Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

Workday launched Workday Data Cloud, Workday Build as well as a set of Illuminate AI agents as it aims to build a larger ecosystem around its platform.

At Workday Rising, the company rolled out Workday Data Cloud, which puts the human capital management and financial software company in the center of data flows. Workday Data Cloud has zero-copy access to data lakes, data warehouses, applications and business intelligence tools.

Databricks, Salesforce and Snowflake are among the headliner customers. When asked what would make Workday Data Cloud different from other data clouds, Workday CTO Peter Bailis said the company has the "people and money data" that others can build on. SAP is following the same logic with its SAP Business Data Cloud via a partnership with Databricks. 

Workday Data Cloud uses Iceberg to make its platform data open, accessible and AI ready, said Bailis.

The company also outlined Workday Build, which is a set of tools so developers can build on the Workday platform. The tools include Workday Flowise Agent Builder, Extend Apps, Orchestration and connections to Workday Data Cloud. There's also the Workday Marketplace and community tools for developers.

• Workday buys Paradox to build out its recruiting suite, delivers strong Q2
• Workday acquires Flowise to speed up building AI agents, automated workflows
• Workday aims to be system of record for AI agents, digital labor

Workday Rising 2025 builds on the announcements made last year that rounded out Workday as more of a platform play.

"Our strategy is threefold. One, we're building the best AI agents for HR and finance that deliver real business value. Our data has context, and we're deeply embedding AI into HR and finance processes. Second, we're continuing to accelerate investments in our core so we're doubling down on what Workday does best. And finally, we're building an open platform designed for work. We're shifting from the system of record for people and money to a system of action for people and money that understands their customer businesses, understands what they need and helps them reimagine what work gets done," said Bailis.

In addition, Workday scaled out its Illuminate AI agent offerings that aim to bring data and context to business processes. These include the following additions:

• Illuminate HR Agents include a business process copilot, case agent, document intelligence for contingent labor, employee sentiment agent as well as agents for job architecture and performance.
• Illuminate for Finance Agents include AI agents focused on cost and profitability, financial close, and financial scenario testing.
• Illuminate for Industry Agents include agents for academic requirements and student administration.
• Workday said it will soon add Workday Flowise Agent Builder and the Workday Paradox Candidate Experience Agent when the Paradox deal closes.

According to Workday, Illuminate agents will be able to connect to third-party agents including Google Cloud, Salesforce and Microsoft among others. Workday is supporting Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent2Agent protocols.

The company also launched Workday Flex Credits so customers can pivot to more consumption based models as AI agents proliferate. There's a set of credits built into subscriptions and as AI agents scale customers can add more credits as usage expands.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

SAP is making progress with its cloud and AI strategy with customers as enterprises are allocating more budget to S/4HANA Cloud.

That's the high-level takeaway from the latest investment survey from the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG). The survey incorporates responses from DSAG members as well as large enterprises that aren't part of the group.

The results were released at the DSAG Annual Congress.

SAP has fleshed out its Business Suite strategy, role of AI and agents as well as migration plans as it prods customers to move to the cloud and a clean data core. DSAG found that 47% of respondents are increasing SAP budgets, up from 46% a year ago.

Yet, there is a good bit of flux. Twenty-three percent of respondents said the SAP budget remains unchanged and 25% said budgets were decreasing, up from 19% a year ago.

• SAP expands sovereign cloud portfolio in Europe
• SAP delivers 24% cloud revenue growth in Q2
• SAP's big plan at Sapphire 2025: Make its Joule AI agent omnipresent
• SAP launches Business Data Cloud, partnership with Databricks: Here's what it means
• SAP launches SAP ERP, private edition, transition option: What you need to know

Jens Hungershausen, DSAG Chairman of the Board, noted that companies are clearly reviewing SAP budgets, but there are multiple factors a play. "Possible reasons could be delays in planned migrations, savings through consolidation of SAP systems or a general reduction in costs," he said.

• Clorox to go live with new SAP ERP system, eyes margin improvement
• Hershey finishes SAP S/4HANA implementation: Is it sweet or suite?

Among the key takeaways from the DSAG Investment Report 2025:

• The use of S/4HANA Private Cloud and S/4HANA Public Cloud is seeing growth. Thirty-three percent of enterprises use S/4HANA Private Cloud, up from 11% a year ago, and 13% use S/4HANA Public Cloud, up from 6% a year ago.
• 42% of enterprises are on S4/HANA on-premises.
• 68% of respondents are planning to invest in S/4HANA Cloud. DSAG noted that the structure of the survey and more large enterprises likely boosted the results.
• 38% of respondents had a positive view of the S/4HANA cloud strategy, up from 13% a year ago.
• 48% of enterprises surveyed are using or plan to use the RISE with SAP program.
• Business Technology Platform is getting the most investment with 40% saying it will get high and medium investments. SAP SuccessFactors was cited by 25% with Signavio at 18%.

"SAP hasn't found the silver bullet to solve it's upgrade problem. Whole AI helped earlier in the year, and it is now back to packaging. The crux remains - S/4HANA does not have the automatic advantages to self entice customers to upgrade. We will see where SAP ends up in 2025," said Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research. 

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

Enterprise software vendors appear to be coalescing around the idea that process mining is an enabler for agentic AI and should be built into platforms.

In recent days, process mining, task mining and process automation have all received some play. ServiceNow, which has been acquiring process mining and task mining capabilities as well as partnering with Celonis, has built in more process knowhow into its platform.

ServiceNow acquired UltimateSuite in late 2023 to build out its native process and task mining capabilities. Those capabilities are now included in its Zurich release, which revolves around agentic AI with embedded process automation. Kush Panchbhai, Senior Vice President of AI Platform, Zurich is an effort to give customers the tools to "pivot from legacy automations to proactive automations across all of the workspace" and structured and unstructured data.

The ability to identify inefficiencies via process and task mining is critical because those insights "are then food for our AI agents" to automate with streamlined processes, said Panchbhai. You don’t have to sell me on this process mining meets agentic AI notion. Simply put, I thought agentic AI would just scale process disaster without some kind of optimization in the background.

While ServiceNow’s process efforts are part of the workflow automation continuum, it’s worth noting that other enterprise vendors are onto the idea. Here’s a look at some of the milestones in recent days. Research: Time to Introduce Hi-Fi for Enterprise Processes

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UiPath: Leveraging RPA and process roots with neutrality

UiPath delivered better-than-expected second quarter results and noted that it is landing larger deals because customers are looking to meld AI, automation, process and orchestration with a neutral vendor.

"With UiPath Maestro, we unify agents, robots and people across systems with governance and transparency so outcomes are measurable and repeatable. This combination is delivering tangible ROI, fueling increasing commercial momentum," said Dines.

Indeed, UiPath's second quarter revenue was $362 million, up 14% from a year ago, and non-GAAP operating income improved to $62 million. It appears that UiPath has emerged from a rough patch. "Since launching our Agentic platform, customers have executed almost 1 million agent runs. Maestro orchestrated over 170,000 process instances, and over 450 customers are actively developing agents," said Dines.

More importantly for UiPath, the company is deepening relationships with customers. Customers with $100,000 or more in ARR increased to 2,432 in the quarter while customers with more than $1 million in ARR came in at 320.

Dines cited Voya Financial a lead customer in the second quarter. Voya automated more than 100 processes and now is targeting more than 40 high-impact use cases in accidental claims with Maestro orchestrating workflows.

Neutrality has its role, according to Dines. "Our key pitch is being really agnostic. I think most of the customers right now are concerned into being completely on one side of a business platform. Because if you look at agentic and orchestration, most of the processes actually spend multiple business systems. You will have to make a choice if you choose an orchestration or an agentic solution that is provided that one of the business systems," he said.

Also see: Hi-Fi process management needs to be foundation for AI | Bloomfilter co-CEO Severinghaus on the intersection of process mining, software development |
Why enterprise, process workflows are the new battleground

SAP: Process mining is a tool for AI adoption

SAP CFO Dominik Asam said he considers process mining to be part of the tooling for AI adoption in the enterprise.

Asam said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference that the company is selling software but also transformation and AI automation. That transformation also requires some core building blocks.

"If you want to deploy AI, you have to have all the tooling required like process mining, like the enterprise architecture management, also now the in-app guidance of the user to adopt the tools," said Asam. "SAP has a pretty favorable position that we really sit at the nexus of the processes and the data."

SAP has acquired its way into process mining with Signavio and LeanIX. It also has a partnership with UiPath. SAP and Celonis are mired in a court battle over process mining competition.

C3 AI: Process automation part of a comeback?

C3 AI launched the C3 AI Agentic Process Automation. The company bills the launch as the next generation of robotic process automation.

The company has just hired new CEO Stephen Ehikian, who inherited the launch of C3 AI Agentic Process Automation. Like most process mining and AI agent plays, C3 is selling by the process, value and enterprise pain points. C3’s key points include:

• C3 AI Agentic Process Automation focuses on business processes such as “order-to-cash, customer service, invoice processing, debt collection, supplier onboarding, procurement, and employee onboarding, as well as industrial operations such as equipment troubleshooting, manufacturing operations, production planning, inventory management, and aircraft maintenance.”
• The C3 offering is looking to address use cases that used to be addressed by robotic process automation (RPA).
• Now C3 AI Agentic Process Automation is a combination of AI models, predetermined steps and controls with an interactive UI.

Although the company billed C3 AI Agentic Process Automation as a breakthrough what’s being offered rhymes with what UiPath has built. It’s unclear whether C3 AI can leverage its process automation suite to better compete with multiple vendors in the enterprise and Palantir in government accounts.

What’s next?

The working theory is that ServiceNow’s move to highlight process mining and task mining in Zurich will lead to more efforts from rivals.

• For instance, Microsoft acquired Minit in 2022 and talked up process mining and automation for a few quarters after the deal closed. It’s unclear what happened to Minit’s technology, but Microsoft wouldn’t need to do much to embed process into its various AI agent platforms.
• Salesforce, which has a bit of ServiceNow envy these days, has enough time to layer in process mining and automation talk into its Agentforce messaging at its annual Dreamforce conference. Salesforce if it truly wants to be seen as a broad platform for agentic AI—beyond its core service, CRM and marketing clouds—may have to buy its way into the process mining game. Salesforce heads into Dreamforce 2025: A look at the big themes
• Celonis, the big dog in process mining and process intelligence, has its Celosphere conference Nov. 3 to Nov. 5 in Munich. The company has repeatedly noted that process intelligence enables agentic AI, but the market hasn’t bought into it. ServiceNow’s moves with Zurich are likely to give the process mining market a lot more play to the benefit of Celonis.
• UiPath is only looking more valuable in this mix. The company has evolved from RPA to process automation to AI agent orchestration. It’s neutral positioning as a vendor is also valuable. The real kicker with UiPath is that its market cap is between $6 billion and $7 billion depending on the day. UiPath could solve some problems for an enterprise software vendor looking to be an agentic AI platform of choice. Or UiPath could go private. UiPath guided toward fiscal 2026 ARR of $1.82 billion to $1.825 billion and has $1.5 billion in cash with no debt.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

OpenAI and Microsoft put out a joint statement that they've reached a detente and may have raised more questions than they answered. Simply put, the OpenAI and Microsoft relationship is a little more clear but not by much. I'm sure it'll all work out great. 

In a joint statement, the companies said:

"OpenAI and Microsoft have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the next phase of our partnership. We are actively working to finalize contractual terms in a definitive agreement. Together, we remain focused on delivering the best AI tools for everyone, grounded in our shared commitment to safety."

Welcome to the week of things that may happen...or not. OpenAI and Microsoft's statement will get a lot of play, but it's not much different than Oracle's massive remaining performance obligation figures which reportedly revolve around OpenAI buying $300 billion in AI compute in 2027. It's an I. O. U. since OpenAI doesn’t have the money...yet. I may buy that compute once I win the Powerball. I already signed the non-binding contract of things that may happen should I become obscenely wealthy in two years.

So now, OpenAI, which apparently is the master of projections for a perfect world, has an understanding that'll it'll reach an understanding with Microsoft.

But seriously, this OpenAI and Microsoft thing is great news. What we do know from another statement is that OpenAI will remain a non-profit that will have funding of more than $100 billion. Yes, these figures are starting to look like their priced in Japanese Yen at this point.

I just feel better that OpenAI and Microsoft are getting along.

• OpenAI vs. Microsoft: Why a breakup could be good
• OpenAI and Microsoft: Symbiotic or future frenemies?

The Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) will continue to oversee the for-profit OpenAI and have an equity stake. The stake tops $100 billion and makes PBC "one of the most well-resourced philanthropic organizations in the world."

To put this PBC funding in perspective, it's worth a Gates Foundation comparison. Bill Gates and Melinda Gates through 2024 have given $60.2 billion to the Gates Foundation, which has paid out $83.3 billion in grants since inception. Warren Buffet has given $43.3 billion to the Gates Foundation from 2006 to 2024. The Gates Foundation has a trust endowment of $77.2 billion exiting 2024.

OpenAI's PBC will have a larger endowment than the Gates Foundation with a key caveat: PBC's funding will be based on OpenAI's valuation and a future business that'll revolve around AGI and domination of the competition. Hmm.

In any case, this non-binding understanding with Microsoft makes the software giant more of an investor. The PBC would theoretically get to do more good as all parties benefit.

A cynic (can you see me raising my hand looking perplexed and possibly jumping up and down) would call this MOU a bit of vapor, but I’m sure glad OpenAI and Microsoft don't have to go nuclear since it's arguably the most lucrative technology partnership in history.

I mean just look at the happiness between these two.

Now Microsoft looks like it will officially be an investor under the new structure even though no details have been provided. The details will be critical:

• How much power will PBC really have?
• What happens when safety and mission collide with profits?
• How will market pressures trade off with what the PBC wants?
• Who will be on the board of the PBC overseeing the push to AGI?
• How transparent is the oversight and governance of OpenAI?
• PBC has a stake of more than $100 billion in OpenAI, but what’s the dilution to existing investors?
• What rights will Microsoft have with its investment?
• Will OpenAI spin off units that won't be under PBC control in the future?

For giggles, I asked ChatGPT to clarify this new OpenAI-Microsoft detente and think through scenarios. After all, since we're playing with a made up understanding with made up numbers, we might as well break out the crystal ball too.

The scenarios boil down to this:

• Mission and capital will be in harmony under this structure. PBC has real veto power over safety, direction and deployment of frontier models. Microsoft has preferred rights, but doesn't dictate roadmap. All is well. I couldn't stop laughing about the odds of this one playing out.
• Investors gain influence and profits trump mission. Microsoft and other investors wind up influencing the PBC. Microsoft is essentially a co-owner. OpenAI benefits from faster commercialization and revenue growth, but has to hear "sell-out" from critics. I can see a PBC board of Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella and some token AI ethics professor from Stanford any day now.
• PBC has a lot of authority and OpenAI grows slow. Tensions boil over as OpenAI rivals move faster. It's the good for drama, bad for market capitalization scenario.
• OpenAI starts spinning out parts to focus more on investor-led initiatives. Think OpenAI Labs, OpenAI Enterprise and OpenAI Consumer as a trio of companies.

I’m sure we’ll get to the harmony scenario because in the age of RPO, IOUs and valuations based on SPAC-like made up future revenue figures what could go wrong?

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

Adobe reported better-than-expected third quarter earnings and raised its outlook for the rest of the fiscal year.

The company reported third quarter net income of $1.77 billion, or $4.18 a share, on revenue of $5.99 billion, up 11% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were $5.31 a share.

Wall Street was expecting third quarter non-GAAP earnings of $5.18 a share on revenue of $5.91 billion.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said "AI-influenced" annual recurring revenue topped $5 billion and AI-first ARR topped $250 million. Narayen said Adobe was raising its outlook due to AI product innovation and go-to-market execution.

Narayen said:

"AI represents a tectonic technology shift and presents the biggest opportunity for Adobe in decades. Our strategy to harness AI is focused on infusing it across our category-leading applications to provide more value and delivering innovative new AI-first products. We’ve done a great job executing this strategy by accelerating innovation with a focus on offering greater value to Creative and Marketing Professionals and Business Professionals and Consumers."

The company saw strong subscription growth across its digital media and digital experience units. Remaining Performance Obligations was $20.44 billion exiting the quarter. Adobe's digital media unit delivered revenue of $4.46 billion, up 12% from a year ago. Digital experience revenue was $1.48 billion, up 9%. Digital experience subscription revenue was $1.37 billion, up 11%.

• Adobe launches LLM Optimizer, GenStudio and Firefly updates
• Adobe's AI strategy, monetization 'feels really good right now'
• Adobe's plan: Leverage agentic AI for CX, unify platform

Adobe's quarter didn't include uplift from its latest agentic AI additions. The company, which is facing increased competition from Canva and newly-public Figma, announced general availability of its AI agents for customer experience Sept. 10. Adobe said the new agents, powered by the Adobe Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator, will be able to understand context, plan multi-step actions and refine responses.

The out-of-the-box agents in Adobe Experience Platform include:

• Audience Agent for audience optimization and personalization.
• Journey Agent to create and orchestrate customer journeys across multiple channels.
• Experimentation Agent to leverage performance data and optimize on the fly.
• Data Insights Agent to aggregate signals across an enterprise.
• Site Optimization Agent to manage brand websites and optimize for performance.
• Product Support Agent, which can give answers based on knowledge bases and enterprise data.

As for the outlook, Adobe said fourth quarter revenue will be $6.075 billion to $6.125 billion with non-GAAP earnings of $5.35 a share to $5.40 a share. For fiscal 2025, Adobe projected revenue of $23.65 billion to $23.7 billion with non-GAAP earnings of $20.80 a share to $20.85 a share.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

Box rolled out new tools to extract data from unstructured content, automate workflows and orchestrate work and layered more AI features in Box Apps.

At the company's BoxWorks conference, CEO Aaron Levie outlined Box Extract, Box Automate and new Box Apps features to address the day that AI agents outnumber people. Levie said:

"Imagine a future where these agents are running autonomously in the background, at scale across an organization. We will have potentially 100 times or more agents in our organization than people, and that's going to be a very different reality of what work looks like."

Levie argued that Box's Intelligent Content Management platform can address the content workflow, processes and governance.

"We believe that the companies that thrive in this AI first era of work will be those that can fully tap into and take advantage of their unstructured data at scale," said Levie. "With AI agents on unstructured data we can streamline production, accelerate critical missions and deliver new products to market even faster."

Box previewed its BoxWorks announcements during its latest earnings conference call. Here's a look at the key announcements.

Box Extract uses AI via Box AI standards and Enhanced Extract Agents to understand documents and extract information. Box Extract can handle multiple formats including PDFs, scans, images and structured data, interpret text, tables, handwriting and bar codes, capture semantic relationships and ensure data quality.

According to Box, Box Extract can improve processes that need contract, invoices, forms and other unstructured content.

Box Automate is a tool to design and manage workflows with a no-code/low-code interface, create AI agents for workflows, route tasks and automate processes via integration with Box Forms, Box Doc, Box Sign and Box Hubs.

• Boxs preps no-code tools, aims for content workflow automation after strong Q2
• Box's master plan: Be the unstructured data enabler of agentic AI

Box Apps will get new functionality to surface insights and trends, filter and surface content views via natural language, manage multiple dashboards and embed apps into third-party platforms.

BoxShield Pro will deliver tools to defend against ransomware attacks, classify sensitive content and analyze threats. BoxShield Pro is a new product built on top of Box Shield, which launched in 2019.

The company said the new offerings will be available later this year.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar said agentic AI use cases can create a self-funding flywheel for enterprises starting with the software development cycle and moving through other processes.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Kumar laid out a framework for AI agents across multiple vectors. He added that Cognizant is seeing benefits now that 30% of its code is written by machines, up from 18% just a quarter ago.

"There is a unique opportunity to transfer that productivity and share the savings with our clients, especially at a time when interest rates are high, you have a unique opportunity to unlock discretionary," said Kumar, who noted machine-written code can lower the cost of deployment.

Cognizant reported strong second quarter earnings of $1.31 a share on revenue of $5.24 billion, up 8.1% from a year ago. For fiscal 2025, Cognizant is projecting revenue of $20.7 billion to $21.1 billion.

Kumar said these early agentic AI efforts are a multi-year trend that's just starting. "CIOs across the world are not seeing their budgets are going to be lower than before because of productivity. They're either keeping the budgets flat or they're actually increasing the budgets for the upcoming AI spend, which is happening. So what CIOs are doing is they're taking the savings, underwriting it for innovation, which is powered by agentic cycles," said Kumar.

Constellation Research CEO R “Ray” Wang argued in a research report that enterprises need to rethink old models in enable AI and shed tech debt. Wang also recently examined AI exponentials and their potential.

• The road to AI Exponential will be bumpy

The Cognizant CEO broke down the agentic AI flywheel like this.

Vector 1 – Software Development Productivity

• Apply AI to software cycles to increase productivity.
• Savings from this productivity are shared with clients or reinvested.
• These savings fund innovation projects powered by agentic AI.

Kumar noted that the first vector is really about consolidating platforms and eliminating tech debt (to some extent). Vector 1 isn’t characterized by net new IT spending, but making existing spend more productive. “CIOs are saying give me savings to use for AI. If the macro changes that will accelerate the CapEx spend on agentic,” said Kumar.

Vector 2 – Migration to the Agentic layer

• Move business logic from traditional SaaS layers into an agentic layer (either SaaS-native or custom).
• Agents integrate with human capital + structured/unstructured data, creating larger surface areas of opportunity.
• Compared to software cycles, agentic cycles have a multiplier effect, since each employee may work with multiple agents.
• Development is outcome- and behavior-driven, iterative, and requires ongoing supervision, unlike traditional “maintenance.”

Kumar said:

“In agentic tech, you scope for outcomes, you design for behavior, you do iterative development because agents actually improve over time. They change their behavior. And then after you scale them, you supervise them. You don't just keep your lights on. And supervising is a much bigger task than maintaining software.”

However, vector 2 will take time to develop. “There will be transition of deterministic logic sitting in SaaS layers into the agentic layer. There'll be new Agentic layers built. It could be on existing software stacks. It could be direct with frontier model companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, who also want to go direct to the enterprise, and they would use us to get there. That hockey stick is on the way,” said Kumar.

• Pondering the future of enterprise software
• Lessons from early AI agent efforts so far
• Every vendor wants to be your AI agent orchestrator: Here's how you pick

Vector 3 – Unlocking New Labor Pools

• Combining agentic capital and human capital can create new outsourcing cycles.
• Example: customer care was transformed into a 65–35 agentic-to-human model, after which a client asked Cognizant to run the entire function.
• This extends Cognizant’s market beyond technology services into operations of enterprises, massively expanding the total addressable spend.

Kumar said:

“Agentic layer is going to be a multiplier to the software layer. So it's a much bigger growth opportunity. And then you're going to see unlock of new labor pools. And those labor pools are not related to technology. Those labor pools are related to operations of enterprises, and that total addressable spend is a much bigger spend than what we saw before.”

Add it up and agentic AI becomes a self-reinforcing loop, according to Kumar.

1. Software-led productivity gains (vector 1) → generate cost savings.
2. Those savings are reallocated into agentic development cycles (vector 2).
3. Agentic cycles deliver further cost savings, better experiences, and eventually new products and services.
4. This unlocks new labor pools and operational outsourcing opportunities (vector 3).
5. Operations-led transformation expands Cognizant’s addressable market (especially in BPO, now its fastest-growing service line).
6. Expanded spend fuels more adoption and reinvestment in agentic cycles — creating a growth flywheel.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research

About Larry Dignan: Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.&nbsp; <br>Constellation Insights does the following: Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and… Read more

Alex Franco, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Technology Officer at Jeitto, artificial intelligence and alternative data can democratize access to credit at a faster pace.

Franco, a Supernova Award 2025 finalist, recently outlined Jeitto's mission and approach to technology. Jeitto primarily operates in Brazil and provides credit to more than 11 million customers. Many of those customers are underserved by banks.

Jeitto has automated decision workflows through its mobile app and AI-led processes. Since deploying Provenir’s AI Decisioning Platform, Jeitto has seen a 20% reduction in defaults on the Jeitto Loan, grown its customer base and recorded a 10% increase in its credit approval rate. Jeitto's credit assessment cycle time has moved from 1.5 minutes per application to 30 seconds.

We caught up with Franco to talk shop. Here's a look at the key themes.

Target market. Franco said Jeitto is focused on Brazil's underserved population "that earns low income, that has a lot of difficulty to get access to credit in Brazil."

Alternative data. Jeitto leverages AI and alternative data for credit decisions. Franco said: "Since 2014 Jeitto has been working on AI and alternative data to provide credit to the population in Brazil." Key data points include.

• Cell phone data, a key factor in credit decisions.
• Fiscal data retrieved through the customer's fiscal ID in Brazil
• Customer behavior data.

Strategic expansion. Franco said Jeitto has 13 million consumers in its database and is now looking to add new services and loans to become a broader financial platform.

Technology strategy. Franco said Jeitto's stack revolves around combining best-in-class platforms to leverage AI and intelligence. Core functions are those technologies that affect the customer experience and long-term value.

Jeitto's platform connects fraud scores, identity checks and device validation, integrating multiple layers of fraud detection into decisioning workflows to mitigate threats at application screening, including synthetic fraud, impersonation and mule indicators. This eliminates siloed environments between credit and fraud risk teams, to ensure holistic, end-to-end decisioning with a complete view of customers across the entire lifecycle.