HR & Payroll Tech Marketplace News & Updates (Summer 2026, June)

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_01] Welcome everyone to another episode of the HR & Payroll 2.0. I'm Pete Tiliakos and as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks, Pete. And when you come back from being on the road, I know we always have a lot of stuff to cover. So I think we're going to jump right in with some news.

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, yeah. So we have a packed news episode here. We got something for everyone this time, I think. A little bit of HCM, a little bit of payroll, global payroll, global EOR, some benefits, some other stuff. So, yeah, I thought we could get through this. And I was just going to say, I've tracked this market now for more than a decade, but definitely very closely as an analyst for a decade. I can't remember a time when so much, there was so much to digest. So it's coming faster and faster than ever.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm sure that's AI, right, helping with that. But it means we're probably going to have to have more news episodes than maybe we've been doing them kind of quarterly or maybe every few months. We might have to do one every month, Julie, I think, to keep up.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_00] Well, let's do it. And since they're labeled, they're easily labeled. Some folks are looking for that. And then some folks just want to hit it a little bit less often.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's see. I want to start off with this first one. I don't know if you saw this. I won't spend a lot of time on this. But Time Magazine, Time.com had the top, I think it was 250, work tech companies in 2026. I don't know if you saw this. Did you get a chance to check that out?

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00] I did. In fact, you know, I was just perusing it for certain company names just to see who made the list that might be in our normal talking points, right?

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, a lot of the characters that we talk about here, right? Workday, you know, Deal, UKG, Prism, lots of the companies that you would probably know.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00] Okta, some of the stuff you use in your work. ServiceNow.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, ServiceNow. But I thought what I thought was interesting, though, Julie, is in the methodology, they looked at 5000 companies, right? Through desk research, which means online, right? Online application forms and collaborations, as well as other data and market intelligence companies. KPIs were evaluated to determine the top work tech companies from thousands of companies. The evaluation looked at, here we go, financial strength, as well as revenue, funding, market cap, annual reports, company websites,

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_01] various different information, but also the evaluation looked at how the evaluation of these industries impact. So I thought that was interesting. There's a bit that goes into that as well. So just a little bit different thing. Normally, you kind of see, you know, best employers is my point. This was a little bit more into the impact that they're making and how they're growing or behaving, I guess, in the community.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And a lot of that was on, you know, kind of the embracing of integrated AI, which I found interesting. And I know you're going to post the link in our show notes, but, you know, like it wasn't always the employer of record, right? It was just a wide variety of, you know, different niche areas in addition to core areas that were supported and not even always. It didn't feel like like the number one cloud software group is not a recognized name in the HR tech stack space.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01] No. No. But apparently very forward with AI in this write-up of why they were number one.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Yeah, it was cool.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_01] Any surprises here? Did you see any companies you didn't expect to see on here, Julie?

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00] No, actually. But, you know, it does. It's a big list. So, you know, the ones that you would expect to see, you know, the ADP ServiceNow is the Workday Oracle in there.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01] Two EWAs were in there, PayActive, Daily Pay.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00] Yep, yep. Some of the, yeah, you got into the smaller, you get into a lot of the talent guys were in there. Benefit focus and some benefits guys. So it was really just this like broad domain list that was kind of cool to think about from a different lens.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_01] Well, anyway, yeah. So for a moment to start off with, yeah, check that out. The interesting composite scores there of how they came up with this. So take a look, you know, maybe it's some folks that you've not heard of. I thought it was nice that it was not just the big players. It was also some of the little guys were in there too, Julie. So, yeah, nice to see people getting recognized for, you know, how they're what they're building and how they're impacting the community. So very good. OK, let's let's like I said, I teased in the beginning, Julie, we had something for everyone. Right. So let's start off in the HCM lane.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_01] And I know you've got some news over there, too. But I got a couple of big things that I think we ought to talk about. So the first one is that iSolved has a new CEO, Michael Haske. I don't know if you're familiar with Michael. We've got to meet him as analysts. I've known him over the years from his time at ADP, as well as probably more notably as the president. I believe he's president and chief operating officer at Pelosi and help with some of the scale over there, as well as paychecks at younger in his career.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00] So he's been around, let's say. Yeah.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_01] Been around a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect addition, I think. And look, I've I've been I solved a client of mine. I've been client for a long time. I've worked with them very closely. I always even before that, as a researcher, when I was with Nelson Hall and I was studying iSolved and they were much younger years ago, I always thought very highly of of their C-suite. I thought they had a very strong C-suite with Mark Duffel and James Norwood and the team over there. And so when those guys began to retire and move off, I was excited to see what they would do next.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_01] And I think Michael is a great addition. So really, really excited to see it now. Yeah. Michael's first move, right? Very, very ambitious and also very, I think, going where the ball is. They are transitioning iSolved into a workforce capital management category, right? Creating their own category of platform. And that is heavily AI and agentic driven.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01] And so you can see here some of the first pieces that they've put out of that is a new partnership with Anthropic, which means Clode and a connector whereby you can actually act upon various different use cases from an HR perspective and a workforce perspective inside of Clode, touching through MCP and integration over to the iSolved platform.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01] So very much what I think you're going to see more of, and we're going to talk about more of here in the news with some of their peers, is that connectivity and interoperability between your AI platforms where people are beginning to do more work and the HR platform, which means we're kind of leaning into that sort of headless world, Julie, of does it matter where it ends up?

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01] It only matters that I get the answer that I need or the data that I need or the transaction that I need. So very interesting move here. And I think very bold, but I want to pause there and get your thoughts on this category of workforce capital management. And then this new sort of convergence of HR into AI tools, kind of opposite of maybe AI tools coming into the HR platform.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Well, first on the kind of category title of workforce capital management or WCM, I guess that would be, I think we're ripe for something. After all, we've gone from, you know, the personnel system to HRT to HRS to HCM.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00] I do a lot of WFMs out there. And so it feels like, you know, why not? Right. We'll see if that sticks. The thing that also caught my attention is, you know, how much more we're hearing about Claude and especially as they launch co-work. Right. And how the inroads that that is making into work, you know, workplace AI. And initially early on, it was Gemini, right. That was supposedly had the advantage. They do a lot with the talent D side of the house.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00] And so there's also underlying this, I feel like this little battle, you know, of what can I do with co-pilot and then who's maturing the most quickly, which doesn't mean that others won't catch up. But, you know, I see an awful lot of Claude and co-work, you know, being a key driver right now for speed and some pretty great outcomes, honestly, in great format and kind of usable and polished looking stuff that others are still a little bit behind on.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, 100%. I mean, look, I think it's just the same thing we've been seeing for many years now, right? Bringing, bringing these, bringing HR in context with work, right? And bringing it where the work is happening and work is now happening in, in places like Claude, right? And in OpenAI and in other solutions. So yeah, very indicative what I think you're going to see. And look, I think we're, you know, look, we've been talking about total talent management for many years and blended workforces.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_01] This is very much now a blended workforce, right? Humans and agents. And, you know, you're going to have some employees and humans that are part-time and some that are full-time and some that are contract and some that are not. So I think you're going to have a very mixed organization that you need to manage. And that workforce capital makes a lot of sense, I think.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And hey, listen, one more thought on that is, you know, practitioners don't miss the fact that this is an, a system of record that is building and expanding its AI agent workforce and capabilities. So, you know, early on tapping into what your own strategic platform is doing is oftentimes the fastest way to get anywhere.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, that might've been just features and functionality initially, but now we're seeing the platforms and the systems of record, the things you already invest in, you know, kind of race also to get, you know, more faster and get to outcomes. Sure.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So moving along, going over to High Bob, right? A similar, similar HCM sort of construct here happening over at High Bob. They have introduced or brought really their people intelligence over to the Slack bot. So think Slack, right? Where a lot of work goes on. I know a lot of organizations that live on Slack. I use Slack actually a lot with some of my clients.

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_01] They've really, again, through MCP, through model context protocol, think of MCP, by the way, as its interoperability for AI to talk to other AI or AI to talk to other systems. So think of it like an API for artificial intelligence means that you now have High Bob basically at your fingers in inside of Slack, right?

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01] So here again, in the flow of work, you're bringing that conversational experience to High Bob's, you know, their platform and giving, you know, both your HR leaders, your admins, as well as your frontline managers and employees, the access to these capabilities across a number of use cases. So think onboarding or maybe benefits administration or benefits support, management effectiveness, right?

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01] Helping with performance management and hiring and coaching and a range of other things as well, reporting and that sort of thing. So just more of what I think you're going to continue to see from HCM.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And Pete, I think for those who might not be familiar with Slack, safe to say that's a, you know, an equivalent to Teams, right? Teams chat and, you know, just a different platform that other companies use. So if you're not familiar with Slack, you could think about it as High Bob embedding that into Teams chat, fully using Slack.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Reminds me of, yeah, of kind of like the Teams and Zoom thing, right? I mean, I think Slack has came up in a very tech side of the tech side of the industry and just very well beloved. And not as we'll say, as I will say, forced upon you as maybe Teams and Microsoft has been. So, yeah. There you go. There's a love-hate for Teams out there. Some people hate it, some people love it, but all good.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_00] Hey, since we're in the AI space, maybe we should go into the Workday announcement before I flip over to the more services-related one that I have queued up for us.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah, let me do this real quick if you like. Yeah. Yeah, so Workday obviously has, I think if you recall back to us talking about over the, look, I go to a lot of their events, the Innovation Summit, the Workday Rising, Julie, you attend Rising. We've talked a good bit about how Workday sees themselves as an agent, right? Agente platform, platform of agents, right? And a big key part of that is being the rails, right?

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_01] They talked about being enterprise rails and how important that is of controlling these solutions, the governance of these solutions, right? The data access, the systems access. So think now along that lines and you can see, right, the new agent passport that Workday is putting out here really lays right, you know, neatly into that.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_01] And, you know, oversees and helps you test and verify that the agent's touching your Workday solution and third party, whether they're internal or third party built, have continuous monitoring and continuous controls, if you will, which we all love, right? We all need, especially in our world, payroll benefits, all of it, right? We need good controls over our data and protection of what these agentic solutions and automations are actually doing.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_01] So, yeah, just makes a lot of sense when you think about what Workday is building from their enterprise rails perspective. And, yeah, just getting more, a lot more mature in this area, in that governance area, I think.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I think so. And it really does underlie the whole idea of moving from a system of record to a system of agents and platforms, you know, that all need orchestration and governance and ecosystem play and not just product features.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00] And I liken this, you might have announced a few of these as well, you know, besides Agent Passport, they, you know, they've embedded some features and functionality into their AI developer tooling, you know, for building and connecting the agents and, you know, adaptive decision intelligence. So, there's all these independent things that are kind of coming together to build out a pretty robust ecosystem that is more than just the products and features. So, you know, very cool.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_00] You can see it in action. It's moving fast.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think that's what people are going to need, right? You're going to need some sort of platform to some star command to make sure that you're monitoring all your robots, right? And all your people and all your assets. So, that's going to change a lot. So, yeah, I think you need it. So, I love what SaaS is really going to become, especially the HCMs and the ERPs. Okay. Yeah. All right. What do you got, Julie? You got something still in the HCM world, right?

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I had one in HCM. And actually, this probably goes back a few weeks at least. And we talked about UKG on the events episode that will come out right before this one. But a new thing crossed my path, and that is the acquisition by Argano of Ascend, who is a premier partner, one of the strong partners in the UKG ecosystem. And so, Argano is a name I was less familiar with.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, as I was looking there, AI forward transformation consultancy, they just started being formed in 2020. Here we are, you know, five and a half years later. And this acquisition of Ascend is their 12th since being formed together. So, they really are, you know, pulling together a lot of things to be a leading UKG implementation and managed services partner across that ecosystem. It's just a little bit their specialty.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_00] And so, it's more on the managed side of the house and kind of those types of partners than it is on purely building tech stack. But interesting and a name that you might see, you know, elevated a little bit more and more as they focus on AI forward deployments and operationalizations, optimizations of UKG.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01] Look, I think all the HCM ecosystems are really growing, right? I mean, there's more to digest now than ever, right? We just talked about that, just the case of this show episode. And I think there's a lot of opportunity for both deployment of these things, optimization of these things, but also change management around, you know, the modern things that are coming out. So, yeah, I love it. Good for everybody. All the ecosystems are growing. I'm starting to see some pop up even around things like Darwin Box, right? Darwin Box is starting to get a lot of traction.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_01] They're starting to see some things. I'm starting to see some more day force operations that are popping up. So, yeah, very cool.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_00] All right. The ecosystem gets richer. Yeah, right? I think we're going to shift to another category. Am I right?

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, sort of. Yeah, I'm going to say, I guess at this point, I would consider Paylocity to be an HCM. I think all the pays have kind of become HCM. So, they've really upgraded. Now, I think the headline talks embedded, right? Embedded retirement. But embedded really, in this case, does not seem to be externally. They were a pioneer, really, I would say, in the HCMs and the pays embedding their own payroll solution and time solutions outward. But in this case, it looks like what they've done is they've upgraded their Paylocity retirement powered by Vestwell.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_01] I'm not familiar with Vestwell, Julie. You may be in that 401k world. But yeah, just embedding their new solution into the Paylocity platform, really upgrading and essentially expanding the capabilities they have to offer for their clients. So, not surprising.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, no, not surprising. Although, I will say, interesting because in the Ben Admin with HCM, the core space to play has always been health and welfare, right? And now we're seeing, you know, more touch points with retirement, which is more frequently a third party, but needs as a lot of touch points. And the same thing is happening with wellness, voluntary benefits, and those sorts of things. So, as that ecosystem expands, you know, we're seeing lots of different ways to play.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, absolutely. And this includes 401k and 403b plans. So, yeah, not just 401. I think I just said 401 in the beginning. But yeah. Okay. Moving on, maybe to a competitor or a peer there of Paylocity would be our friends over at ADP. And this one, Julie, I'm really excited about this. I think there's a few things we ought to talk about here.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_00] Okay.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01] You know, look, compliance is a pain in the rear end. We've all known that on all sides of the ball, if you will, for HR, for payroll, for benefits. You know, all things considered, it's rough out there. It's getting rougher, especially if you're a multi-state or multi-country employer. ADP has introduced something called ADP Smart Compliance, which solves some of those challenges. A quote, by routing compliance workflows through a single unified platform connecting HR, IT,

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01] and finance data. That data model then allows compliance-related information to be collected across all workflows and certainly helps you with managing that compliance. I think this is really cool, Julie. I love it. Regardless of where it comes from, what vendor it comes from, this idea that we can, you know, get everybody on the same page, right? There's a lot of handoffs. We've talked about this before it leaves. We've talked about it in various different processes that we've complained about, that there's

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01] a lot of handoff and it doesn't always happen in a silo by itself, singularly in HR. And so I think that that is the spirit here, is starting to take a step forward of bringing that together. And I think there's another piece of this that I want to talk about too, but I want to pause there and just get your thoughts on this type of a product being available.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, sure. And I think what, you know, for me, the devil is sometimes in the details. I'm always interested to know, you know, which of the ADP platforms and at which size and scale, smart compliance is interacting and knowing ADP, it's probably quite broadly, whether your workforce now, user Lyric or GlobalView or something else. But I have to tell you, I haven't exactly sorted out how that works and whether or not there's some standalone capabilities with that. So those are the first things that, you know, that crossed my mind is things that I haven't

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_00] seen enough to really be able to say exactly how and where that's plugging in. But anytime ADP is touching compliance, you know, folks are happy.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, just the idea that you can unify your data and workflow together, that's a huge step forward. Just a right. Like that's just a big groundbreaking piece of the, if groundbreaking is the right word. I mean, just a massive step forward for that. So I love it. Now, here's another thing I want to, I want to talk about. Cause I've, I, when I've talked about like anytime I've, I've, I've, and I've had a million conversations privately and publicly about the future of, of payroll and compliance and things. One of the things that always comes up that I say is, is it doesn't matter if we got every

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01] employer in the world at the most, you know, uh, advanced and innovative level. If the government agencies don't step up and do the same thing, it, it all kind of doesn't matter, right? It's like just sort of yelling down a hallway. If we get the government entities involved in that, and we have more of an electronic and digital flow to them and back and forth, I think we would have the future could really come to life. Right. So I love that there is a mention of that to, uh, no, no, no, no, I don't, I don't think ADP is saying in any way that they're solving all of this tomorrow.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_01] And look, I'm sure you have to know ADP has lobbyists, uh, lobbies, uh, with the government to help work on some of these things. I know you've seen them probably in press releases where they've helped, uh, encouraged the government to advance certain things in certain places, but with their influence, I think they are one of the organizations that can help get some of that sort of government plumbing, uh, advanced in a way that helps us automate, uh, a little bit more. So there's another step to this. I think that has to happen. And I like that. I, I see that in there.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00] So sure. I'm sure we'll be talking more about that as, uh, as things move forward.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Compliance is getting, is getting better and getting easier. So Julie, I thought this was interesting. Uh, maybe staying in this little benefits world, uh, Walmart one pay has joined the workday wellness, uh, ecosystem. That's very interesting, very commercial slant to that, but also a, uh, earned wage access, kind of a financial wellness sort of slant to this as well. If you guys don't recall, I don't know if people recall this. I didn't study them greatly when it happened, but I, but I do know that Walmart created one. I don't remember what they called it.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_01] Maybe it was like one work or something, one workforce or something back in the day. They created something internally for employees to help with, uh, an earned wage access kind of a solution. And then later they bought even, which was one of the main, uh, probably up and coming players, uh, in earned wage access and financial wellness in the space. You might've seen them at HR tech. I've, I've met them there a few times. Uh, I think I had dinner once with their, with their leadership team. Um, they then got together with Walmart and I think Walmart utilized all of those pieces

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_01] that they built pieces that they bought to ultimately create this one pay solution. And now it's inside of the Walmart or the workday. And I believe, Julie, I don't know if, if Walmart is a workday core HR user or not.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_00] Yes.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01] I thought they were SAP.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_00] Well, actually I was involved. I can't remember. Uh, I did some advisory work with them as they were transitioning, purchasing and transitioning to workday. So, um, so. Oh, they did go to workday. Yes. Yes. Several years ago. Pre COVID. Very cool. And, and in fact, think about it. I mean, Walmart is the size of a small nation, right? Actually not even a small nation, a medium to large size nation. So, um, so to me, and I think you also know, I do have quite a bit to do with, you know, kind of wellness and where that's headed.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_00] Um, and, and some of the other, uh, solutions I would say, you know, this is, this is cool. This is really cool just because of how many lives it has the potential to touch. So if you're trying to make something up and an everyday thing, then, uh, then doing things with Walmart and their one pay system is certainly, you know, certainly a good way to go. And then the wellness in the wellness space, we're just going to be seeing and talking so much more about that. I believe with workday wellness, um, you know, they're building that ecosystem.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00] There's probably no less than 20 partners, you know, today that are kind of committed and building in that space and early leaders on the financial side, like Benapass and Chime, you know, are, are others that are, you know, kind of hitting that financial space. And so come this fall, I, I know we're going to be talking a lot more about, uh, workday wellness and how that's actually has the potential to impact, um, those companies that do use workday, uh, today and their ecosystem.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00] So lots more to come on that.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I think we're going to see more of this, right. Especially in the AI world. But I mean, look, this is a commercial play as much as it is a non-commercial, an employer play I'm sure for, for Walmart, uh, and yeah, very cool to see. It's really interesting. Uh, and I think it's cool that, that we're seeing some of these employer built solutions. I know Facebook has some, I know we've talked about Spotify having some, uh, being brought to market to commercially, to commercially, I'm sure monetize, but support others. Uh, and I think that you're going to see more of this probably with AI, especially with

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_01] the forward deployed engineers that many we've talked about the HCMs are using. Uh, I think you're going to see a lot of co-innovations that come together. So maybe this is something kind of along that lines, but yeah. Okay. Okay. Moving on. All right. Let's, uh, let's move along here. Let's talk, uh, let's talk globalization partners for a second. Uh, shout out to them, uh, always pushing the pace this time again on AI. They had a big, uh, announcement. I believe they unveiled this, uh, right ahead of SHRM and then, um, talked about it at SHRM,

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_01] but basically have, uh, agentified if you will, their platform, right. From end to end. So as you can imagine, Julie, I think we've talked about how global EOR is getting a bit more self-serve. It started to kind of lean that way during the pandemic. And then it's gradually gotten that way. Um, when you think about what AI and automation have done, right. The ability to research, uh, plan, maybe contract, maybe, maybe, um, you know, hire, onboard, all of that really absent a human is possible now in the EOR world. We've seen that from a lot of the vendors.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_00] And folks, GP is the one that's associated with GIA, right? That's right. GPGIA. Yeah. So people are trying to, you know, just kind of place other conversations we've had about GP and that, you know, they're developed in this space. We've talked about GIA quite a bit in the past. Um, so yeah.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. GPGIA is the, uh, like, uh, what do they call it? A lawyer in your pocket, having a lawyer in your pocket and an HRBP, very much something that's open to all of their, uh, you know, really to any organization can license that, but, uh, yeah, but now have a gentrified their, their global employment platform. So really just along the lines of what I think you're going to see more of, right. More automation here, more, um, automated compliance monitoring, reporting, you know, so end-to-end capabilities here with agents and, um, yeah, just right in line with what

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_01] I think that the future is going to look like and what I think we should be seeing from these, from these vendors. So yeah, good stuff there coming out. Awesome. Um, so Julia, I got another, uh, stay into the EOR lane, uh, went to another event. We didn't mention this in the event side. So, cause I thought maybe it'd be good to do it over here on the product side, but I want to get your thoughts on this. So I went to the multiplier beyond borders event in London was quite a, um, quite an interesting event. I went last year in New York. I don't know if you recall that, uh, they had one, uh, where they did a little analyst

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_01] day and then had a customer event where they did some presentations and things. But yeah, you know, one of the things I thought was pretty cool about this one is, you know, multiplier really talked about, uh, they got this new, uh, point of view, I guess you could say on their, their value proposition as being an exchange, right. A global exchange and not so much trying to be, you know, if you look across the market, we've talked about this a lot, Julie, many of the EORs have turned into HCM tech platforms, right?

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01] You've got, you've got deal, uh, live in the deal speed mantra out there, like a rabbit running fast. Uh, and you've got, you know, remote and, and rippling running right behind them, trying to copy everything they do. Um, but you've got multipliers saying, Hey, we don't want to be all of those things. We want to maintain, uh, the main, keep the main thing. The main thing is I like to say, uh, and EOR is that main thing for them. Global payroll, of course, comes with that and global payments, um, certainly, uh, are a part of that, especially the future. Right.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_01] So I thought it was pretty cool, right? It was refreshing to hear them kind of have a different point of view, a different stance and fundamentally, um, talk differently than what all of their peers are doing. So think of them, multiplier wants to be thought of as a global exchange for work, right? The infrastructure, the countries, the legal entities, uh, in their case, 150 entities, uh, owned and operated by their internal, um, organization and fundamentally a compliance

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_01] engine that, and, and payments engine to help you, uh, reach, reach those destinations that you're trying to reach out to. So lots going on over at multiplier. I thought it was a great event, a lot of great conversations. I think you're going to see a lot more coming from them on that FX side, that payment side. I think you're going to see them building out more of that global payroll capability, um, and certainly more, um, intelligence and automation across all of that is, is to come. So, uh, a refreshing, refreshing update in the, in the EOR space. That's not more of the same.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_01] So kudos to multiplier on, on, on, on focus on what they're good at.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And, and great contrast to some of the things that we've been announcing from others about what they are doing, right. Recruiting PEO, HCM, you know, kind of where they're headed. So awesome.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_00] It's nice to, nice to see a different take and see where that, that, that leads. Right.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely. All right. Let's move on into global payroll. Our friends over at payslip, longtime client of mine, just got some new funding. Shout out to, uh, Delma and, um, Aifa over there at, uh, at payslip. Uh, yeah. So with that new funding, as you can imagine, they're going to be doing a lot more work over on their, uh, platform and their AI. Um, and, and proud of them to see, I didn't realize these numbers. I don't know if I hadn't asked in a while, 1.3 million monthly payslips across 125 countries

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_01] and 5 billion in payroll payments now coming from payslip through their, uh, payroll control platform. So congrats to the ladies and the team over at, uh, at payslip. That's a good one.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Hey, new funding, new funding begets growth. And when you're growing, you get more new funding, right? So yeah. Congrats.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. And then, uh, I don't know, Julie, maybe you want to talk about this a little bit, uh, data scale and strata got together. I feel, I feel very confident. I had some, something to do with those two, uh, getting together. I'm pretty sure I nag Frank Leisner about, about seeing it when it first came out, but, uh, well, yeah, congrats to Jerome and team.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. We've both been a little bit of nudges maybe in this space. So I was happy to see this as well. Um, you know, for folks that haven't heard, we've got an episode that we did a while back with Jerome, um, from data scaler that it talks a lot more about what that value proposition is. And it's about the connective tissue, right? That, that, uh, that connects, uh, local payroll country details to, you know, the, you know, the kind of middle, the, the engine that has all the information together.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_00] And so I'm just super excited and happy to see this and any that have teamed up with data scaler, because I think the big impediment out there between organizations are too many solutions believe that there's a lot of secret sauce in the things that they've built out in integrations or unwilling to think about how they might do integrations differently because it drives change request revenue. Right.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_00] And so, you know, the integration comes with new price tag and, uh, and I think everything about Jerome's approach, you know, helps organizations think about that dramatically differently. So I'm excited to see these two work together.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. And I'm excited to see data scale popping up in more, more of the, uh, global payroll world. So I think you'll see, I think you'll see more of that coming soon. So. Absolutely. Let's, uh, staying in the global payroll lane, let's talk cloud pay cloud pays new global payroll efficiency index for 2026 is out. Now this is not just another complexity report. Uh, I had a bit to do with this when it launched about, uh, six years ago, seven years ago, maybe five back in the day, shout out to David barrack, the former CMO there. We did a lot of work together, but, um, yeah, I think you should check it out, Julie.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_01] I don't know if you've seen it yet. I always liked the way they lay things out and talk some of the KPIs in here. Again, it's not just rankings of where it's complicated. Where it's not. Uh, it's more about, um, you know, looking at various different things like the time scale, time cycles, um, you know, transactions and incidents per 1000, things like that. So just a good, just a good benchmark by country and maybe region for, for those of you who are interested in that, uh, and give it, get a look at where you feel like your, um, your opportunities might lie in those countries. So.

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Thanks. And the, the illusion you made about where countries are more complex than not, I think is another well-known, uh, well-known, uh, payroll complexity type of a report. As you say, it's very different, but, uh, the thing that, uh, Strata puts out regularly, right. And this having just, uh, a very different angle and a different bed to it and a great piece of research.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I always appreciate those. And there's several now, right? What do we have? Like TMF, I think does one there's, there's pretty long. Um, the one over at Strata is quite long. I think it might be the oldest. So. Yeah.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_00] I think it is the longest standing. Yeah. So there's a few out there and they all have their own little angle and bent, but. Yeah. I took out the CloudBay one and I haven't seen the most recent, uh, finding. So I'm excited to search for it and dig in.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. The PEI, the professional payroll, excuse me, the payroll efficiency index. Yeah. Check that out. All right. Let's shift over to, uh, still kind of EOR-ish, but a bit global payroll here. We're going to talk remote for a moment. All right. Uh, remote, uh, I thought it was interesting. They put out an article in, um, TechCrunch, right? Talking about their new remote MCP, which is, uh, again, a model context protocol allowing for you to connect agents to other solutions, uh, and have external workflows back and forth to your HCM or other key systems.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_01] So very much in line with what we're hearing and seeing all the HCMs doing, um, you know, many of these solutions like remote and deal and rippling that are technically building, uh, HCMs, global HCMs are really falling in line with that. But what I thought was interesting to see though, is that they mentioned passing 300 million in ARR, uh, but with a 50% revenue per employee increase due to AI adoption. So I guess you could say they are living the, uh, live, drink, drink, drink, drink, the Kool-Aid

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_01] and fundamentally leveraging AI themselves to apparently, um, really drive some efficiencies there too. So hopefully, uh, their clients will get that as well.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And look, like for those of you, especially practitioners that just try to keep up with, uh, with the terminology, this is the second time in this news article, news release that we've talked about MCP model context protocol. So that that's probably going to become a thing, right? Along with the, the, uh, WCM terminology that we talked about a little earlier. Right. So, yeah.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I think we're going to see more, more new categories. Yeah. No MCP FDE, all that stuff, right? Yeah. There's another one. You're going to hear more of that with AI, but, uh, yeah, new categories coming. I think you could see that happening. Totally. Totally. Yeah. All right. So let's stay in the EOR space, a global HR space, uh, with deal deal launched a new stable coin wallet, uh, which I think is really on par with what you find happening around the world, right? Stable coins are popping up everywhere. I've talked about, uh, the stable coin over at PayPal.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_01] Um, there are many other different versions of that all tethered to the U S dollar, all stabilized by the U S dollar. Uh, and I think fundamentally the future of money movement, probably the future of health, wealth, and retirement too. When you think about the speed of being able to put money into accounts and move it to different things. I think that's what you're going to be seeing more of here. So very cool. I think you'll probably see more of the EORs probably follow suit as well, especially the big ones with the HCM platforms.

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_01] Um, very likely to do the same.

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_00] Well, wouldn't be a news episode without those guys coming up with something.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, deals always deal. Speed is a real thing. I've, I've talked about that. They've always got their foot on the pedal. Um, and yeah, and they just did the deal, the big deal. I think it was event. I don't think there was any products that came out of that, but we'll find out. I'm sure. The other thing I thought was pretty cool, Julie, they announced. They are now on the sleeve, the kit, the uniform, if you will, of the Arsenal football club over in the UK. Uh, I think that's pretty cool. Arsenal is a big, uh, a big, big team and being on that sleeve is pretty neat. I saw it actually.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_01] I was over, uh, I think I was in London. Um, yeah, I've been so many places lately. I was in London and actually saw some of those in the store. So, you know, I think that's, I've always talked about this. I think, you know, when you've got a Superbowl commercial, when you've got a golf shirt, a golfer with their, you know, work day or Oracle or whatever on a shirt, I think it's cool. Right. It's good for the HR world. Yeah.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_00] Great timing. I mean, I have a family that's relatively into FIFA and some of that in the Arsenal is a, is a well-known, well-known team. So awesome to, to see that. And very timely given all the, all the to do about, uh, about the FIFA. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And shout out to, uh, Alex, the, uh, founder of deal. I know he's a big PSG fan. Paris, uh, it was a Paris Saint-Germain. And, uh, so I asked him, I, I tweeted to him. I said, Hey, how soon are you going to get on the front of the PSG? PSG kit. So, uh, we don't, I had no answer on that yet, but Hey, you never know. You never know.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_00] You gotta, you gotta, you gotta poke and see if you can get a, get a reaction out of somebody all the time. I love it.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01] I love it though. EOR though, on a, on a, on a kit. I mean, that's pretty cool. Right. I remember when, do you remember when, um, it was either ultimate, uh, it was before they were together. I think it was ultimate was on the heat Jersey, uh, for a while or on the floor or something. I thought that was pretty cool. Uh, that was kind of, you know, the beginning of, of HR tech sort of getting really mainstream. So yeah.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_00] And Superbowl commercials, you don't find anything more weighty than that. Right. Just thinking about the dollars it takes to make that happen.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_01] I know. I know. Yeah. Papaya, right. Papaya at the Superbowl. Exactly. But how cool is that? Global payroll at the Superbowl, right? Yeah. All right. Let's round this out with one more in this lane, Julie, in this EOR payments world, Payoneer, right? Our good friends who bought Scott, they bought our, our friends over at, uh, D, D Coakley's company over, uh, boundless, right? Brought those together underneath their, their, their global payments capability has been acquired by Nuve. Nuve is fundamentally a POS, right?

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_01] Think of it as your, uh, when you go into a restaurant or you go into a retailer, you've got to pay your bill. Uh, there's a POS system there that is fundamentally, uh, operating their, their revenues in and out. Um, basically you imagine now you've got, uh, POS pairing up with global payments and global payroll and, and small business, you know, presumably, um, cross border, uh, employment capabilities. You can see where this is heading. Reminds me a lot of what we heard when the BitWage, right?

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_01] Got acquired by, uh, a bigger financial, uh, services organization that is bringing that into a broader, a broader play here for FinTech. So, um, yeah, very interesting. We've seen some of this in the U S they haven't seen it globally yet. So.

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_00] Here's what I think is really interesting about that. And that is, what does that do from an industry alignment, right? A lot of times these, this, this point of service is very industry driven and HR tech hasn't necessarily, you know, it's been really broadly cross industries, the way that HR operates. And so when these things happen, I always wonder, you know, um, how that, how that impacts the broader market for the acquiring company versus kind of puts them as a, in a specialist

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_00] role in the industries of the parent. So, um, I might see a lot more of that. Uh, there are some industry specific things that go on and it could be, that's the faster way to grow sometimes.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. And making a platform, right. Having more than just one, one hand, you know, being a hammer, looking for a nail, you can have a lot of solutions to offer, but look at notice how much we talked payments up and down this. And some of it, most of it was not primary, right? It's, you know, it just goes to show you the value right now of, uh, digital payments, digital money movement, and more importantly, cross border FX. I think you're going to hear that story coming, you know, in more and more places. So keep an eye on that.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_01] But, um, all right, Julie, anything else on your end?

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_00] No, no, I tried to embed them along the way and I think, uh, we weren't sure if we were going to make it in, uh, in kind of our usual amount of time, but it looks like we did.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, absolutely. And look, we'll be back soon with more. As always, we ask that you subscribe, like, share, comment, anything helps. Uh, and thank you so much to GP, OneSource Virtual, and Zoho for powering us, uh, ad-free. We really appreciate that. And, uh, yeah, we'll be back with more very, very soon. Bye.

[00:39:18] Bye.