Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Digitally Curious, brought to you by SAP Concur, a podcast to help you navigate the future of AI and all things tech. Your host is world-renowned futurist and author of Digitally Curious, Andrew Grill. Every episode is filled with actionable advice about technology that will help enhance you and your business.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome to the Digitally Curious podcast. Today on the show we have Chris Chenault, head of Market Strategy for SAP Concur. Welcome.

Speaker 3: 0:32

Chris. Thank you, andrew, great to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Now we're here to talk about a couple of really interesting reports SAP Concur has recently published around CFOs and AI and also measuring and maximizing the impact of AI. So for those not familiar with SAP Concur, could you give us a brief overview of the company and how it helps organizations today?

Speaker 3: 0:53

SAP Concur is the leader in travel booking, expense claim processing and invoice management solutions for businesses of all sizes. At the core of our foundation is our passion is there has to be a better way. These processes that we've automated for organizations are tedious, typically manual and ultimately distract their employees from what's core to their individual business. So that's our passion that fuels us.

Speaker 2: 1:18

I actually came across your organization when I was at IBM. We were using your system. But, more importantly, I've been using TripIt for years and I'm a TripIt Pro subscriber, so thank you for having that tool. It makes traveling so much easier and probably people don't know that TripIt is actually part of SAP Concur.

Speaker 3: 1:35

Most people don't recognize that, but long before we acquired TripIt, it has always been my favorite go-to travel application, so thank you for that five-star rating.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Well, I'd give you a six-star if I could, and I tell my friends to use it. The travel a lot because it tells you what's happening well before the airline tells you, but that's a whole other podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:53

What we're going to talk about today is really focused on the CFO and AI. Of course, ai is the flavor of the month, the year, the decade, and I've been poring over these two reports I mentioned. They're actually crammed with amazing insights. Now, the CFO Insights Report is something you've published before. Maybe you could give us an idea of who you surveyed and some of the top level findings.

Speaker 3: 2:14

So we surveyed over 300 CFOs and senior financial professionals for our latest report and here's some of the key findings First, 63% are investing in cutting-edge technology to enhance their ability to react to the changing business circumstances. Second, 58% of those senior financial leaders still understand very little about AI, which is fascinating when you combine it with investment in AI since 2023 has grown 15% to 51%. So it's clearly they may lack understanding, but there's an awareness. I call it FOMO fear of missing out, because they see the potential from their peers and so forth, and that's what's driving the investment. Even though that they say, 58% may still not quite understand how AI should be applied within a financial process.

Speaker 2: 3:04

Now we'll get into that, because I think across the board, it's not just CFOs, it's the whole C-suite, it's senior management. Everyone is talking about AI. I regularly speak at events. I did one on Wednesday night, asked for a show of hands who's used ChatGPT? Almost every hand went up. I then said keep your hand up if you use it every day. Most hands went down.

Speaker 2: 3:26

So to your point, we know that it exists, we know, we've played with it, we've written a poem with it, but when it comes to our day-to-day workflow it's something that's still a bit foreign to us, and I've got to say that one of the really interesting things that jumped out of the report it was repeated several times was and I use this word deliberately a real urgency from CFOs. They're saying we need training. We need training to understand the technology. So maybe you can talk about what the report highlighted. Where are the gaps? But the question I wanted to ask the report I was almost yelling at it and that's why I want to ask you is who's going to do that training? Who's responsible?

Speaker 3: 3:56

for that? Oh, great question. So I think it's just about overall education, and we take that responsibility within SAP and SAP Concur very seriously, because we're clearly laying out how AI is being applied within our solutions, educating CFOs on the controls that we have as we apply AI within our solutions and giving them the knowledge and the comfort to be able to ask the right questions at the right time with regard to how we're using it. And then, third, is we have an opportunity also to remind these financial professionals how AI is already infused in the services they already employ from Concur and that probably many of the services that they use within their personal life just may not recognize it. So it's about education, education, education.

Speaker 2: 4:42

So in one way you can say back to the CFOs you're already using AI without really knowing it, not only in your personal life. The example I give if you unlock your phone, you're using AI. If you choose a Netflix movie, you're using AI. So what you're really saying is that you've got a relationship, an existing relationship. You've been using SAP Concur for years. Really, they can rely on you to keep upgrading and making sure that the latest and greatest AI is baked into the services they use every day.

Speaker 3: 5:07

Absolutely. That is ultimately the promise of the cloud, isn't it? To ride the latest cutting edge technology in a useful way that has an immediate impact both on the end user experience as well as the business outcomes.

Speaker 2: 5:18

So one stat that I found interesting was that 58% of CFOs understand very little about AI and finance, yet AI adoption is increasing, as you said. So what can you do to help bridge this knowledge gap, and how does this impact their AI implementation strategies?

Speaker 3: 5:33

First, it's like where we see today that financial professionals are using AI, and we see it in these three areas that 65% are using it with regarding journaling and bookkeeping, 59% are actually using it in their financial planning and 53% in their risk scenario planning. And then another area of significant use of AI is monitoring for fraud, and we see about 50%. What all of this means is just vast amounts of data is being put to use, leveraging AI on behalf of financial organization in these processes.

Speaker 2: 6:07

Now, a lot of this is baked in because of the work that you're doing, but what specific challenges do CFOs face when integrating this AI into their existing financial systems, and how can this be mitigated?

Speaker 3: 6:18

It's vast amounts of data, it's integrating across disparate systems, which cloud service companies such as Concur does, and many times that ecosystem may be uneven, might not be the latest technology, not having access to critical data that's required to power the AI. So that's where we'll talk about a little bit later in the discussion of how the relationships and the partnerships between the CFO, the CIO and HR come to bear.

Speaker 2: 6:48

So many CFOs in your report cited inaccurate forecasting and the difficulty of integrating cost control software with other systems. So how does SAP Concur's expense management solution address these integration and forecasting issues?

Speaker 3: 6:59

Out of the box. We have seamless integration, of course, with the SAP ecosystem of solutions, but we also with multiple third-party solutions, erps, other financial systems and HR systems. So, first and foremost, it's all about the seamless integration, requiring a little maintenance and upkeep by the IT group. Second, it then becomes the cleansing of all that rich information, all that data and that's the hard work that we're also doing on behalf of our customers, ensuring not only access to the right data but, as in the data, in a format that we can ultimately take advantage of and consume to deliver the insights that CFOs and their employees require.

Speaker 2: 7:37

I'm so glad you talked about data because well before, AI was a thing that people were talking about all the time. I've been talking for years about the need for good quality data, and it becomes even more important now that we're looking at AI systems. And to train these AI systems you have to have data that's in the right format. So how does SAP Concur help actually make sure that data is in the right format to process it properly using AI?

Speaker 3: 7:59

That's where the cooperation across the CFO, the CIO and the CHRO comes together. It's that collaboration and that conversation begins. Andrew, you might say how does expense reporting have to do with HR? How does expense reporting have to do with the CIO? Well, first, this is a solution that, to an end user like you or I, it's a seamless process. I book my travel, I take my trip, I complete my expense report. To us it's a seamless process, but to those three groups, cfo is a financial process. The HR may view it as I need to worry about duty of care and risk, and the CIO just says, oh, it's another IT process. So all of these have to come together to identify where that rich information sits. Let us allow SAP Concur to integrate with it, and it's that collaboration that also sets up the project for future success with regard to, ultimately, what is ultimately the success criteria across all of those three groups.

Speaker 2: 8:56

Now those three groups and those three roles on the C-suite are now having to talk about AI. I'm wondering if we were to be a fly on the wall in a board meeting or an executive meeting, what do you think the AI topics are being discussed at that C-suite? Obviously, the CFO is using your software, but does the executive team really understand that their level of AI maturity themselves and this is where I go into talking about digital curiosity their own personal understanding, their own use of these tools? How important is it for the entire C-suite to really be AI literate?

Speaker 3: 9:28

I think it's very important. It gets back to the early part of our conversation about education. I think that education is not only for the CFO, but across the C-suite. And then, second, the relationship between the CFO and the HRO is ultimately changing. The CHRO function has become more of a strategic function within organizations. They're having to try to help and maintain, attract and retain talent. So now the CFO and the CHRO can come together and if you can provide through AI, simplifying processes, getting rid of the mundane tasks which many employees may have to engage with and now you're not only as the things we talked about earlier financial forecasting, reporting, potential fraud identification and control all are great benefits, but then can you also, at the same time, deliver a great experience for the end user, which then helps, in turn, retain that talent that you fought so hard to attract. So we believe that, first, it's an opportunity to bring those three functions together and, second, for the benefit of every employee within the organization.

Speaker 2: 10:34

So you've been doing this survey for a while, so you've seen the changes happen. Where has the shift been from the CFO in terms of the biggest impact that they think AI will have on their function, from where it was to where it is now, and do you think they're less?

Speaker 3: 10:47

afraid of AI. With regard to the CFO, it was first. It was about efficiencies. Second, many employees within financial accounting organization you said it yourself it's like is this going to take my job? And I think all of the when that sort of washed over, it became clear that it's not only efficiency, it's greater accuracy. Then it's also allowing my employees to focus on things which are more important to the organization, more strategic to the organization, and it moves from cost avoidance to cost containment to more. I'm going to focus on more the strategic level within the org.

Speaker 2: 11:19

Now you talked about the need for collaboration between the IT and HR functions. So CFO comes along. He or she says we need these extra functionality. How does your solution really make the IT department's job really easy, Because there's not much for them way, in accordance with applicable laws of where the organization operates.

Speaker 3: 11:46

So here's where the opportunity for the CFO and the CIO to work more closely together. Am I using this in a responsible way that generates reliable information back and certainly, third, safeguards my data and so that I know it's not used or exposed out to the internet to train these large language models? So that's where the two come together, but then where, ultimately, in doing those things, I also come together in terms of the end user. Can they deliver a better experience by infusing these processes with AI? And we would say, of course, the answer is yes, as organizations and you've talked to many, andrew talk about digital transformation. What they're really saying is like I've got so much data, how do I leverage that information, but for the benefit of everyone, including the end user?

Speaker 2: 12:35

So, just before we leave, talking about that tripart relationship between HR and IT and the CFO, what five things should CFOs know about when working with HR and IT for success?

Speaker 3: 12:47

Certainly, hr is focused on retaining attracting and retaining the top talent, so that's where the CFO also cares deeply about an opportunity to partner there. Second, we've seen in our data that the survey showed that 64% of CFOs believe that the HR function helps retain in those high performers by 56%. And third, we work in a hybrid world. Still, for the most part, most organizations work in a hybrid world, so CFOs see that investment in terms of collaboration along with HR as driving productivity among the employees while also driving towards your business goals, and then that ultimately leads into CFOs and the CIO. Typically, when organizations employ our solutions, it's driving greater efficiency, visibility in terms of spend and so forth, but now AI can supercharge those efficiencies as well, and so minimizing business costs, overruns and so forth, and previously we talked about help with financial planning and forecasting and so forth. So CFOs have the opportunity to solve a range of problems, from end user experience that the HR leader cares about to driving greater efficiencies across their financial processes and support in cooperation with the CIO.

Speaker 2: 14:06

So we've realized that we want to actually invest in AI. The problem I think many people are feeding back to me is how do we measure success, how do we measure the return on investment, and the second report that I alluded to focuses on that. So what do you think the main drivers are behind the increased investment in AI?

Speaker 3: 14:22

I believe it's twofold. First is the greater efficiency, as we spearheaded. Second, it was the opportunity to take these mundane processes which financial departments and employees on a day-to-day basis are dealing with, and do that heavy lifting on behalf of those employees, on behalf of those employees. And then, third, by doing all those things together, the now CFO has in some ways supercharged their organization with regard to their financial reporting, their processes, identifying mixed risk, but ultimately measuring that ROI starts with what are their goals at the end of the day? It's the classic you know what's my hard cost savings versus my soft cost savings? Because AI has many soft cost savings, because AI has many soft cost savings, but also it's the hard cost. So I think, defining upfront, ultimately, what are the objectives, both the more hard cost savings meaning real either risk management, better financial reporting, closing the books faster to the soft savings of the greater efficiency that employees achieve across the board, that's ultimately what needs to be defined upfront by the CFO.

Speaker 2: 15:25

So I'm a futurist. I always look at what's coming next. So maybe you could talk a bit about the potential future applications of AI in finance and how can CFOs ensure that they're adopting AI responsibly?

Speaker 3: 15:37

Oh, great question, because that's always one that comes up, especially around the perceived risk within AI. So, first, in terms of what the future holds, sap has introduced Juul, which is a digital assistant that'll work across all the SAP ecosystem, across the data. Second, cfos should expect that generative AI is going to continue to be infused across their financial processes, but it's also the CFO's responsibility to ensure that it's done in an ethical and a compliant manner. And again, that's where you work closely with your technology providers such as SAP and SAP Concur. Third organizations need to have their own clear guidelines to both their employees as well as their suppliers, in terms of how their data and AI is going to be used responsibly and ethically, because, at the end of the day, all of us must protect our customers' data Because, at the end of the day, it is our customers' data. So, with clear guidelines, clearly established by our customers as well as ourselves working knowing that AI will continue to be infused. And then, third, doing it in an efficient and ethical manner is key to both parties.

Speaker 2: 16:48

The other report looks at measuring and maximizing AI returns.

Speaker 3: 16:51

Maybe you could give us some key takeaways from that and what that means for CFOs going forward Well it gets back to our earlier part of our conversation that measuring ROI can be difficult because of the soft cost and hard cost savings. That said, using best practices with regard to data management, tracking results and ensuring security and privacy, all come together to deliver that ROI. And the key is it's clearly upfront deciding what is most important to this organization Ultimately, what are their objectives they're trying to receive, what is most important to this organization Ultimately, what are their objectives they're trying to receive? And then, third, can you put in measurements in place to calculate that ultimately, to deliver the ROI measurement your organization requires?

Speaker 2: 17:32

Now, everyone wants to see some quick wins from AI, but you and I know that there's no quick win in any business. So how do they balance the need for these quick wins with the pursuit of long-term strategic benefits from?

Speaker 3: 17:42

AI. I think two things. First, many AI projects are still in the implementation phase, but I think there's an opportunity, such as with AI-infused services. Concur provides across finance that there's low-hanging fruit which organizations take advantage of. Look at the expense reporting process. People would say, okay, so it's a process that may or may not be Michigan critical to my business, but it's one that occupies my employees' time. So how can I enable my employees to do their jobs faster, complete their expense reporting or travel booking faster, while also being in compliance with my organization's policies regarding spending? It's finding those opportunities to have the greatest impact with the lowest risk, and I would say expense reporting, travel booking are two areas which represent an opportunity of low-hanging fruit.

Speaker 2: 18:31

What role do partnerships with experienced providers such as SAP Concur play in maximizing this ROI?

Speaker 3: 18:37

First, helping identify the quick wins. Second, also partnering with these organizations to really define what is important to them from an ROI perspective, what are the benefits they're truly seeking, and then how do you measure those benefits? And then, third, it's an opportunity where we touch almost every employee in the organization, just like email or other collaboration tool. So with T&E, you can not only drive greater efficiencies, but every employee can see the benefits from using this AI-infused services, therefore building momentum for future AI projects.

Speaker 2: 19:11

Yeah, I suppose a lot of people are using AI in their own private life and when companies like Apple we saw recently Apple launching the Apple Intelligence, I've been playing with it. It's slowly becoming more and more useful. It's not there yet and it's not going to replace an assistant per se, but I suppose what people and I'm wondering whether the survey bore this out that people are saying well, I'm using AI in my private life and at home to do tasks. I would expect that all the things I have to do as part of my role, as you say expense reporting, travel booking I would assume that that's going to be AI infused. I suppose the real challenge is how do we not actually make it harder but make it easier? I mean, ai is supposed to make our life easier, so is that the goal? That the employees don't actually know this is AI infused? They kind of expect that it's there and making their life and their job easier.

Speaker 3: 19:58

I think employees probably do not recognize what AI is powering what services, whether they use it in their personal or private life. But at the same time, we've seen for years and we've called it, as well as others in the industry. We've called it the commercialization of the enterprise. Employees do expect a level of personalization and seamless and easy experience from their corporate applications their company provides as the same as the applications they use in their personal life, whether it be banking or other collaboration tools. So that expectation has been set for many years. What AI is doing is now delivering on those expectations creating a personalized experience, freeing up employees from tedious tasks and also anticipating what that employee might want to do with regard to the next steps in their business process that you're dealing with.

Speaker 2: 20:48

I'm sure if we came back in a year's time, we would see even more advancement, because not only is the genitive AI systems, they're going to get smarter and smarter but I think you're going to see how the employees use your services and that's going to really help innovation. So are you using the feedback from your users around the world? You have so many customers using it. How is that being infused back into product development to make the service even smarter and more cost effective?

Speaker 3: 21:12

into product development to make the service even smarter and more cost effective? Great question. Well, we're constantly measuring how employees are engaging with our technology, from beginning to end, so understanding exactly what they're doing within our service, but also asking for continuous feedback in terms of the experience that they've received. So we're taking all this information and, in addition, we see even our own customers are leveraging our APIs and applying their own AI within their systems to extend what we do even further by leveraging their rich information to apply in unique and different ways. So we're observing how our customers are taking it and taking it even forward and saying, hey, should we take that and consider that in our process, or is that more of the purview of the customer to continue innovating on?

Speaker 2: 22:12

we're not always going to want to use the tool exactly the way you've built it, so I think you're right. If you can provide an API, you may find that clients are actually using the data in a different way. That could actually make sense for more customers. So talk to me about how important it is to have an open system and APIs to allow people to do what I call crazy things that actually become product enhancements.

Speaker 3: 22:29

I think the fundamental premise of cloud services is truly an open ecosystem, providing the APIs for organizations to leverage the data on their behalf, because ultimately it is their data and or we don't understand how to solve those problems but our customers do. It's their data Expose that information in a secure manner and let them ultimately take advantage of it. And that's also, I believe, still one of the fundamental promises of cloud computing. Is that providing that ecosystem and that open ecosystem to take advantage and use that information in ways that we, as technology providers, haven't even thought about.

Speaker 2: 23:16

Now your services touch the bare metal of the organization expense management, booking, travel. They're things that make the world go round. I'm wondering if you've had a client come to you to say if only I could do that. Have you had some really interesting ways that you thought we hadn't thought about that? But you've got so many people doing all these things. Travel is not frictionless. There's always something going on and with my experience with TripIt, it allows me to know if I have to change things. But talk to me about how clients are really pushing you to do your best.

Speaker 3: 23:47

I can point to some solutions such as Concur Verify, which is our sort of auditing solution, but it's actually doing the audit while the end user is traveling. So we provide all this rich information. We have now a partnership with MasterCard that now brings in what we call real-time authorization data, which you've experienced in your personal life. When someone taps and goes, you know you get the little alert saying hey, you know, andrew, you know you hopped the tube or bought something at Boots and so forth. So now, with all this rich information coming in, we have the opportunity to take advantage of it.

Speaker 3: 24:24

Taps, validate that that's a compliant transaction, instead of after they tap he's done with their trip, and so forth at the back end. Why can't you just move all those processes up to the front end? You know meeting the user where they are when they're working. So our Concur Verify is one of the solutions where our customers say can we do it earlier in the process to deliver a better experience for the user? But even while they're traveling they know whether they're in compliance or not, versus waiting where the money's been spent, the trip is over and they're just simply trying to reconcile their expense report.

Speaker 2: 25:00

And that's down to that user expectation. So in my personal life, when I buy something on my Monzo card or my HSBC card, I get the message back. If it then transfers over into your business life, they're probably more likely to be compliant because you've now got the information. Oh, I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to buy that or I'll do that again. So are you seeing that it's actually changing end user behavior by giving more real time, more accurate information to the end user at the point of purchase?

Speaker 3: 25:29

purchase. We believe it's early days, but we have some data that shows. Look on average, if I recall properly, expense reports are returned about 14, 14.5% of the time to the employee for some reason, typically data error, incorrect expense type and so forth. With ExpenseIt another one of our AI power solutions, which we had over 10 years it's actually building. Once you take the photo of that receipt and so forth, it actually creates that expense transaction by extracting the relevant information, which says you know, we always say that humans introduce error through keystrokes and so forth. So the return rate goes 14% to literally over 1%. So imagine the benefit to an end user to say, hold on a second, I'm not getting these returned to me anymore because also it's doing it on my behalf. So that drives compliant behavior. It creates sort of a virtuous cycle and that's just one of the examples that end users directly benefit, but the organization benefits because they have cleaner data. I have happy users, less reports being returned and so forth. So everybody wins.

Speaker 2: 26:34

And it may not be something that's really obvious, but if you join a large organization I was at IBM and we were using your system as well If you know that from day one, you're going to have less friction in doing expense management and claiming expenses, it's going to make your life a lot easier and you can focus on doing what you've been employed to do, which is probably being in front of customers traveling around the world, doing what you've been employed to do, which is probably being in front of customers traveling around the world, being jet lagged, not having to worry about all the expense management stuff. So almost like as you are recruiting oh, by the way, we have SAP Concur with all the AI built in, so you're going to have a great experience by working with us. That could actually be back to HR a plus to say if you come and join us, we're going to make your life a little bit easier.

Speaker 3: 27:11

Absolutely, and we've seen where we've talked to some of our customers, where their employees will ask what to use if you're hiring for a marketing person, what's your marketing automation system that you're using? But we've had also employees or potential future employees ask what are you doing from an expense reporting standpoint, especially as I have the good fortune to travel around the country and people recognize my logo on my luggage tag as being with SAP Concur. They immediately say I love Concur, or I used to love Concur, but I'm now working for a company that doesn't have Concur. I'm bugging them to get Concur because it saves me time.

Speaker 2: 27:47

There's growing concern around the ethical and security risks of AI, and I have to talk about this with clients all the time. Ethical and security risks of AI, and I have to talk about this with clients all the time. How do you address the risks in AI-powered travel and expense management tools to ensure that there's responsible?

Speaker 3: 28:00

AI deployment. First, with SAP and SAP's approach to business AI, it is our responsibility to protect that data and to utilize our technology in a way that's reliable and responsible. First and foremost, we will never expose a customer's company data to a large language model. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it is our customer's data and should always be protected and private. We will never make it public available. Second, we're adhering to the highest standards of cybersecurity and also GDPR. Third, we also care about the potential negative impacts that AI could bring with regard to ethics and so forth, and so at the center of everything that SAP does with regard to AI and SAP Concur is that it's human-centered AI development, so, in doing so, striving to eliminate any bias or discrimination that could come through these AI mobs.

Speaker 2: 28:55

The whole bias thing is so important, and one thing I advise clients to do is think about diversity when you're training these models, because these models are trained by humans. We introduce a bias in there. So by ensuring at that time when you're training systems and setting them to work, by having a very diverse workforce working across, that it really ensures that you're removing those potential bias issues. Great point, great point Andrew.

Speaker 2: 29:17

So the report notes that organizations should also consider long-term investments in data management and talent. So how does SAP concur? Support companies in building the foundational data and AI skills necessary for this sustained success?

Speaker 3: 29:30

We try to do the heavy lifting on behalf of our customers. So it gets back to the integration with disparate third-party systems that could be across the customers back end and so forth. Second, it's also continuing to educate our customers in terms of how we're utilizing that AI information. And then third, ai for us is not a standalone SKU. It's just ultimately part of the service in terms of making it more efficient, more effective from a financial reporting perspective and also just delivering a better experience for all users involved.

Speaker 2: 30:06

So, while many companies focus AI on cost reduction, some are targeting growth and innovation. Final question before we go to the quickfire round how has SAP concurred helping businesses go beyond tactical improvements to leverage AI for strategic advances like innovation?

Speaker 3: 30:22

I would say, andrew, it's not only just about cost reduction but most importantly, it's about productivity gains as one of the main drivers for change. Even before the AI wave, everyone was talking about digital transformation, but what they were really trying to say was I'm looking for productivity gains and insights with helping move my business forward. Second, to your question earlier we listen to our customers in terms of what they're facing now, but as they look around the corner, what do they see in the future? And we're looking to continue to take that information, that feedback, and ultimately help it shape our roadmap for our future solutions. And then, third, as an example, we continue to build upon our existing services.

Speaker 3: 31:01

Concur, travel Everyone knows in their personal life and professional life. They know how to book a trip, but how can they do it in a more efficient way that ensures compliance? So we've now integrated our request tool so someone can. Where many organizations have pre-travel authorization, they can now using AI. It's like I'm traveling to visit with Andrew in London from Phoenix Arizona. What should my air and hotel cost me so I could plan for that and my manager ultimately approve?

Speaker 3: 31:30

In addition, you know I mentioned the MasterCard partnership, bringing that rich information at the time of tap or the time of swipe, to inform users to what's compliant and not, but also to help them already begin to build their expense report so they don't have to do it on the backend. And third, looking forward to having Juul Digital Assistant, which will traverse all the SAP ecosystem, leveraging the rich information and all these SAP applications and so forth, and it goes on and on. But at the end of the day, everything I've just talked about it's data, data, data. We're only going to be as good as the data that we have access to, the data that we can aggregate, the data that we can cleanse, and that requires complete cooperation again, cfo, chro and the CIO.

Speaker 2: 32:15

Now you're surveying the CFO for the insights report. You're doing it relatively regularly. When's the next time we're going to see more insights coming out? And if you had a crystal ball, if you're a futurist, where do you think the needle will move in the next phase of the report that comes back and the insights?

Speaker 3: 32:29

Well, we do the CFO report typically on an annual basis, and then we'll sprinkle in if there's specific information we're desiring, based on what's going on in the marketplace, we'll do that. In between, I believe that AI adoption will continue to accelerate and that it'll become even more important than the data says today. With regard to that, second, I think that we'll also come back that continued concern over data privacy and security will remain high, because we hear today, andrew, how the models are running out of data and now they're creating synthetic data. What implications does it have? So, as these models are only powered by data, and how shifts in terms of training them, I think, will raise new challenges, but also opportunities that technology providers such as SAP have to address, but also those CFOs have to address.

Speaker 2: 33:25

So we're almost out of time, but we're up to my favorite part of the show, the quickfire round, where we learn more about our guests. I'm going to fire some questions at you, iphone or Android.

Speaker 3: 33:33

Oh iPhone Window, or aisle, oh window, every time.

Speaker 2: 33:37

I wish that AI could do all of my.

Speaker 3: 33:38

My wife's to-do list.

Speaker 2: 33:40

The app you use most on your phone TripIt. What's the?

Speaker 3: 33:42

best piece of advice you've ever received Decide what experience you want to have versus what your next job opportunity is. What are you reading at the moment? Oh, I'm reading Salman Rushdie's book called Knifed. I have it right here at my feet. How do you stay digitally curious? I try to consume as much information from a variety of sources, always being conscious not to be in an echo chamber where we're just being reinforced by the ideas that we currently have, so I'm a digital nomad with regard to the information sources I've subscribed to.

Speaker 2: 34:14

Who should I invite next?

Speaker 3: 34:15

onto the podcast. I would invite a frequent traveler from one of our large organizations to understand what their experiences are and what the experiences they desire in the future.

Speaker 2: 34:28

That's a great idea. I love that Final quickfire question how do you want to be remembered? Someone who is kind? So, as I'm the actionable futurist, what three actionable things should our audience do today to prepare for the opportunities from AI?

Speaker 3: 34:41

I think, first and foremost, continue to educate themselves with regard to the opportunity that AI represents and how they can apply it with their own organization. Second is it's stepping across that aisle, partnering closely with their CHRO and their CRIO as they continue their digital transformation. And then, third, just as we have, is like always asking that it has to be a better way, and challenging everyone in the organization and every vendor, whether it be technology or otherwise they work with, in terms of how do I make my business run better and is there a better way?

Speaker 2: 35:18

Chris, this has been a fascinating discussion. How can we find out more about you and your work?

Speaker 3: 35:22

Well, certainly through Concurcom and so forth, and feel free to follow me on LinkedIn to learn more about what we're doing and what our customers are doing.

Speaker 2: 35:32

Chris, it's been a great discussion and no pun intended, but travel safely.

Speaker 3: 35:36

Thank you so much, andrew, you as well.

Speaker 1: 35:39

Thank you for listening to Digitally Curious, brought to you by SAP Concur. You can find all of our previous shows at digitallycuriousai. Andrew's new book, digitally Curious, is available now at curiousclick forward. Slash order Until next time. We invite you to stay digitally curious.