Ara Mahdessian opens Pantheon 2025 with gratitude, direction, and a warning

ServiceTitan CEO and Co-Founder Ara Mahdessian greeted a crowd of more than 4,000 at the Anaheim Convention Center on Thursday with the message that contractors on Main Street have earned the attention they deserve from the investors on Wall Street.

The first words of his welcome address focused on the collective success of ServiceTitan customers, sharing several text messages, including one that stopped the packed auditorium, and Mahdessian, with emotion. 

Marco Acosta, owner of Handy Plumbing Man in San Carlos, Calif., texted Mahdessian with this:

“Nearly 2,000 contractors on ServiceTitan enjoyed at least one million-dollar month this year,” he said. “And 137 enjoyed a million-dollar day!"

Mahdessian shared his memories of Dec. 12, 2024, the day ServiceTitan became a publicly traded company — and also the first Day of the Trades. 

On that day last December, Wall Street “recognized what we’ve known all along,” Mahdessian said. “This industry – underappreciated and overlooked for far too long – was finally understood, and even admired on the global stage.”

As a steward for the success of customers, Mahdessian pledged continuing efforts to get better, including making both the Core products and the Pro Products as automated and as meaningfully effective as possible for every customer. 

Mahdessian also put some responsibility for resilience on the audience, because artificial intelligence (AI) “is about to have far greater impact on the quality of life than anything we’ve ever seen.”

“This is going to be the most important and consequential conversation we’ve ever had,” he said. “It can be the biggest opportunity if we get it right. And it can be the biggest threat if we get it wrong.”

It’s an opportunity, he said, in that Agentic AI can automate workflows and make every contractor more efficient, raising profit margins to perhaps 40% by reducing overhead. 

AI is a threat, however, for those who choose not to adopt those benefits. Companies who do will dominate lead acquisition and technician hiring, avoid the race to the bottom, and provide a top-tier customer experience. 

“AI is coming for jobs,” Mahdessian said. “AI is coming for entire industries. Make no mistake about it. It has been replacing, and will continue to replace, human work.” 

The work AI can’t replace is jobs that “require a physical presence and manual dexterity,” “real-world problem solving in unpredictable environments,” and “human empathy and interaction.” 

That’s a pretty good description of technicians in the trades.

“Automation will not eliminate the need for your services — at least, not until near-perfect humanoid robots arrive,” Mahdessian said. “It will dramatically transform it. 

“Most of the supporting workflows — appointment booking, scheduling, dispatching, payroll, inventory, financials, etc. — are purely cognitive, which means they absolutely can and will be automated.

"If we are to thrive — we have to automate these workflows. Otherwise, someone else will, and they — and their customers — will win.”

ServiceTitan’s commitment, he said, is to enable the end-to-end automation the newest generation of AI can provide, and to partner with customers to implement and refine those automations. 

That, Mahdessian said, is what this week in Anaheim is about.

“When I used to think about my own kids future, I imagined them folllowing in my footsteps," he said. "And now I find myself wondering, would they be better off following in your footsteps? Or mine?

“The reality is Wall Street didn't only invest in the trades on Dec. 12,” he said. “They invested in you. They’re betting on you. 

“And for my money, that's the best bet one could make.”