Fireside chat with Lena Waters:Enabling GTM teams to work with AI

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Julia Nimchinski: and we are transitioning to our fireside chat.

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Julia Nimchinski: enabling Gtm. Teams to work with AI,

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Julia Nimchinski: and we’ve got it here. Another treat, Lena Waters, Cmo. Grammarly

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Julia Nimchinski: welcome and brandy senders. Siem of Apermore, how are you both doing.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Fabulously.

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Lena Waters: Julia great to be here. Thanks.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Very excited to have this conversation super excited.

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Julia Nimchinski: Never really exist.

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Julia Nimchinski: Amazing. Let’s.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: I was going to say we kick it off. We’re going to get right into it, because I know we’re tight on time and forgiveness in advance if I sound like Stevie Nicks, 8 tours deep with Fleetwood, Mac. But I apologize. I’m still getting over a little bit of laryngitis. So bear with us here if we get a little hoarse. But as Julia did a great introduction, I’m Brandy Sanders, formerly Sony Music and Black Line currently chief marketing officer with a

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Brandee Sanders CMO: We’re a 2 x Gardner magic quadrant leader in process mining and the de facto process intelligence platform that enables agentic AI. So from simulation to advocacy. We’re all in this, which is why I’m super very excited to moderate this lovely fireside chat with the esteemed Lena Waters, who is joining us from grammarly, absolutely amazing background here. So

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Brandee Sanders CMO: I’m honestly, extremely excited to talk about how AI can truly enable go to market teams beyond the buzzwords and the hype cycles and the Linkedin rhetoric.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: instead of just being another tool added to an already quite chaotic tech stack. If we’re being honest for any marketer or leader out there, but I do think it would be great, and I’m going to drop something in the chat for us right now. There’s a poll, Julia, if we can share, if not totally fine.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: But we did put together a really quick poll that I would love for folks to look at, and we’ll look at the answer shortly. But it’s essentially talking about. You know. AI is everywhere marketing, customer, sales, etc. We’re talking about. How would you describe

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Brandee Sanders CMO: the current state of your team’s AI adoption and so feel free to go ahead and vote on that, Julia. We can cheat and get your vote, and then when you hit next after the vote, it’ll actually show us the live results there. So you’ll be able to see that in real time. But I think. And if you watch the results coming in in real time, you will actually see right off the bat. There are a lot of initial pilot programs going on. So we see people kind of grabbing

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Brandee Sanders CMO: ad hoc. It’s that shiny object syndrome. I think that we’ll have a lot of chat on today. But the results just from this 1st poll are in, and you can see there’s a lot of hype on it. So I think there are 3 core things we’re going to have this great chat with Lena on. We’ll talk about the duct tape analogy

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Brandee Sanders CMO: of slapping stuff together and retrofitting AI into broken processes. Got some real zingers for this one. So buckle up. We’re going to also talk about where teams are wasting the most time.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: and where effectively AI can get quick rins and kind of help move that forward. And then we’re also going to talk about hot takes. And I came into that last panel right at the end. It’s funny because there’s a couple of folks in there who have in the past 72 h had wildly hot takes on AI on Linkedin. So I feel like this is perfect timing to just hand this over to Lena. And I would say right now we can just get right into it. You know, Lena, the duct tape analogy like retrofitting AI. It’s often treated like a patch right now

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Brandee Sanders CMO: rather than enablers, so I would be curious from your perspective. What the biggest misconception about integrating AI into existing workflows and businesses looks like.

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Lena Waters: Hi, brandy. Thanks for having me here. I think we’re all experiencing this reality right now. You know this modern workplace that we’re in. It’s fragmented. So your team is spending all of their time working across.

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Lena Waters: I don’t know hundreds, thousands of surfaces. We’re we’re context switching endlessly. We’re getting pinged on all these different tools. It’s really overwhelming.

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Lena Waters: So we actually have a report called the Productivity Shift, that we did with the Harris poll. It’s coming up next week.

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Lena Waters: So watch out for that. Really interesting data in there. We have found that people are really struggling to come up with these notifications across multiple platforms. So 76% of knowledge workers we surveyed say that they’ve been communicating across more channels at work in the past year, and these siloed AI tools are starting to compound this problem. They’re not really making it better yet.

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Lena Waters: So if I give you another another analogy, and exists, you know, to the to the duct tape. You know, Henry Ford’s famous quote was, if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said, faster horses. So you know, my my analogy here is that I think a lot of teams are stuck in this trap. They they are very simply using AI to

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Lena Waters: marginally improve their existing processes instead of really, fundamentally rethinking their approach. So I think the question is, you know, are we trying to build a faster horse. And are we just doing a 1 to one replacement

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Lena Waters: with our existing process? And if we are, I think it’s missing out on the revolutionary utility that that AI gives us, and I know it’s easy to say, you know, do do things differently. But the strategic focus here, I think really has to focus on, you know. Try, build a car, don’t. Don’t focus on the horse.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Yeah, I think it’s also an interesting mix of long versus short.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Right? So a lot of people will grab onto the tether or the or the horse bit. Actually, for thinking about that analogy, right is the idea of this is, I’ve got an Exec came in some twitter. Tech, Bro said, you’ve got to go. Use this. AI. Someone comes in and just kind of

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Brandee Sanders CMO: slap stuff on top of the marketing team or the go to market in general. And so you have to be kind of reactive and show that you’re ahead of the game and not behind the curve. And it honestly, it feels like even just a few years ago, when people are writing other hype cycles, whether it was Crm or automation and workflows. But the fun part of this. And I just know this from working in process. Intelligence is AI is only as good as the processes.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: That’s the wildest part. And so many groups. And we’re going to talk about like wasting time on things like this in one second. But so many groups and organizations, they think they know

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Brandee Sanders CMO: the best way to do something they think they know. Oh, you know. Well, here’s how we launched a campaign, and these are the 5,700 things that go into a campaign, or this is how we would do abm, or this is how we would do sequencing in playbooks. And you can kind of like slip AI through the cracks, maybe for Gpt for content, or some of the quick things, you know, like clay and other tools. But they’re still disconnected like you said, there’s silos here, and so like understanding the processes and what they are, the perception of the processes.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: and then the reality of what they need to be in order for this to actually scale effectively and be not just this year or this quarter, but that long term, I think, is super important, and this actually brings me to the next part, which you kind of already mentioned. A little bit is like, there’s time here, so there’s headcount. There’s time there’s Budget. I don’t think I know a single marketer who’s getting a bigger budget, more headcount. I don’t know anyone. I do know people who are being saying, we’re doubling your goals, and we’re cutting your budget in half.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: So when we think about time, time is money, and so where teams are wasting time, and where AI can kind of help like in your opinion, based off of your many years of experience here, and what you see in the market? Where are teams wasting time, and where could they actually benefit from AI with quick wins, as we see it right now?

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Lena Waters: Well, you know, one of the areas. And again, we’ve got data on this from from this report that we’ve got coming out. But there’s this trend of of what we’re calling performative productivity. So workers are spending time on tasks that appear productive. But they deliver very little value. So think about

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Lena Waters: attending unnecessary meetings. Think about revising work just because there was some miscommunication. Everything that goes on with misunderstandings. I think we’ve we’ve all been there. It takes up a lot of time.

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Lena Waters: So the knowledge workers that we surveyed are reporting spending 21% of their work week on what they would call performative tasks. So this means less time for outcome, focused productivity, and more noise for colleagues to navigate. And so, you know, I think, where where AI can really come in to help here, is it? It does free up more time for meaningful and results driven work, and it helps

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Lena Waters: work feel less overwhelming. So I I think the point here is doing a different kind of work, one that’s more creative and personalized and allows us to reclaim time so that we’re delivering value for customers instead of doing it performatively. I I think, also as a note, you know, for for people managers, that’s an area and and a big watch out for

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Lena Waters: where your team is spending their time. Are we constantly redoing reports and and showing up to read out on results? Is, is there a way that that we can make sure that that performative productivity is actually turning into real productivity?

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Right? And is it aligning to okrs or kpis that actually move the needle versus activity for activity sake, which is just like such an easy

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Brandee Sanders CMO: trap to fall into when people kind of get addicted to look 300 emails or 500 calls. But did any of them result in anything meaningful for either your funnel or your go to market motions. Actually, this leads me to a great question. So real world examples, I think, kind of resonate with people, because it’s very easy for us to talk conceptually in a in a panel or a fireside chat. Be like, yeah, like this is how this would look. Or

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Brandee Sanders CMO: here’s ideally how we’re thinking about using AI. But do you have any real world examples like grammarly fantastic organization? Most folks on this call are going to be very familiar with it. Any examples that actually made work feel more meaningful for teams at grammarly, and was kind of anchored on something that’s really measurable that you know, the leadership team and even fellow workers would be able to go. Okay, I can see it. We all see it. We’re all bought in on this.

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Lena Waters: You know. I know we all love to talk about time savings with with AI, but but it is real you know, marketing has always operated in somewhat of a waterfall kind of format where one team has to get something done before the next team can start. And you have, you know, 5 or 6 or 7 different functions, all sandwiched together. This is why we use project management tools, because we have all these dependencies.

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Lena Waters: You know, one of the big benefits that we’re seeing is that you can sort of collapse the need for this sequencing with people working separately and sequentially. There’s a lot of Async collaboration coming on with AI serving as really sort of a shared knowledge Hub, that brings everyone’s

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Lena Waters: brains together simultaneously. That doesn’t necessarily have to happen through meetings. So we’re we’re trying to move away from this endless handoffs and meetings because AI is helping the team start further downstream so you can work Async shave weeks off of projects.

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Lena Waters: making the starting point a lot easier. So you know, obviously, we use AI tools like grammarly and it does really help with the blank page. Brainstorming final product. And it’s helping people get work done everywhere. Your your team already is, which speaks really to the fragmentation problem. You know, the the blank page part is really interesting.

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Lena Waters: because that brainstorming process where everyone’s energy is really sucked up by foundational work in a lot of cases that can be completely replaced by a single person

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Lena Waters: who’s using AI to outline initial ideas. And so what happens is that when the team kicks off. They start collaborating not only further along in the process and saving time, but they’re focusing their efforts where

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Lena Waters: those human insights and judgment are really needed. So we use the grammarly editor a lot. We use the built in AI, and we’re ideating instead of just making what we’ve already written, be better. So it’s it’s meaningful for us, because the effort starts off at a higher level. You see it in the time savings. You see it in the quality of the work, when people can just leap in and engage and not use up all their creative energy on the basics.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: It’s so funny, because this I think, Julia and you’ll have to forgive me. I can’t remember if it was from the scale ventures demand Gen. Or product Marketing Council, or if it was here at HSE. But someone quoted something, and I’m not going to steal it, although I’d really love to be the one who said this, but they said that it eliminates the tyranny of the blank page.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: and in those hours and minutes they may not feel like much, but they’re a bit like compounding interest. And when you take the salary and you’re sitting there, and you’re like debating on how long it takes to get. Xyz. How many man hours, etc. It really does move the needle. It might not be the sexiest Kpi time savings, but it in the end it actually shows up on the Finance report, and I know most Cfos will love to hear me say that, but

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Brandee Sanders CMO: it shows up in the bottom line, which is one of the most important kpis that the org would have on like we put a dollar in. How much did we get out? Conversely, on the other side, I am curious. Is there a common area where companies do think

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Brandee Sanders CMO: AI will help and have this kind of actual, real world impact, where in most cases it it didn’t or wouldn’t move. That needle.

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Lena Waters: You know, I I think we get carried away with automation. That’s the 1st area I’m gonna point to marketers love automation. If we can be done in a in a repeatable, you know, testable format. I think we love it. I think we have to keep the right balance there. And and just not get carried away because we can. So message fatigue is real. We’re all getting pinged

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Lena Waters: thousands of times across different surfaces, and it’s really overwhelming to teams, and and that that really contributes to that productivity suck. So you know, I think, where we really need to watch out is, do we need AI to generate even more content. That doesn’t add more value. Or, you know, do we really need to focus on the quality? So I think quality of messaging, having the discipline to think through.

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Lena Waters: Is this something that we shouldn’t send, or can we send fewer? And do they need to be better? I get in a world of increasing targets and scarce resources, people feel that they need to do more. But it’s like editing. You have to think about the fact that the words that you have on the page take away from the ones that that are already there, and sometimes automation, does lead to a huge amount of quantity, so I would caution us to be careful. There.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Yeah, I think people look past editing a lot, but I always think I think it was Mark Twain that said, Oh, words, matter, lightning bolt, lightning bug, and the idea of quality being a higher bar to reach versus quantity. It’s almost this, it’s a mirror of activity as a result.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Right like. Oh, well, we did it. But what happened like did it move the needle? And if it didn’t, I think there’s kind of like a ruthless, almost maniacal way of again going through and understanding the processes. And what’s the value of what we’re doing versus doing it for doing sake? But you’ve actually led us to an interesting impasse. Where there’s this hot takes. We’re going to go into it because I know we’re going to be short on time, but hot takes the friendly frenzy

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Brandee Sanders CMO: craziness that honestly comes. I see a lot of this on the Daily on Linkedin, super polarizing. It’s incredibly nearly radicalized in a lot of ways. People’s opinions are now being kind of taken as facts, and so people get super amped up. I mean, I do think AI discourse on Linkedin has has become incredibly dramatic. It’s a bit like.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: you know, Facebook fired up right now, and I’m very curious on your take on. Why do you think that is why is this such a

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Brandee Sanders CMO: a hot tamale that everyone wants to be a part of at the same time?

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Lena Waters: Yeah, I I think you’re right, Brandi, and it’s somewhat natural, I mean, you know.

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Lena Waters: and I don’t know if this is everyone’s experience. But this this is, you know what you and I were talking about the other day. The the tone around AI in particular, I think, has gotten incredibly frenetic. Lately, I think everyone’s competing for the most inflammatory predictions. Everyone feels like they have to have the point of view. Everyone’s building on on someone else’s point of view with, why, that’s wrong.

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Lena Waters: The predictions about civilization’s downfall because of AI. You know, I think these these attention grabbing posts are understandable. I think they’re coming from a place of good intent. But there’s probably some anxiety and some insecurity about change behind that I think. Obviously we

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Lena Waters: have a responsibility. If we have a voice to, you know, keep calm and carry on. This is supposed to be an exciting time. Right? If if we’re supposed to be optimistic. We’re supposed to be having thoughtful discussion. You know, Linkedin, I mean.

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Lena Waters: this has always been a place of learning and discovery and sharing.

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Lena Waters: you know, if you look at other forms of social media, we all know that they are fueled by outrage. You see something you agree with. You disagree with, and that resulting feeling of outrage that that we all experience, you know. That’s what drives engagement. That’s how it works. But we are in the really early stages of a really exciting technology revolution. And you know, maybe this one feels different or faster than ones we’ve been through before. But

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Lena Waters: I think we have a responsibility to stay. Curious to learn from each other. I would suggest that no one knows what’s coming and judging why someone’s approach or new product, or the process that they want to fix or their Pov it. It’s not dismissible. It’s not completely wrong. I think we’re a little early for that. So

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Lena Waters: you know I I love to learn from all of you on Linkedin, and I hope to continue to be able to do that.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Yeah, I think it’s really interesting, because, like any other tool

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Brandee Sanders CMO: weapon item, object in the history of mankind, it’s capable of both wonderful great things and then potentially horrific things. And so you’re going to get kind of like that rhetoric from both sides. Your your pirates versus soldier mentality on what AI will actually be which

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Brandee Sanders CMO: brings us to another question, and that is every day literally, at least this week. Somebody has a hot take, like the definitive hot. Take here on AI’s impact what’s happening? The world in 5 years? The world in 10 years or not in 10 years. And

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Brandee Sanders CMO: as a leader it’s very easy, and I’ve seen people take the bait and kind of go off the rails with it to get shiny object syndrome, and to just completely go off and get distracted, and every day there’s a new object, or hot take or rhetoric that you’re changing and chasing, and I do think, how can or how should ideally stronger leaders separate

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Brandee Sanders CMO: the signals and the good things that you can take from this, from the absolute noise and and somewhat chaotic background that we run into every day on this subject.

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Lena Waters: Yeah, I I think it’s important. I mean, I don’t use the com. App would would be my 1st thing, and I think the second thing would be you know, 1st principles we are not going to figure this out right away, and things are gonna continue to change. So buckle in. This is a long journey. Let’s start talking about the basics. This audience understands a lot about the 1st principles of what a customer needs to learn on their discovery journey, as they’re going to buy something. And we all know

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Lena Waters: for a long time the trend has been learning is transitioning to digital channels. You don’t talk to people at a company anymore about their product. And what we’re really seeing is just continuing this trend. So just because the places where people are learning or changing it doesn’t change our responsibilities that we still have as growth leaders. We have to

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Lena Waters: provide a valuable product we have to drive outcomes for customers. We have to be really clear and differentiated in our channels about what our value prop is. We have to develop a community of customers who not only appreciate our product, but advocate for it. And you know, dare I say we have to create a brand that represents the trust and the competency that

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Lena Waters: our products need to evoke in the minds of our users. And and all those things are still true. And AI is not going to change those needs that a customer has. You know. I will say that. Remember, when I say Brand, I don’t mean advertising since we are talking about, you know, competitive industries and and short resources.

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Lena Waters: Brand gets inflated with advertising which gets equated with expensive. And then people say, well, I can’t do that. And I’m gonna ignore it. So I’m just saying every single touch point that your customer interacts with needs to be consistent, impactful, thoughtfully designed and conveys how you want people to feel about your product. And it’s as simple as that. And all of these things are still true

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Lena Waters: even in the face of all these AI developments. And I think if you’re concentrating on your customer, which is where the focus should be, and you deliver these. I think we’ll find it simpler to filter out the noise.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: For sure. It actually reminds me, when we talk about Brand in advertising, there are definitely folks I feel like there’s a Linkedin post probably getting written right now. Oh, Lena, said Brand, see, give me the 15 K for brand this quarter inbox. Now you’re about to get mad connections.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: But I do think Brand is obviously reputation, and I can’t remember who it was. I know Michael King is actually in the chat right now, but it might have been you, Michael, it might have been someone else. But they said, your reputation is what people say when you’re not in the room.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: and historically for buyers. Now we are literally not in the room until they are ready to buy, like they are checking out profiles. They’re going to 3rd parties. They’re talking to peers. They’re out and about like they’re doing what 90, 95% of their research ancillary like minesweeper.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: Right? So like when they come to our final door. It’s not just going to be that last, you know, Ad, that gets the credit for this brand takes time, and that authenticity, especially in the middle of AI chaos is going to be.

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Brandee Sanders CMO: It’s obviously going to be a differentiator, crazy enough to say there was a time when that was naturally accepted. But I do feel like it’s such a touchy thing now, which actually just brings me to to our final little at Bet here, before we would take any questions or comments, Julia, and that is

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Brandee Sanders CMO: final piece of advice. So, Lena, we’ve covered it all like duct tape analogies like we do not just need a faster horse where teams are wasting their time, and then also obviously hot takes and the rhetoric that’s in the atmosphere of Linkedin and beyond for us right now, but kind of putting the bookend on it. If there was like one final piece of advice as both a leader and people who also manage teams

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Brandee Sanders CMO: like, what? What could we say to go to market teams, to try to integrate, adopt, and kind of live in this AI world without absolutely burning out

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Brandee Sanders CMO: or getting on the daily overwhelmed by by what’s coming at them. Be that tech stack, personal persona, linkedin noise headlines, whatever it might be. If you could give that? What would it be.

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Lena Waters: It’s your mindset.

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Lena Waters: AI feels like a complete unknowable right now, and that’s true, and if you feel that, then your teams feel that. And I think it’s our responsibility to make sure that this is not something that’s daunting.

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Lena Waters: This is like a lot of changes that have come before. You have to have the right foundation and operations. So your teams can be effective with AI. You’re not just running around with a hundred different tools. We’ve seen that before.

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Lena Waters: So really take the time to evaluate and help provide the right AI tools for your team. There’s a lot of flashy stuff, a lot of them aren’t tailored enough yet to be actually useful. And there’s a temptation to use the shiny object, and sometimes it’s the more boring standard one that is going to be the best you want to be focusing on the creativity. Not necessarily. You know something that that is is not going to work out in the long term.

1091
03:53:39.010 –> 03:53:55.299
Lena Waters: and then on the flip side of that you have to make sure that your teams are equally empowered to use. AI. So we know orgs. See the most benefit when they use AI at scale. So pair your tools with education, training, professional development. If there was any time to invest in that it would be now

1092
03:53:55.450 –> 03:54:07.709
Lena Waters: demystify it within your teams and showcase the wins from the early adopters. We’ve all got those in our companies and just provide some clear guidelines and encourage some sharing learnings.

1093
03:54:08.280 –> 03:54:31.019
Lena Waters: I’d be remiss if I didn’t encourage teams to use grammarly across your teams, because it understands all of that context and that voice and that style and it works everywhere that you work. And that’s why people want to use it. And you know, if it’s if it’s not grammarly that you’re using to get the impact for something like that. Really understanding what’s going to to move the needle for your teams and making sure you’re fully supporting them in their journey.

1094
03:54:31.760 –> 03:54:59.220
Brandee Sanders CMO: Yeah, I agree wholly. And I would just say in complete agreeance, like, we can give them the tools. But do we just slap it on their desk and walk away and go congratulations. Now, 10 x roi. The idea of lifelong learning, I think, is just a capability and a mindset, learning, agility, capability, and a mindset every marketer has to have, because it’s the Wild West there right now and then. The idea that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

1095
03:54:59.310 –> 03:55:24.249
Brandee Sanders CMO: It won’t end this quarter. It’s certainly not going to end next, and if anything, the next 18 to 24 months will be certainly some really interesting times for businesses in general. So I do definitely agree, like being the leader being in front of them, you know, kind of holding their hand through this and saying, Look, we’re all in this together. It’s not. We’re just throwing the life preserver out in the ocean and saying, Good luck with AI! We’re all in it together. And I think optimistically, cautiously optimistic

1096
03:55:24.590 –> 03:55:41.890
Brandee Sanders CMO: about where that can go and what it really means for businesses and growth and their processes beyond that. So, anyway, Julia, I think we’re almost at time. I want to be mindful, because I do tend to go over. So let us know if we have a few minutes for questions, but if not, I will say in advance, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you, Lena.

1097
03:55:42.910 –> 03:55:43.590
Lena Waters: Brandy.

1098
03:55:43.740 –> 03:55:50.829
Julia Nimchinski: Thank you so much. Brandy. Thank you so much, Lena. Such last we are actually gravely power users here

1099
03:55:50.970 –> 03:56:08.120
Julia Nimchinski: for a couple of years now. And yeah, Lena, I was watching your another summit. g, 2, 1 a couple of months back, and you presented a lot of I mean one of the primary updates was something about like an assessment.

1100
03:56:08.500 –> 03:56:23.749
Julia Nimchinski: We were trying to find it on the website, but couldn’t. So just wanted to ask you what’s new for grammarly? What’s on the roadmap? What are you excited about? Since tomorrow we have grammarly demo. So maybe it’s gonna be a teaser.

1101
03:56:24.310 –> 03:56:46.778
Lena Waters: Oh, that’s great! Thanks so much. Julia, thanks for being a customer. I will. I will find the assessment. And Linkedin’s probably the the best spot to find that you know, in in terms of what’s next? We’ve recently brought a company called coda on board. So we’re really excited to be partnering with them.

1102
03:56:47.290 –> 03:57:08.450
Lena Waters: code is where a lot of work gets done and and is a really AI driven Workspace grammarly works everywhere that you work. And so we have our sales kickoff in a couple of weeks, where we’re working hard here on integrations. And we’re super excited to be bringing to the world with a combination of these 2 solutions are, gonna be so stay tuned for that.

1103
03:57:09.540 –> 03:57:17.389
Brandee Sanders CMO: I was. Gonna say, if her kickoff is in a few weeks, her inbox probably just increased by at least 200 emails during this panel. So.

1104
03:57:17.680 –> 03:57:18.779
Lena Waters: I’ll get back to you.

1105
03:57:18.980 –> 03:57:20.010
Brandee Sanders CMO: Wonderful.

1106
03:57:20.550 –> 03:57:28.639
Julia Nimchinski: Thank you so much again. And I guess, lastly, your prediction for 2025, anything. Gtm, AI, yeah.

1107
03:57:28.640 –> 03:57:48.340
Lena Waters: Anything. AI. You know, I think that this is going to be the year where we are going to start to see kind of the battle for attention around the surfaces where people are really starting to spend their time. So you know, 2 thanksgivings ago we saw the advent of models coming out, and it was sort of a couple of years of models.

1108
03:57:48.340 –> 03:58:15.410
Lena Waters: People are really starting to apply these now to applications. And so I think that the real question is going to be, where are people going to be spending their time? But we’re going to start to see some real usefulness and utility in a way that’s going to impact us from day to day. So I think that that time is here. It’s super exciting. And we’re starting to see real utility around the combination of the tools and the models that we’re using. So I think this is the year that we’re going to see some real Roi and Payoff.

1109
03:58:18.250 –> 03:58:19.070
Julia Nimchinski: Brandy.

1110
03:58:19.420 –> 03:58:43.980
Brandee Sanders CMO: Oh, you know me. I’m gonna call this one like I see it. I think we’re going to be on a hype cycle. It’s not going anywhere, if anything. It’s gonna someone’s like, literally, while we’re in this chat, I’m sure, like everybody’s Linkedin is just blowing up with like propellant on it, I would say, for sure processes before AI. If they’re bad processes, the eye ain’t gonna fix it. You’ve got to fix the processes first.st So I’d say, process intelligence

1111
03:58:43.980 –> 03:58:53.809
Brandee Sanders CMO: definitely, AI, and simulation and modeling is key here because you need to be able to have agility, because, as we’ve all learned, the market and your business can change rapidly.

1112
03:58:53.810 –> 03:59:10.419
Brandee Sanders CMO: and I do think that it’s going to be understanding your processes. Then, looking at things like agentic and simulation, and then from that forward. It’s going to have to be things like process mining and process intelligence, because it’ll be. I don’t think there’s any way to really have AI be scalable and have real world impact

1113
03:59:10.420 –> 03:59:31.080
Brandee Sanders CMO: if it’s not fixing something and moving forward in a way that logically makes sense for your business versus just slapping it on top of what’s already possibly broken. You just might not know, because the business of 5 years ago, when you had those processes might be wildly different than it is now, or honestly, even in 18 to 24 months. So yeah, process intelligence, simulation, modeling agent.

1114
03:59:31.980 –> 03:59:33.230
Julia Nimchinski: Thank you so much again.

1115
03:59:33.230 –> 03:59:35.750
Brandee Sanders CMO: Thank you. Pleasure. Thanks, Julie, for having us.