AI Hype vs. Payroll Reality: PayrollBADIes Recap SAP Sapphire & Payroll Congress

[00:00:00] We're classy no charades Payroll Baddies, rain and fire get paid Payroll Baddies, Payroll Baddies, Payroll Baddies Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where's Baddy Daddy? What? Where he's supposed to come in. I don't see him, but I imagine he's somewhere where he doesn't have his pants on. Just like a beach. That's right. Jesse, I think you know where he is. I want to imagine that.

[00:00:29] No, I hear he's international. He's international daddy today. I guess I forgot that he's in Japan. Hopefully he's having a good time. He's handing out chains in Japan. He's making sure everyone in Japan gets the credit they deserve for the payroll work that they're doing out there. I know. I have never personally worked on Japanese payroll. I think that'd be kind of fun to do some Japanese.

[00:00:53] Welcome to Ghosted by the Machine, the podcast about work, hiring and all the things no one explains after you click submit application. We talk about broken hiring systems, AI filters that eat resumes for sport, recruiter ghosting and the very real humans trying to survive it. Each episode features real stories, honest conversations and just enough sarcasm to stay sane.

[00:01:18] No buzzwords, no thrill to announce, no advice written by an algorithm pretending to be a thought leader. If you've ever wondered where your application went, you are in the right place. This is Ghosted by the Machine. No resume required. Japanese payroll. Yeah. I think we should. My kids would definitely have me at the Universal Studios out there, though. Oh, that'd be fun. Yeah, that'd be fun. Well, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to our listeners.

[00:01:48] Welcome to our, you know, existing listeners. Hopefully we get some new listeners on. We are the payroll baddies. Just again, a quick thing, a quick note about us. We are payroll baddies who are shining a light on all those payroll, finance, HR, all those people out there who are making sure people get paid because that's what's important. That's why we're all here getting paid. Uh, maybe another little side note about us. We are a little bit biased. We are biased on SAP and SAP ecosystem.

[00:02:17] Um, so all the good partners out there supporting SAP. So thank you to you guys too. So a lot of things have happened this month. First of all, the payroll baddies have been busy. So if we have not released any podcasts recently, that's because again, we've been out there, you know, uh, doing the good stuff, right? Doing Lord's work out there, making sure we shine a light on all those. The baddies out there. So maybe we can get started and talk about all the events that we've been through. Sunny, Jesse's been doing any fun.

[00:02:47] I was going to say, yeah, I mean, there's so many events that happened. I mean, you know, customer facing internal SAP. I mean, the biggest ones that Jesse and I were at was, was SAP's, uh, Sapphire. Um, and, and I mean, again, for those of you guys that haven't been to Sapphire, super packed, super informative, a lot of cool stuff that we talked about. But I think it was like more than 20,000 people that showed up and I'm like, Orlando was super, super, uh, you know, intense.

[00:03:17] So especially packed with all the heat. Um, yeah. So a lot of, uh, I think they were giving out like cool freebies, uh, that I think everyone enjoyed, uh, water bottles, all that stuff. But more than that, I mean, on the HR side, um, we, we truly enjoyed a lot of stuff that was happening there. And, and Dan Beck, um, he introduced this sort of new, um, concept around HCM, right? Which was the autonomous HCM, which is sort of part of the broader, like SAP's autonomous enterprise.

[00:03:47] Um, one, and then I'm sure Jesse will have some, some kind of words to say around that. I think we've heard the word AI, maybe like 50,000 times during that conference. Right. Um, there were so many jokes going on, like, Hey, say, you know, or let's have a drink when someone says AI and, and all that stuff. But, um, that being said, like a lot of the stuff that Dan talked about was around AI and all the stuff that, you know, this happening on the roadmap, which was pretty cool.

[00:04:15] But I don't think anyone would be left standing if you guys were taking it. Water. It was not Orlando's water, but it was water drinking water. Take a little water. So everybody had to go pee all the time. I get it. Pretty much. Pretty much. Um, but yeah, go ahead. No, I was going to say it's exciting, but it is, it is interesting when you think about the last probably 18 months of how many events we go to.

[00:04:41] And even outside of SAP and success factors, it's like every keynote, every stage, every conversation is about AI. And so while, while I'm a fan, I'm all for it. I'm excited about the autonomous enterprise. Sometimes I take a step back and I think back to, uh, you know, early nineties when the internet came out and the worldwide web and how we articulated that.

[00:05:05] I almost wonder if we're going to look back in a few years from now and kind of laugh at ourselves because AI is just going to be a part of our everyday and what we do and how we operate and who we are. But are we going to look back at how pronounced it is in conversation and how obvious it is because it's, it is so obvious right now. And maybe in a few years from now, it's just going to be like, we don't talk about the internet today. Right. Like they probably did 30 years ago.

[00:05:31] So I'm just wondering this moment, if we pin it right now, what is the conversation going to be a few years? But Jesse, before, I mean, I just want to point out something. Did you miss the memo about the gray today? Like what's going on here? This is gray. I'm not wearing one of your, your, I mean, is that gray to anybody else? It looks more like silver. It's, it's just my skin tone. It's just light. But speaking of gray, do we, does everybody know how to spell gray?

[00:06:00] Cause sometimes it's confusing, isn't it? But, but maybe, you know, G-R-A-Y or G-R-E-Y. For me, it depends on the day. What's the rule? I'll go to the internet and look it up. I truly believe, I think it's believed on your location. I think it's UK. While you do that, it's funny. I was actually talking to my kids, right? And so my, my son, he's always looking things up. He does not use Google search one bit. Right. Like I asked him, I was like, Hey, do you ever look up at things on Google?

[00:06:29] And he's like, no, he uses Gemini. He uses AI for like all the stuff he does. So like, he literally never uses Google search at all. How old is your son? And Rob 10. Wow. 10. Look at that. Seriously. And he does some crazy. Search it up. Can you say, Oh, I'll search it up. Is that how he actually fits it? I mean, he, his version of finding an answer to something is using Gemini and not only finding

[00:06:54] a thing like this summer, he's all about, I'm going to like create workout plan. So he uses Gemini and has the AI create a like plan and he gives it the context and stuff like that. And like, you know, the funny thing is he's doing things that I probably wanted him to do and try to tell him to do. But when it comes from the AI now, it's like, no, this is, this is what I'm going to do. That's funny. You mean like the, the, the daddy, like a genetic AI that's like, you put, you're trying to replace baddie daddy already? Just.

[00:07:26] No, that's crazy. Like, I mean, it's funny, Imran, because even my daughter who's seven, uh, I started teaching her like, you know, Gemini and Chad GPT and she just thinks everything is AI. Right. So she's like, dad, can you ask AI this? Right. And then can you ask AI that? So I think like, it's interesting how like kids are now picking up AI faster than some of the conversations I've had with customers in their daily work. Right. Which is, which is crazy. You guys remember? Sorry.

[00:07:56] Sorry. Finish your thought study. No, no. I was just saying, I mean, it's just like so many companies that we saw, like Jesse and I at, at Sapphire, like that had agent, agentech AI, like there's just so many just like companies trying to incorporate and sort of just rebrand themselves as AI. But I'm like, when, when a kid can do that, like a five-year-old, seven-year-old, 10-year-old, like that just goes to show like how fast, um, you know, organizations are going to have to like adopt because these are their future workers. Right.

[00:08:24] They're going to come in and join the workforce and AI is going to be first on their mind. So yeah. And the expectations are different. Do you guys remember what you guys were doing when you were 10 years old? Ha ha. Yeah. Not talking to AI. No. Yeah. But it changes the expectations even more because if you look at it, like, so before AI, we had like a Google Home Assistant, right? My parents have like Alexa, people use Siri. So like my, my kids have used those, but now they feel like that's so dated. Right.

[00:08:53] I mean, I remember when like Google Assistant first came out, you know, I set up a smart home and it could control your lights or change your thermostat. And you thought that was real cool. But now like they want to answer to a question if they were to ask Siri and they don't get like the same type of response that you get from AI. It's just like, man. Uh, so they actually have this thing of like, no Gemini is what I want to talk to. I don't want to talk to Google. That's what they call the Google Assistant, like the old traditional one. I know Gemini is what I need to be talking to.

[00:09:21] And they have that point of view of like, that is old and outdated. I need to talk to Gemini. So in this AI, I mean, obviously Dan back introduced the autonomous HCM. Obviously things are about AI. What, was there any other good tidbits that you guys found from the, you know? So right around that, Roz, what I will say is like there was some, and I saw a bunch of things on LinkedIn where I think SAP had recently announced like they're going to be

[00:09:48] a little bit more stringent on what other agents they allowed to access the, the SAP sort of platform. Right. And, and it got a lot of backlash to say, well, Hey, um, you know, SAP is really controlling their data. They're not letting other agents connect to it. For me, I'm like for customers. That's a great thing. Right. Because SAP is protecting your data. Like they don't want just, you know, even if it's read only access to anyone to come in and start like scrolling and, and, you know, crawling everything that that's available.

[00:10:17] So for me, I'm like that alongside with sort of having the right level of compliance and regulatory things to protect that AI sort of, um, surrounding. I think that that's a super plus point for SAP versus some of the other, you know, vendors that we've seen that have gotten in trouble, right. In the past. Um, so when, when Dan talked about some new, I think he introduced about like 60 plus agents, uh, keep me honest, Jesse, I think, um, that, uh, sort of talk about the different areas

[00:10:45] or are going to talk about like, you know, when customers have a payroll question, there's a payroll agent that they talk to there, you know, the benefits, you know, question that there's going to be a benefits agent they talk to, um, outside of that, I mean, it's just bringing all of that back to the finance, procurement, supply chain. Um, I think sort of SAP is finally putting all of that together and sort of this like cohesive manner, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah.

[00:11:11] I was just going to say like when talking about the last 18 months earlier, right. And then we remember when it was first coming out at Sapphire success can act like every big headliner event that we attend, there's always more. Right. And I feel like last year's conversation was a lot about AI assisting with the work. And I think more now, like this year, Sapphire is about AI doing the work. Right. But with humans are providing the oversight, the governance, the strategy.

[00:11:41] And even, you know, it started with CK, with Christian Klein. Right. And he said that for mission critical processes of our customers, almost right. It's just not good enough. And so I think it kind of goes back to how SAP, um, you know, how they work with data. Right. It's, it's very, uh, protective, um, and, and they always want to do it right out of the gate. So, um, I think it's, it's just a big shift this year. Right. We started with just AI.

[00:12:07] We talked about agentic AI and now really letting AI do the work for us. Well, and I think about what this means for clients out there looking at stuff. And it's something that we have talked about on this podcast. And I know Imran and I've talked about this a lot. Um, you know, if you're an SAP shop and, and you are looking at, you know, maybe you're missing pieces like payroll finance or something like that. You absolutely need to be looking like at your SAP footprint and seeing how you can get

[00:12:36] more connected because before, you know, there might've been, Oh, you know what this, maybe I prefer this software over this software, maybe because of small differences that I'm sorry is going all out the window because with these agents, with the connectivity you will have and your data being all connected, it is going to be instrumental and monumental, right. Into what it's going to do and your CFOs, your CIOs, they're all going to be, you know,

[00:13:06] that that's what they should be looking at thinking about, right. How do I get, like you said, the, the, the, the hundred percent accurate answer. And how do I get the work done in the best and fastest way? And to me, this is what the new world is going to look like. So, I mean, look, um, I'm going to say this very clearly. If you are using success factors for core HR. So if you're an employee central client, you need to look at SAP for payroll.

[00:13:33] You're not going to have a better payroll system for you compared to anything else on the marketplace. And then if you look at that, you're, if you decide to go with someone else, you're handicapping yourself in the future, especially when you come to AI service delivery, all of these other things. And look, historically, I think, um, depending upon your, your size and footprint, you might've been like, Hey, look, look, look, SAP is just overkill.

[00:14:02] It's too, too expensive or too whatever for this. But now, you know, with, uh, the work that SAP is doing in the mid market SF pay, I know we haven't talked a lot about that, but you know, there's some new possibilities. So anyone out there that use using success factors for HR, you, you have to seriously look at SAP for payroll. It should be, you know, like, I think that should be, we want SAP unless for some reason

[00:14:29] you can't, which I don't see a lot of those reasons, but, uh, I think that should be the first thing you look at. And I'm not just saying that because this is an SAP bias podcast. I'm saying that because, you know, if you're using success factors, there's just no way another vendor can give you all of the things that you get with what we are seeing now. When you talk about realizing that autonomous ATM or autonomous payroll and some of these other things. And, and look, uh, you mentioned this at the beginning too, Raj, right? We are, we're all about SAP and the ecosystem.

[00:14:58] So the ecosystem that SAP is putting together, that's just as important. You talk about these EWA vendors out there, Raj, you and I, we were at payroll Congress. I mean, that was a whole different vibe. And we connected with so many other, um, partners and things like that, that are doing work with SAP. I'm sure you might want to call out a couple, um, and whatnot, but like the ecosystem of that, you know, really capitalizes on you having that footprint. So I don't know, Raj, I mean, you want to talk a little bit about the Congress and, uh,

[00:15:28] some of the stuff. No, that, you know, just one, one last thing I'll say about, um, Sapphire is something that, uh, SAP did announce was, um, Joule studio, right? So for, for customers that truly want to sort of do that custom development, um, using some of the tools that they've already been used to, like N8N and some of the other ones, like that's one area where customers will not be able to kind of hold them off. Right. So, which, which I thought was pretty cool.

[00:15:53] And then, um, also, so for the customers that are listening, if you have, if you are an SAP custom, talk to your rep, because there's going to be like new pricing. That's going to be hopefully streamlined, um, for Joule, right. Specifically as you're using it. So I'm around to all the points you talked about. Um, so I think, you know, super excited for all the stuff that's coming. So yeah, let's, let's switch gears to a parallel Congress. Before we do that, it's so funny that you mentioned Sonny, cause, uh, you know, maybe Imran, maybe one of these days we should just do a podcast about AI, you and I, cause

[00:16:23] Imran and I are like, like we talk about AI pretty much nonstop. And again, in, in different ways. Right. So I don't want like, there's different things that can be done with it and different aspects of it. But one of the big things was N8N was a such a, was amazing to see what SAP is doing. So I don't know if people really caught this, but SAP is investing in N8N. So they invested about, I believe $5 billion into N8N, which is amazing. And again, look, I don't know what the future holds.

[00:16:53] Maybe they're looking in the future to fully take in N8N, which is a, for people out there who, again, in the, you know, who don't know what N8N does. It's a very amazing orchestration tool, right. To help you do your AI. You know, you, the new term is agentic AI, right. To do some of your agentic stuff, right. To have an AI that's always running and looking at stuff and doing things. So N8N is going to be very, um, you know, critical for that.

[00:17:20] So it's really cool to see that SAP is investing in that. And then I'm really excited to see how they bring it in. Cause I'll tell you, Imran, Imran, Imran, oh my gosh. Oh my God. I will, I will definitely, that was really hard to say for some reason. I don't know why, but, uh, we will, I mean, we definitely have played around with N8N and we have done some amazing stuff with it. So it's exciting to see how that will look inside of the SAP landscape. I'm excited about that.

[00:17:48] Yeah, Imran, you and I both have built workflows from it. And I think the cool thing it allows you to do is one, connect a couple of things that otherwise wouldn't be connected in an easy to do way. But like, look with AI, uh, there's also a lot of use cases where you don't need AI, right. And sometimes AI would probably be detrimental for you to put there, right. There are times where a static Python program or something else would fit, uh, well in a process.

[00:18:18] You maybe connect something where you're getting it from an SAP system, which I think is very exciting. And then you could even, you know, send that to, um, like an AI. So I've done some things with N8N where you could send that to a, uh, like Google Vertex, uh, their model for, for enterprise, get something back and then use some static code and then maybe kind of do something final. You can send emails and do all this stuff. So yeah, I think that was something I didn't, I didn't even catch that news directly, Raj. I only saw it because you sent it to me.

[00:18:46] Otherwise, like if you think about it, I mean, the sum of that is crazy because I think it was the valuation was 5.8 billion. I don't know how much SAP put into it, but if you look at it, like they bought successful actions back in the day for what? 3.4 or something like that billion. They're investing as such a significant amount of this and it didn't even reach the main presses or like, I don't even know if I saw an SAP news article about it. So like, well, it's crazy.

[00:19:11] Well, it's hard when, you know, we have IPOs that are being talked about in the trillions for new companies coming in from AI perspective, SpaceX and all this. So yeah, things are just moving fast. And speaking of things moving fast, the wow, wow. Sunny and Jesse were out there hop-nobbing in Sapphire. Imran and I were getting down at the payroll Congress, uh, which was what happened in Nashville,

[00:19:38] which was again, my first payroll Congress. Oh yeah. Why does it say second? Just letting you know, just letting you, Jesse, hold on. Yeah, exactly. Let's hear last. Imran, uh, Betty, Daddy, Todd, me and Pete Tilyakis. A big shout out to Pete. We're a part of a costume contest and we got second place. Now look, do we think we should have gone first? Yes, but you know, there's other things involved.

[00:20:07] So let's just say, you know, second place and, you know, we're very proud of it. Um, I will say it was, uh, for me again, my first time being at payroll Congress, very different than, um, a software, uh, uh, you know, uh, events, right. It's, these are truly payroll professionals, payroll managers, directors, and things like that at this event. So very payroll focused.

[00:20:32] And, and I, as a payroll baddie felt at home because it was really the place where, you know, everything we've been preaching. It was our people. It was our people. Of all the payroll baddies across the country. Like it's where people's baddies come to like, right? And I'll tell you just us walking around. Cause obviously we were in our payroll baddies outfit. Like we always are. I actually sleep with this, so I don't know about you guys, but, um, it was, it was awesome

[00:21:01] to see the love and also to see the, like, again, the reach sometimes of people who are not even in the SAP ecosystem saying, Hey, you know, I've seen some of your podcasts or some clips and just calling it out. And they just love being appreciated. Right. We did some nighting. We actually did a, we gave a nighting to somebody who has been in the, who has retired as a payroll professional, but still comes to those events.

[00:21:26] I believe like for 40 years of payroll, can you imagine the amount of payroll, uh, you know, paychecks that they have, you know, made sure people have gotten paid. So it was really cool. And to me, it really makes it, uh, you know, it brings it full circle to why we're doing this, right? Yeah. Of course we're here to preach about SAP tech, about everything else that we're trying to do, but, but really shining the light on the payroll baddies. That was really cool. So for me, that was really awesome. And Ron, how did you feel from that?

[00:21:55] I mean, look, Jesse, you know, go back to your earlier comment, uh, you and Sonny both about like AI. So, you know, even at that conference happening the same week, uh, at the same time, they were talking about AI, every vendor booth. I think Raj, we walked around the entire thing. He was like, you know, AI, AI at every single one. And Jim take this, Jim take that. But you know, Raj had a session. It was amazing session. Him, Daddy Daddy, uh, a couple of clients too. Incredible session.

[00:22:22] Um, and they had about 300 people in the room, um, during this session. So as much as we're, we're talking about AI, we're hyping it up and vendors are talking about it nonstop. And, and you know what? There's a beautiful vision there. I think it's, it's a transformative technology. I think Raj, you might've asked or Todd asked, I don't know who, but someone asked like, Hey, how many people are using AI productively today with their payroll processes? I think three hands went up in a room of 300 people. Right.

[00:22:51] So when you look at that one, 1% of people are actually using it productively. Um, so I think that speaks more to hype versus reality, but it doesn't mean like, um, I think the energy was still all very positive because I think I had been to a couple past payroll Congresses and the energy felt a little different this year. Whereas, um, you know, like people aren't using this productively, but I think they're starting to see the vision across all these vendors talking about it of how this can make their

[00:23:20] life easier because, you know, as much as we celebrate, uh, the payroll baddies out there working hard doing that stuff, it's a grind sometimes, right? Like there's so much, so much shit that they have to deal with that, um, now this could actually help them in many ways to make their jobs and ultimately their lives easier. So I think that's where that excitement comes from, but you know, going back to the hype train, I think it's definitely not being used in productively as much as people would like you to think.

[00:23:50] Yeah. And I'm always curious, uh, Imran and Raja, when you guys were there, like, you know, that that stat is pretty interesting, right? Like 1% of the poll that you guys took, like they were using it productively. But as you guys were talking to customers, like that, did anyone mention like, what were some of the, like the holdbacks of like why they were not exploring? Cause a lot of times they're like, well, we don't get it yet or we get it, but we're too risk averse. Like kind of curious to hear your thoughts on that. I mean, maybe I'll go, I think all of that, Sonny, just like that conversation we were

[00:24:19] having with clients, like even in the session too, right? I think, you know, obviously there's a fear around AI too, right? Especially for, you know, maybe some of these payroll professionals and things like that. Cause you hear the word, Oh, AI is going to like, you know, AI is going to do everything for me. Right. And I think I know at least we tried to, in our session, try to make it like, look, AI is not here to replace you. AI is here to help you do all those things that is keeping you up at night till 12, you

[00:24:47] know, 12 AM and make, you know, whatever else that's, you know, is laborious. That's what AI is here for. And I think, you know, at least, you know, I've seen a trend coming in where I do see that changing where people's mindset are maybe changing to say like, look, AI is here to help, not AI is here to replace. Right. But that's going to be an ongoing battle. But I will say that's probably why. And also the, the, the, the amount of change that's happening, right. That's something else we addressed.

[00:25:16] Like we might be talking about AI right now, right now, a news article might be coming out that might change the way we think about AI too. Right. Because that's how fast things are moving in the AI space. So it's just like, it was good for, uh, for us to ask that question so that people can see like, look, people are not alone. Right. Everybody like, yes, there's a lot of hype about AI, but people are still figuring it out how to use it.

[00:25:40] But that's why it's important to have a good, you know, a service provider, software provider helping you think about that. Right. And, and to me, you know, again, like we, you know, SAP is at the forefront of this, right? SAP has always been AI minded, data minded and doing it the right way. Cause it's one thing to say, let's go use AI. It's another thing to say, let's use AI in the proper way, especially when it comes to HR and payroll.

[00:26:08] But yeah, I don't know, Imran, what you thought too on that. Well, I'm going to go point right back to your session, Raj. So like, you know, honestly, I feel like you should ask those two customers of yours to get on a podcast and do it. Cause it was that, I wish everyone could hear that session. I thought it was that good, but you know, big focus of that. And Sonny, to answer your question, I think it also comes down to like other things that a lot of organizations have going on. And do you have your, your house in order, so to speak. Right. Because Raj, that session, you, you talked about it, master data management. Right.

[00:26:38] And it kind of ties back to what I mentioned earlier of like, look, if you have a different core HR system entirely, and then a different vendor for payroll and then payroll outsourced, well, then AI is in many ways outside of your control. You have no control over whether you're going to do it. Plus your master data is probably kind of scrambled between those things. Right. And so, you know, the, the customer that was presenting with Raj and them, they talked about how they spent probably a good year getting their house in order, their master data management,

[00:27:05] their core ATM system globally put together. And then the next phase of that is, okay, now that we have all of these things kind of connected, now we can use AI. And I love that you asked that question because I think it ties back to what we were saying earlier of, look, you're handicapping yourself in the future if you don't start getting your house together now. And then, you know, that's how you put, in my, in my opinion, and what I'm trying to help

[00:27:30] clients with too, that's how you put together a payroll AI, HCM strategy together, autonomous HCM, autonomous payroll. That's how you start rolling it out. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. Oh, go ahead, Raj. I was just going to say one more thing. Like, you know, I've known, I've been known for a lot of good phrases. You know, I think I, I use my best one at that, at that event or at that session, because I said, you got to have your broccoli before you can have your ice cream. Right.

[00:27:57] And it's, it's never been more, uh, again, this, this, uh, I know if batty daddy was here, he would be also hitting it up, right. About the master data management. It sounds so unsexy just saying that, but it has never been so much more important to have your house in order, to have your data in order, because if you want to have that ice cream, if you want to have that AI helping you do all that stuff, if you don't have any of that, it's, I mean, it's going to be, you know, pointless.

[00:28:24] So yeah, just wanted to make sure, you know, like that point was hit really hard. I think. That's such a great point. And, and, uh, thank you guys for that. I think what, what's interesting is like, these are the core same foundational principles that we've been like preaching for the past, you know, God loves how long. Right. But now it just makes it more important. Like don't have your data in order. Don't have your processes in order. Don't have your governance in order. Like AI is not going to fix all that stuff for you. Right. Like if you don't, none of that is in place. So no, that's awesome.

[00:28:55] I, uh, no, I mean, again, it was a great event. I wish again, it's a, the only sucky part was that all the payroll baddies were not together, but I think two amazing events happening simultaneously. So that was awesome. Uh, and maybe before we end our events road show, Imran actually went to another event. Maybe you want to talk a little bit about that. Yeah, it was actually the, uh, Acadian Ventures. So I got my hat here. So it's, uh, um, they, they invest in work technology.

[00:29:22] Uh, it's those Thomas Otter, um, Jason Corsello. Uh, so Thomas used to be the head of product management at success factors. So I've been involved with that for a couple of years. And man, let me tell you that they threw a amazing event. Um, so it was leaders from, you know, this was beyond SAP. So leaders from all over HR tech from large enterprise, they're an investment group. So they have startups. And so that was kind of just fascinating to hear different points of view, right?

[00:29:51] All the way from the startup, uh, mentality. Cause a lot of times, even from a pricing standpoint, Sunny, you talked about that. Everyone is asking, all right. AI is very tricky to price because how do you do it? And it kind of goes counter to seat based pricing, things like that. So there was a lot of conversations about like outcome based pricing. What does that look like? Are people getting away from seat model, even adoption?

[00:30:15] So Sunny, you, you mentioned earlier the thing about, um, like the, um, API, uh, costs and how SAP is restricting that they're not, they're not alone in that, right? I work. They did the same thing. I'm pretty sure a meal called, uh, people leeches, right? I think I saw him say that. Um, but I think part of it is I'm going to have a different point of view on this. You know, like I'm not the biggest fan of that model, but I heard both sides of it. Right.

[00:30:43] Because when I talked to one guy, he was like, well, if you look at it, they're, they're monetizing value creation. Um, but on the flip side of it, right. Um, I think that, you know, you're holding back some, some of the things that your clients and their customers might actually own. That is their data, that is their system and they want access to it. So I'm, I'm kind of split in the middle there because I think part of it is, um, look, I understand. I think these APIs are also being taxed in a way that they've never been taxed before. Right.

[00:31:12] Because now more people are saying, Hey, let me just run a full API, get all this data out. So, you know, I think there's a cost, uh, piece of that as well, which I think SAP needs to be aware of because if your API usage suddenly, uh, 10 X is, then there's a cost ramification there. So I think some of that is around that. But the other side of it is look, Raj, you and I have played with AI all, all the time. If I'm looking at it, I saw the whole announcement, the press release, the uproar, the commentary

[00:31:41] on social media, there's also other ways to get your data. Right. I mean, you can log into a success factor system. You could download a report. You could feed that to AI, right? Like you could have the screen. I mean, how many of you use Claude? Claude can go and, you know, scrape screens. You could, there's so many ways to do it. So I think that, that was fascinating to me at being at that event and hearing from others point of view, because look, I've been in the SAP ecosystem and maybe bubble for a long time. So that has been really nice.

[00:32:11] I mean, they did an amazing job with that event. I mean, it's like the HR tech event to go to. So yeah, it was awesome. That's invite only, right, Imran? Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, it's for the people that are involved with the fund or, you know, sometimes to the surrounding people. So it's the investors, it's the actual founders of the companies that they've invested in. And, you know, there's other people in the ecosystem that are involved as well. That's awesome. Awesome.

[00:32:40] I'm glad you had a, you know, again, it's always good to hear other, because there's so many things happening in the world right now, right? Especially in HR and with AI and tech. So it's cool to see what other people are doing and hearing. And I know Imran, you shared some with me also. So it's just very cool to see how that's all coming along. So look, we had the, you know, we had Sapphire, we had Payroll Congress, we had, you know, Imran, you went to the Acadian event. Maybe just a call out for people.

[00:33:09] We, payroll baddies are going to be keep, there's a roadshow happening that's going to happen in the next few months. We're going to be going to different regions and working with some of the SAP account executives and some of the clients to basically, you know, talk about payroll. We want to talk about global payroll. We want to talk about mid-market payroll. Because right now, this is a very hot topic and everybody should really make decisions knowing what's really available to them.

[00:33:36] And again, back to what Imran said, back to what everybody, all of us are saying. If you have an SAP landscape, you should be looking at what is available to me in the SAP holistically landscape. Because right now, with all the advancements, with all the AI agents that are coming, you know, I know, Sonny, you mentioned 60 agents, all this stuff. A lot of them are, like the first ones that are coming out are payroll agents. There's a reason for that. Because it's such a core part of the business, right?

[00:34:05] Making sure people get paid. And that's where AI is going to play a big part. And you need to have your house in order for you guys to partake in those AI agents. But yeah, no, really cool. I'm excited about what the next few months look like. And, you know, any closing words from, you know, Jesse, Sonny, Imran? Yeah, give us something, Jesse. Yeah. Give me something good. Yeah. It's an exciting time. There's a lot of opportunity to lean in, to learn.

[00:34:37] Get your data in order. Right? Get that in order. Garbage in, garbage down. That's what I was looking for. That's it. Get your data in order. Because things are moving and they're moving faster than they ever have moved. So get your data in order. Yep. Yep. Roger, I called you out on one thing, though, man. So I know I loved your broccoli and ice cream thing, but I'm pretty sure The Rock said it first in Fast Five, if I remember correctly. You know what? I don't think we have to worry. You know what? Who actually said it does not matter.

[00:35:07] I think the last one to say in the right context. You're going to turn it off of your own? Oh, my God. You're coming out. This is like the best day. Well, that's going to stick with me now. This was awesome. And I know all of us, all of us listening, we all want our ice cream. So if you guys want your ice cream, you got to finish your broccoli. And in order for us to do that, keep following, liking, subscribing to all of our amazing content that's out there. We're going to have more of these coming up.

[00:35:35] And I know we're having a special one that we're planning with the product engineering team with SuccessFactors. That podcast will be coming up. So stay tuned for that. Are we revealing who the guest is or do we want to keep it a secret? It's up to you, Wildcard. What do you think, Raj? Do it. So we're going to have Siva coming and joining in from the product engineering team. So excited about that. So stay tuned for that. More and more information coming up.

[00:36:06] But thank you guys for listening. Again, like, subscribe, and can't wait to see you on the next podcast. By the way, one of the other things I know we talk about and we're very hyped with SAP. But just so all the payroll baddies out there know, we also do push SAP to do stuff and deliver stuff. And so, you know, with that podcast, hopefully we can also do that, Sunny. We can, you know, put a little pressure on them. Because we do try to represent the baddies, all the baddies out there internally with SAP and fight for things that you all want as well. So, yeah.

[00:36:35] No, 100%. So if you guys have specific questions, wants, requests, right? I love it. Put them in the comments and we'll be sure to kind of address them when we talk to Siva. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye.

[00:37:17] We don't need no strike. Trying to keep up, but it's not the same. Tech on lock, we automating the flow. No more headaches, we let that payroll glow. Innovating daily, got the future on deck. Payroll baddies, running it, showing respect. So all the payroll baddies, you know who you are. Join the cause, let's take it far. All you baddies out there, it's time to rise. Join the movement, no compromise. Keep your rock stars with classy, no charades.

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