I just attended the Eightfold user conference where they introduced TalentForge, a toolset to build agents, and the CEO Ashutosh Garg told us their HR team could build their own HRMS. Gloat is offering much of the same toolset, with integrations into Microsoft Teams, Copilot, Gemini and Claude – and you can import all your business rules from SuccessFactors, Workday, and other tools. And almost all HR vendors (Findem, Eightfold, our own Galileo) have MCP plugins so you can access them in any agent you choose. So the big question looms: what should you build and what should you buy? In this podcast I explain some of the considerations here and warn you that A) this is not as “easy” as it looks, and B) in a corporate setting you may want to think twice before you embark on a major replacement on your own. On the other hand, fire...

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We’re now at a stage where enterprise-class AI solutions are real, and suppliers are jockeying for position. Microsoft has consolidated its Copilot efforts into a more integrated offering, and also raised prices. Workday and ServiceNow have defined new consumption-based pricing models which shift from “buying seats” to “buying capacity.” The Frontier model vendors like Anthropic and OpenAI are spending money massively, ready to go public soon, so we’ll understand their business models. And in the meantime both are investing in PE-backed joint ventures to build more engineering and implementation services to speed enterprise adoption. The big story is clear to me: we’re in the early stage of a multi-trillion dollar redesign and reinvention of our companies, employee experiences, and customer experiences – all moving to a model we call “Dynamic Enablement.” Despite this direction, the products are new and immature, so there’s lots of risk-investment to undertake. In this podcast...

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This week ServiceNow launched a massive set of new products to establish itself as the system that manages every AI agent in the enterprise.  It’s a bold set of new products, including Otto (Moveworks), the Agent Fabric, the Context Engine, and the Autonomous AI Specialists. In reality the strategy is an expanded view of what Workday (Agent System of Record and Sana) and Microsoft (Agent 365 and Work IQ) are doing, but with a much deeper set of tools. Not only is this a bold move to accelerate Agentic HR and Agentic business systems, it now explains why enterprise software companies are far from dead. In fact, the monetization model here is for you to pay for AI credits (ServiceNow has different levels of usage) and that revenue, which helps ServiceNow grow, is offset by your reduction in labor cost. It’s all explained in this article and the podcast, and...

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ServiceNow just unleashed a barrage of announcements that set the stage for its goal: doubling revenue to $30 billion in the next four years. In a nutshell, they want to own the management tools, security, and front door to every AI agent in your company. And they’re going to ask you to pay for it. (The SaaS Apocalypse may be over.) I know this sounds aggressive, since both Microsoft and Workday are placing the same bet, but it does make sense, so here’s what’s going on. ServiceNow: We are turning enterprise AI chaos into control. Workday: AI agents without enterprise governance are lawless by design. It sounds good to CIOs I’m sure, but for most companies the problem is not “chaos” it’s “building scalable ROI use cases.” So let’s hope these control tools can inspire companies to move faster. (Read all about our vision of Agentic HR in our upcoming...

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I had an uplifting conversation with Jen Morgan, the CEO of UKG, a $5 billion global AI platform for HR, pay, and workforce management. In addition to talking about the company and her role as CEO, she actually has another mission: to put Frontline Workers first in our economy. Frontline workers, the people who deliver groceries and food, care for patients in the hospital, work in hospitality, or maintain public safety, make up 72% of the US workforce and almost 80% of employees worldwide. These often hourly or shift workers form the backbone of our economy: making our lives better, putting out fires, and keeping our streets safe. UKG’s mission is to make their work lives better through better scheduling, pay, benefits, hiring, and training systems – all in an integrated offering called “The Workforce Operating Platform.” Built through the merger of Kronos with Ultimate Software in 2020, UKG has...

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This week we saw some astounding GDP numbers, a modest 2% growth with an astounding 70% attributed to AI capital spending. The US economy is heavily AI centric, starving spending on housing which ultimately contributes to income inequality. At the same time companies are now reducing employee benefits, halting a two decade steady increase. It’s all about the shift from labor to machines, I guess. I also talk about the role of legacy systems in the new world of Agentic HR, Agentic Finance, and Agentic ERP. Lots going on, I hope this gives you some perspective on the massive AI economic transformation we’re living in. It’s all good and one of the most exciting times in our careers. Additional Information Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think The Great Decoupling: How Employees Became Disconnected From Their Companies Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources...

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