Tech Talks Daily
00:09:31 · Neil C. Hughes, Evan Goldberg
[00:09:31] S0: And if we look inside any business of any size, what what separates an AI feature that people maybe try once and then go back to their old way of working for one that actually becomes a part of their daily work? [00:09:43] S1: Well, I think the ability to personalize it is is is critical. A one size fits all AI feature might not work for you, but if you're able to say, actually, in natural language, this is how I actually want it to work. You did it this way, but try doing it that way instead. So that personalization is incredible incredibly important. When you put an AI portlet on your dashboard in NetSuite that answers a question, you look at it, you say, that's not quite how I want it. You just tell... Ask Oracle, I want it in a different way. So I think the personalization is what's gonna make it stick. [00:10:19] S0: And adoption, another massive talking point here. What what surprised you about customer adoption? The one reasons I mentioned that, you mentioned more than... Give you the stat here, 13,000 customers using NetSuite AI Connect to service. What have these customers taught you that maybe challenge your original assumptions about businesses and how they would use AI? Any surprises there?
00:10:19 · Neil C. Hughes, Evan Goldberg
[00:10:19] S0: And adoption, another massive talking point here. What what surprised you about customer adoption? The one reasons I mentioned that, you mentioned more than... Give you the stat here, 13,000 customers using NetSuite AI Connect to service. What have these customers taught you that maybe challenge your original assumptions about businesses and how they would use AI? Any surprises there? [00:10:38] S1: Well, it's the fastest any feature has ever been adopted in NetSuite. So that alone shows the hunger that people have for for these technologies that sort of really democratize the ability to automate in your company, even if you're... As I said, even if you're a small company. And they're automating so many different things. You know, I could spend the rest of the day telling you the types of things that they're doing, but, you know, in the finance department, they're automating accruals. As I said, if they're in operations, they're automating order approvals, and they're getting... Building agents that behind the scenes are always looking for exceptions, because that's a lot of what you do in a business, is make sure you handle those those exceptions that may trip you up. So, you know, just a massive variety, and it... It's really... As as much as you can imagine, that's what you can accomplish with these very, very open, very, very general purpose and easy to use technologies. [00:11:39] S0: And for partners, how should NetSuite's partner ecosystem, how should that change as customers increasingly expect industry specific AI and automation?
00:11:39 · Neil C. Hughes, Evan Goldberg
[00:11:39] S0: And for partners, how should NetSuite's partner ecosystem, how should that change as customers increasingly expect industry specific AI and automation? [00:11:48] S1: You've hit the nail on the head. I mean, these partners have, in their heads, so much what we call tacit knowledge that they're able to, pass on to the customer. Well, now you can do that at scale. You can build that into skills. You can add skills into NetSuite Next so that it understands your customers better. Like, because, you know, you may be an expert in a particular niche, a micro vertical. You can, as a partner, build that expertise into Ask Oracle for your customers, and so that they get the benefit of your brain twenty four hours a day. And that doesn't mean you're not continuing to learn. That's where you're... You're... You get to spend more time building up that knowledge that... Rather than just the route of of transferring it over and over and over again to each and every customer sort of individually. AI gives you that scale. [00:12:42] S0: And there's an old saying that there's nothing more damaging than saying the line that we've always done it this way, and I think that's more important than ever now. So what operating habits should growing companies improve now if they want useful AI results from their business systems? Any recommendations of what they should be doing differently?
00:12:42 · Neil C. Hughes, Evan Goldberg
[00:12:42] S0: And there's an old saying that there's nothing more damaging than saying the line that we've always done it this way, and I think that's more important than ever now. So what operating habits should growing companies improve now if they want useful AI results from their business systems? Any recommendations of what they should be doing differently? [00:12:59] S1: Well, I would say, you know, the first thing you do is take that process that you've wanted to revamp, that costs a lot of time, your people are... You know, you know they could be deployed better on more important things. Take that one and automate it with AI. You know, give... Ask Oracle a chance to build an AI workspace and agents that automate that one process. See how that works, and then you can go on to the next one. And I think people are gonna have some incredible results if they're willing to take that first step. [00:13:30] S0: And another topic I'd love to bring up here, I'm not sure if you can answer this, but how you see the future of software pricing? Because if agents are completing work that previously required employees to log in to software, does that eventually challenge traditional per user software licensing models and things?
00:13:30 · Neil C. Hughes, Evan Goldberg
[00:13:30] S0: And another topic I'd love to bring up here, I'm not sure if you can answer this, but how you see the future of software pricing? Because if agents are completing work that previously required employees to log in to software, does that eventually challenge traditional per user software licensing models and things? [00:13:45] S1: It certainly might. Yeah. You know, we're in the process of of just seeing this unfold right in front of our eyes. The counterpoint to that is that it's so easy now to get the information you need out of NetSuite. It's so easy to build your own personal agents that do things that that you wanna do, that I think a lot of business users are gonna wanna remain a user of NetSuite. So we're gonna see how this unfolds. Agents are certainly gonna be doing much more, but I think people are gonna still be doing a lot of things with NetSuite, and so it's it's a it's it's an evolving landscape, and and we're gonna be watching very carefully. But we're mostly focused on delivering great value to our customers. If we continue to do that, I'm sure we'll... The... Everything else will work out. [00:14:31] S0: Yeah. And so many big announcements this week, as we've said. Obviously, we're talking now. Sam Altman was just on stage. Any takeaways from that conversation on stage from what you saw?
00:14:31 · Neil C. Hughes, Evan Goldberg
[00:14:31] S0: Yeah. And so many big announcements this week, as we've said. Obviously, we're talking now. Sam Altman was just on stage. Any takeaways from that conversation on stage from what you saw? [00:14:41] S1: Well, I mean, he's obviously seeing things up close and the possibilities of AI in so many different spheres, not just in business, but in science, and so exciting what advances it might be able to deliver for thing... For things like research, medical research, etcetera. So it's, you know, it's exciting to to hear how optimistic he is about these capabilities. We remain very focused on how it can help businesses, growing businesses succeed, and and basically, let them focus on what's important to them, and take away the things that are keeping them from growing as fast and successfully as they want. [00:15:20] S0: And finally, if we were to put every conversation you've had into a a large language model, including your interviews, keynotes, everything that you've soaked up here, what are you gonna be taking away from the event? What excites you, and will you be taking that flight home?