Tech Talks Daily
00:10:39 · Valerie Henderson
[00:10:39] S1: So that's... By the way, I mean, we think the most important thing from the beginning is Yeah. Security. And the the great thing about AWS is obviously integrated in everything they've ever built built is that notion. And so for us, that's just been part of our DNA. So we don't do anything without thinking about the governance to access first. And the cool thing is we have an incredible group of technologists that work within this business. Now they're spending time with our customers every single day helping build. But as people finish projects and have some time on our bench or our builders team, they were able to build us an incredibly powerful platform that we've able... Been able to build a harness that has allowed us to scale as the technology has gotten better. And I feel like there was a period of time where there was this belief of just token maxing. And I think now we think... We don't even think it in the context of the tokenomics as much as the and how we're thinking about what that looks like. And we exist to serve our customers. And right now, what our customers need is they need expertise, and they need agility and speed. So when we thought about how we are delivering, we thought about how can we help our customers in both of those categories. Now the amazing brains of our technologists have a deep level of understanding of the different platforms across AWS and Anthropic. But the speed thing, the AI unlocked what that could mean. And I think there's some element of it that's table stakes. But for us, being able to look at how we're using it, package it, and actually build a wrapper that takes all of that IP and make sure that when people start a project, they have access to that and knowing what someone has used and be able to accelerate the outcome for customers. The other thing that we've changed is our incentive structure. We want our delivery organization to be incented to help customers deliver and get what they need faster and better, meaning a higher satisfaction CSAT and speed. And that has been unlocked for us in an incredible way. I mean, obviously, that changes the way people think about their behaviors, but it's been amazing because I don't think that that's traditionally how delivery organizations have worked.
00:13:04 · Valerie Henderson, Neil C. Hughes
And that goes back to you have to rethink all things from first principles as you're integrating this technology into your company. [00:13:14] S0: And as we record this, we're literally weeks away now from 2027. I think when we look back 2026, we'll be remembered for Agentic AI and the huge advances that have been made there. And many CEOs will be behind the curve looking for 2027 to make their move or or try and improve what they're doing. As CEO, as someone that's having huge success here, I've got to ask you, what does Agentic success look like to you?
00:13:38 · Valerie Henderson
[00:13:38] S1: I would say Agentic success looks like to me a couple of things. Number one, a really healthy organizations have incredibly amazing talent and retention. I always... I think one of the most important things for a company like Caylent is our ability to hire, develop, and retain our technologists. And for me, our technologists want the ability to spend their brainpower on the most important and critical and hardest problems. So if we give our organization the right agents, the right tooling, the right platforms to give them that time and that ability to be creative and work on those problems, that's success because that pulls through to all of our customers. And I think that that's the piece that is harder to measure on the ROI front, but we do look at actual retention from an employee standpoint as an ROI. Because if a if a technologist or an architect is thinking about where they wanted to work, they wanna go work somewhere where they're gonna learn, and they're gonna be pushed, and they're gonna have access to the latest and greatest technology in this space, and that's Caylent. So we really think about, Agentic success from a internal standpoint from that perspective. And then for our customers, if every single one of our customers can answer the question of what's been the value of this, that is success? If they cannot answer that question, I would say that we have failed because you should not take on this work in building these agents within to these workflows unless you can answer that. Now I understand some level of experimentation that needs to happen, but we have to do the work to be able to break down these problems and these organizations and these teams to be able to answer that.
00:15:27 · Neil C. Hughes
[00:15:27] S0: Love that. Absolutely perfect. And I've also been, doing a little research before you join me on the podcast today to learn more about some of your recent research. And there's a standout stat in there for leaders listening that nearly 60% of enterprise leaders, they're already running agents autonomously in production. So great news there, but most are still starting small and then expanding as agents move... Continue to prove themselves, which is a a sensible approach. But where do you think people still need that sign off, and where is it maybe safer to just let agents act on their own today? I know it's a big move. It's... It's like letting your kids leave home. Right? What is the right moment?
00:16:05 · Valerie Henderson
[00:16:05] S1: I think what we're seeing is a lot of our customers are already doing read only workloads. And I think that is an area that there is a little bit more comfort in how agents are operating there. I think outside of that, in terms of, like, true autonomous operation, so you can think about self healing infrastructure. That's only happening at the most advanced customers. And, frankly, within Caylent, our own managed service practice leverages that, but it requires very strong expertise. And to your point, security, governance, and the right platform that is essential. I also feel like there is a just a trade off of autonomy versus risk, and I think that that should always be reevaluated. So thinking about the accuracy, the reliability, and the capability to improve, like, can agents test things without side effects? And I feel like that removes a huge amount of the inherent risk. And the other piece is agents can iterate and do nothing useful and run up a bill, and that's super wasteful. But if you have the right workflows, the right guardrails, the right traceability, the right limits, which that's something that our Amazon Bedrock AgentCore does in a really purpose built way, you can be so successful here. And, again, that is the stuff that is the hardest. It is not sexy. It is not clashy. It is really breaking down these workflows and the access, the platforms, and how you can make sure that you're doing this responsibly.
00:17:42 · Neil C. Hughes
[00:17:42] S0: Again, for people listening here, many companies will be moving from AI that recommends an action to agents that will go and take one. What changes are you seeing when software is given authority inside a live business process? What kind of things are you seeing? Any surprises, delight? What kind of stories are you hearing?