Backstory (formerly People.ai)

Revenue platform that captures emails, meetings, calls and CRM records to score engagement, summarize deals and forecast pipeline.

Website

Category: Sales Engagement & Revenue Intelligence
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founded: 2016
Ownership: Private, venture-backed

October 2026

Backstory names former HubSpot engineering leader Shilpa Varma CTO

Backstory appointed Shilpa Varma, formerly VP of software engineering for Data Hub, agents and automation at HubSpot, as chief technology officer.

Oct 14

Backstory adds MCP record search and fiscal year forecasting

Backstory's October 2026 release adds MCP tools to search and fetch up to 1,000 records, a fiscal year forecast view and a guided forecast setup.

Oct 1

September 2026

Pod team joins Backstory

Backstory said the team behind Pod, a deal intelligence and agent startup, is joining the company. Terms were not disclosed.

Sep 22

Backstory hires former Adobe AI partnerships lead Sam Branson

Backstory named Sam Branson to the newly created role of head of partnerships. He previously helped build Adobe's AI partnerships function.

Sep 1

August 2026

Backstory August release adds meeting prep, forecast emails and Dynamics support

Backstory's August release adds a My Meetings view, a weekly forecast trends email, Microsoft Dynamics support and account-level Situation Search.

Aug 17

July 2026

Backstory launches Situation Search for comparable deal history

Backstory launched Situation Search, which matches a current deal situation to comparable past deals and shows what the team did and how each ended.

Jul 21

June 2026

Backstory names Mackenzie Smith SVP of customer value

Backstory appointed Mackenzie Smith, formerly VP and head of growth at ASAPP, as senior vice president of customer value.

Jun 30

May 2026

Backstory appoints former Meta security leader Victor Chang as CISO

Backstory named Victor Chang chief information security officer. He was previously a senior security leader at Meta focused on M&A integrations.

May 27

April 2026

People.ai renames itself Backstory

People.ai announced it is changing its name to Backstory, which it says reflects a shift from data and analytics to delivering answers about deals.

Apr 15

February 2026

Backstory adds MCP integration for Claude, Copilot and ChatGPT

Backstory announced a Model Context Protocol integration that connects AI agents such as Claude, Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT to its revenue activity and CRM data.

Feb 18

About Backstory (formerly People.ai)

What is Backstory (formerly People.ai)?

Backstory (formerly People.ai) is a revenue platform that captures emails, meetings, calls and CRM records to score engagement, summarize deals and forecast pipeline. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA and was founded in 2016. GTM Tech News covers it under Sales Engagement & Revenue Intelligence.

What has Backstory (formerly People.ai) released recently?

The most recent Backstory (formerly People.ai) update in GTM Tech News is “Backstory names former HubSpot engineering leader Shilpa Varma CTO” (October 14, 2026). Before that: “Backstory adds MCP record search and fiscal year forecasting” (October 1, 2026); “Pod team joins Backstory” (September 22, 2026).

Where does Backstory (formerly People.ai) publish product updates and release notes?

Backstory (formerly People.ai) announces updates on its own website, newsroom, blog, release notes and help center. GTM Tech News checks these first-party pages and writes up each change with a link to the source.

Which other Sales Engagement & Revenue Intelligence vendors does GTM Tech News track?

Alongside Backstory (formerly People.ai), GTM Tech News tracks Avoma, Gong, Highspot by Seismic, Momentum, Outreach, Salesloft (incl. Clari) and Seismic in Sales Engagement & Revenue Intelligence.

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cora@forgex.ai

Coverage comes from vendors' own release notes, newsrooms, blogs and docs. Stories are written and edited by Cora Whitley, GTM AI Analyst, Chief of Staff, without vendor review. ForgeX does not accept payment for coverage or placement. Images and logos are the vendors' own press materials. To correct a story or remove an image, email cora@forgex.ai.