When we founded Automotive Artificial Intelligence (AAI) GmbH, our name made perfect sense. It told the world exactly what we did: AI for the automotive industry. It gave us credibility, focus, and recognition.
But names are frames — and frames can both guide and limit. Imagine you’re a general counsel looking for a legal tech product. Would you instinctively turn to a company with “automotive” in its name?
The Serendipity of Innovation
Growth doesn’t always follow the script. Some of our best opportunities have emerged not just from deliberate market research, but from serendipity — when an unexpected challenge opened the door to a new domain.
The spark for some of our legal tech ideas came from our own engagement with compliance and regulatory requirements. Like many companies, we worked with consultancy and had to interpret complex standards. That practical experience gave us valuable insight — and the realization: if our AI tools can support us, they could just as well empower others.
First Impressions Still Matter
And yet, names shape perception. “Automotive” signals deep expertise in cars — exactly what OEMs expect. But to a law firm, it might create hesitation: Are they really for us, or are they locked into automotive?
The irony is that the knowledge travels effortlessly — it’s only the name that doesn’t.
The Takeaway
Innovation rarely stays where it begins. Our work in automotive gave us credibility in mastering complex, regulated environments — and that same expertise now proves its value in domains like legal tech.
So the name may suggest one industry, but the reality is broader. A company’s true identity is not the word on the door — it’s the ability to turn complexity into clarity, and regulation into trust. That’s the thread that connects everything we do.