stay competitive in 2025 and beyond, your SaaS platform must do more than check the boxes. It needs to integrate with additional systems, consolidate more data, and embrace the trifecta of email, calendar, and meetings APIs to unlock the power of connection insights. Just as email and calendar integrations transitioned have become essentials, the next evolution is here: conversational data. Your users expect tools that work together seamlessly, reduce context-switching, and eliminate manual data entry. The CRM of tomorrow must be an intelligence hub–bringing together all forms of communication and delivering real-time insights that drive action.
If it doesn’t – your app will fail.
At Nylas, we’ve been honored to support innovative platforms like yours over the past decade. Together, we’ll continue to evolve, helping you stay ahead in a rapidly shifting software landscape and equipping you to meet the demands of the future.
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