CR098 Knowledge 2025 special, part 2: Key ServiceNow announcements with Amanda Joslin, ServiceNow

At Knowledge 2025, the spotlight is on big announcements and bold innovations—but we’re taking you behind the scene!. 
In this two-part special, we dive into the engine driving ServiceNow’s evolution, with exclusive conversations you won’t hear on the main stage.

In Part 2, Dave, Esmee, and Rob speak with Amanda Joslin, Senior Director of Platform and AI Innovation Product Management at ServiceNow, about the latest announcements from Knowledge 2025. They discuss how AI is being embedded directly into workflows and customer experiences through proactive, intelligent automation.

TLDR
02:09 Introduction of Amanda Joslin and Knowledge 2025
02:48 Rob is confused about seating at large conferences
09:45 Conversation with Amanda Joslin on the main announcements at Knowledge 2025 and the ServiceNow platform
52:20 Kill the Backlog and moving toward a zero-backlog operating model
57:32 Jamaica, sunshine, and the sea

 
Guest
Amanda Joslin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandajoslin/

Hosts
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/
Esmee van de Giessen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esmeevandegiessen/
Rob Kernahan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-kernahan/

Production
Marcel van der Burg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-vd-burg/
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/

Sound
Ben Corbett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-corbett-3b6a11135/
Louis Corbett:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-corbett-087250264/

'Cloud Realities' is an original podcast from Capgemini

Creators and Guests

Host

Dave Chapman

Chief Cloud Evangelist with nearly 30 years of global experience in strategic development, transformation, program delivery, and operations, I bring a wealth of expertise to the world of cloud innovation. In addition to my professional expertise, I’m the creator and main host of the Cloud Realities podcast, where we explore the transformative power of cloud technology.

Host

Esmee van de Giessen

Principal Consultant Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Realities podcast host, bridges gaps to drive impactful change. With expertise in agile, value delivery, culture, and user adoption, she empowers teams and leaders to ensure technology enhances agility, resilience, and sustainable growth across ecosystems.

Host

Rob Kernahan

VP Chief Architect for Cloud and Cloud Realities podcast host, drives digital transformation by combining deep technical expertise with exceptional client engagement. Passionate about high-performance cultures, he leverages cloud and modern operating models to create low-friction, high-velocity environments that fuel business growth and empower people to thrive.

Producer

Marcel van der Burg

VP Global Marketing and producer of the Cloud Realities podcast, is a strategic marketing leader with 33+ years of experience. He drives global cloud marketing strategies, leveraging creativity, multi-channel expertise, and problem-solving to deliver impactful business growth in complex environments.

What is Cloud Realities?

Exploring the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation and cloud native living and working.

Each episode, our hosts Dave, Esmee & Rob talk to Cloud leaders and practitioners to understand how previously untapped business value can be released, how to deal with the challenges and risks that come with bold ventures and how does human experience factor into all of this?

They cover Intelligent Industry, Customer Experience, Sustainability, AI, Data and Insight, Cyber, Cost, Leadership, Talent and, of course, Tech.

Together, Dave, Esmee & Rob have over 80 years of cloud and transformation experience and act as our guides though a new reality each week.

Web - https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/cloud-realities-podcast/
Email - [e-mail]

CR098 Knowledge 2025 special, part 2: Key ServiceNow announcements with Amanda Joslin, ServiceNow
[00:00:00] I can't imagine anybody traveling all the way down the country to go to an airport. And you've got the time wrong. There's always another flight. That's my mantra. There's always a different way to get there. See, you're talking my language, man.
Welcome to Cloud Realities, an original podcast from Capgemini, and this week, a second conversation show about ServiceNow Knowledge 2025. And we are gonna explore both the nature of the platform and some of the big announcements this week that happening in Vegas. I'm Dave Chapman. I'm Esmee van de Giessen and I’m Rob Kernahan, and I am delighted to say that joining us we have got Amanda Joslin, who's a senior director of Platform and AI innovation at ServiceNow.
Amanda, lovely to see you. How are you doing today? Great to see you all. I'm doing great. Fabulous. And whereabouts do we find you in the [00:01:00] world? I'm at home in San Diego, California, in the great USA. How tremendous. I I really fancy gonna San Diego. I do as well. It's got a lot. I've, I've seen pictures and seen it written about and I just go, that looks like a nice place to live If we were visiting.
It's it's great place. If we were visiting Amanda, what would you, what would, what would be your top two pieces of advice on visiting San Diego? We have to see our zoo. You can't miss it. It's in a beautiful park that has so many architectural buildings and museums, so Balbo Park and the zoo is number one.
And of course you cannot miss the beach. Yeah. Uh, we have so many great beaches and the weather is usually typically sunny and 75 or 72 degrees, so it's lovely weather. Beautiful. Do you ever get the idea, Dave, that we picked the wrong country to live in because everywhere else has better weather, beaches, fantastic architecture and scenery, uh, in the great cosmic raffle that kind of meant that we were, you know, born [00:02:00] here.
Yeah. And we maybe did come up a bit short. Oh, we'll see. Anyway, um, enough of that. Let's move on to, uh, your day job, Amanda. So tell us a little bit about what you do and, and your role at ServiceNow. Yeah, so I am the Senior Director of Platform and AI Innovations focused on our AI agents framework orchestration, as well as our AI agent studio.
So I bring AI agents to life every day, and it's my unique honor and privilege to do so. I've had a long career product management in many enterprise and platform companies. So you really well positioned in the heat of what's going on at the moment in the industry, I think. And um, really looking forward to digging into that a little bit with a bit of a framing of, uh, of knowledge 25 shortly.
But before we get to that, anything being confusing you this week, Rob? Yeah, actually there has been Dave. Now this might come across as a petty confused, but it's one that's very close to my heart. I mean, Esme, do you think that's the [00:03:00] first petty one we've had? Or, uh, he says it like it's an unusual thing.
Yeah. Well let, let him let him talk about it first. You have to judge it on this. Right. So I, as you know, like we all do, we go to a lot of conferences. Mm-hmm. Right? And the big, the big bug bear for me is there's just not enough seating. Right. Okay. And you get to lunchtime or whatever and then everybody just sat round on the side of the floor and everything else and it's like it's really uncomfortable.
Your bum gets cold, it's bad for you, it's bad for your posture. You get a bad back, right? This is not good. All they need to do is put like simple benches out or something. Just somewhere where I can sit down. I don't need to sit on the floor. I think we're beyond the having to sit on the floor now. We've gone past that in society, but for some reason there's always like chairs and seats and like this valuable commodities.
You watch people hawkishly looking for 'em. When somebody stands up, somebody runs to sit down. Why is it so hard? If they can put thousands of chairs in the auditoriums, why can't they put a few [00:04:00] outside as well? 'cause I don't always want to be listening to a talk, although I get that point. But if your talks are really interesting, then I'd go there anyway.
So why can't I have a simple seat outside? I'm not talking like some leather wing back opulent thing that I can relax in and fall asleep in. I just want somewhere where I can rest my weary legs. David and I don't understand why they don't provide more seating. Well, I, I think I can help you. I, this is one of the rare ones I actually think I can help you out really less.
I think this is less petty, just like an old man moaning about having to sit on the floor. It is, yeah. Yeah. Uh, which is fair enough 'cause it is hard to get up in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My knees don't do it anymore. I like you can cracking and crunch when you carry the coffee. Yeah. And you've got your bag and it's all a bit uncomfortable and sit down.
You maybe feeling a bit jet lagged. It is a bit uncomfortable. However, it's just pure circulation science. No. You know, I'm, I'm not expert, but if you're filling all of the hallways and stuff like that with chairs, people are gonna mill about, oh, you don't have to bomb in the hallways. And then means there are millions of people that are going back and forth.
You just have to put them somewhere [00:05:00] maybe out of the way, but have a little place where you can go. Wouldn't be a little place. There's like 50,000 people at these things. Well, no, but not everybody wants to sit down at the same time and other people are in talks. But like, wait, if you look at a conference, the one I was at this time in London, there must have been, there was, uh, actually no, there was over, there was, it was 20,000 people there.
That's what they announced. That turned up and I looked around and there must have been like a hundred seats. And that ratio's just off. Come on, you can do, you can put 200 down. Let's double it up. Let's go for twice as many and see where we get to. But it was at lunchtime. There's just, um, everybody just.
Sat down around the walls and everything else. You just think, well, if they're gonna sit down on the floor anyway, why don't you give 'em a little bench to sit on what a bean bag do. Yeah, fine. Beanbag. Dave fell asleep on the bean bags in Vegas. Remember? That was quite funny. I have done that. Dave went for a little rest when we found him not out on a bean bag.
Yeah, it was nice. Wouldn't have happened if he was sitting on the floor, right? No. Okay. Yeah. Although now [00:06:00] you're onto something here, Amanda. I can see what you're saying. I was gonna ask, I was gonna ask whether you had any, any views on this, uh, important subject. You know, I hadn't really even thought, thought of it, but now thinking back to every knowledge that I've been at, there is always quite a few people sitting on the floor around the conference eating their lunch or, or just sitting, taking a break.
You're right. I mean, there's something to it. You're onto something now, Rob. Maybe, maybe when my conferences would be more popular 'cause it would be more convenient. So maybe when you're doing your watch on Knowledge 2025. You can be like, you know what guys? We can transform this thing more. And I have got the lever be back.
It's not content. It's not great innovation. It's not an exciting environment. Yeah. Yeah. Just provide a simple seat. Thanks. Yes. They love it. They love it. Anyway, I think we've thoroughly answered that one. I mean, we haven't answered say we've done that. We haven't. Perfect. Justice oti, honestly, from this point onwards, Rob, people will hear this.
Yeah. And it will spread [00:07:00] all the way through Vegas and all of the event organizers will be like. God, we didn't even think of that. Didn't, it didn't cross my mind for a second. We had to do seating in circulation spaces and then all of a sudden, we'll, we'll keep an eye on it. It's, it starts out, you go to one or two, you don't really spot it.
It's a long day, but when you go to as many as we do, it's like, oh, not again. Anyway, on that note, let's get on with the main bulk of the show today. So before we get to the main bit of the conversation though, I think we might have an interesting thing that's just emerged in our production meeting.
Shocking, Robert. Shocking. Shocking. Marcel, you've got yourself a new drinking receptacle, is that correct? Yeah, correct. Christmas. Which one have you, uh, gone father? It was the Stanley Big Cup. The Stanley. Is that, is that its technical term? Is that the 40 ounce version? 40 ounce. The American, yeah, the 40 ounce version.
40 ounce version. Now what obviously. That's an extremely practical gadget you got there, Marcel, and we're, we're looking forward to seeing the different additional things you get. So Robert, [00:08:00] you've done some research on this, I think. Yeah. What additional things can you get to put onto the platform of that call?
The platform is the mug, apparently. You can turn it into what is essentially a handbag that holds your phone, your keys, basically. Uh, there's a whole range of colors. You can have pink, you can have blue, you can have purple and cream, and, uh, you can put all your accessories and just attach it to your mug.
Your money has a pocket, your credit card that's strapped for your shoulders, so you can carry your 500 liters of water wherever you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think this is, this is Marcel's new style. I'm quite shocked by this, but I think I know a nice pink accessory to go round the cup, hold all his paraphernalia.
That's gotta be a, a good thing, isn't it? Marcel, you on for that? Amanda, are you, are you fam you're familiar with these, uh, with these cups presumably? Oh, absolutely. Everybody has them. The definite, the handbag, the strap that you can, you can place. It just becomes the platform for your life. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Popular with, uh, with moms, I think with, with the mom crew. [00:09:00] Yeah. Do you know, do you know where, do you know where? Lazy Susan, where you spin around the food on the table? Ironically, my sister's called Susan. That joke has popped up a number of times. A family dinners. But anyway, you can get one of those, a snack tray that goes on the top of your studly cup.
I've seen those just like nuts. You can put little, you can put your seeds in one bit and then let your raisins in another bit. You basically go in. Protein is important. Well, ab absolutely our hydration and protein together. It's basically proteins. All the needs of the busy uh, the busy of the busy mom.
Yeah, the busy mom. Who is Marcel? Our mother, our producer mother. I think that's a very spiritual thing. We should pass. Thank you for you, mom. Yeah. Thanks mom. Well, now whilst else we're talking about platforms. Yeah. Amanda. Yeah. You, you have Yes. Spent your career, as we heard earlier, uh, dealing with platforms.
Now obviously the, the Stanley conversation has set the whole platform level up very high this point. I see what you did there, David. It's, it's very clever. [00:10:00] Eh? It's very clever. Good pivot. Extensible platform, Robert. See? Exactly. You get it. Yeah, no, I did. I, it was a bit like the train on the tracks. That was coming for some time, but yes, we got that.
So Amanda, like, one of, one of the things beyond the analogy of the, of the Stanley Cup as platform in industry even today, well, we've been talking about platforms now for years, right? But actually still organizations, particularly on the, on the sort of consumer side of organizations, perhaps struggle to.
Really understand what that means, particularly when they're like, say, reorganizing their tech departments and they're trying to get their heads around like products and platform and how those things work together. As someone who's like deep in the world of platform, do you have a definition? And honestly, if you want to leverage the Stanley Cup analogy, it's sitting right there on Marcel's desk.
Mm-hmm. You can see, you can move it into camera, you know, feel free. Yeah. I think, you know, platform means many different things to [00:11:00] people, but I think some of the things that I think of when I, when I think of platform, is the ability to bring workflows together and any model, any data, any, um, any agent.
I'm so sorry. I just, I'm gonna put the dog outside the room because she brought her Squar toy in. Oh, that, that is actually quite, yeah. I like that. That's, that's quite, that's like, David is a gentle toy. Yeah. You just called Dave like that. And I, I, we should call the dog Dave. Dave's a good name for a dog.
Oh, thanks. Dependable, friendly, warm, and cuddly. That's not you though. You've been misnamed. You should be Cruella. That would be your name, Dave, if you were to have another name. Yeah. So, um, we talk about platforms being your ability around the enterprise to have one place where you manage your workflows, your data, your, in this era.
Now what I hope you're managing is your AI agents. So really just having that [00:12:00] stable framework that is a ubiquitous language that everyone in the organization can speak from, but also build on top of. And you don't have to, with every different workflow or every different department, learn a different language.
You're all speaking the same language. But that's what I think of it. When I think of an enterprise platform, and there's many of them out there, obviously the best of service now, but of course, um, of course. But we're really taking that. To the next level. That's what we say is our, you know, single pane of glass, which everyone starts talking about.
That is the platform. Um, that is what we want to have everyone be able to leverage. And we say we are the, we have the unique ability to orchestrate all of that across systems, silos, ecosystems. That's what, um, that's what I think of when I think of bringing that platform across the enterprise. And what, and what do you think, just briefly to digress on to say the team structure you might put around that, what do you think a, like a good [00:13:00] makeup of roles, for example, is for a, for a platform team?
I mean, I've seen it done a, a number of different ways. Either, you know, by. Product. Um, let's say there are multiple platforms in your company, you could set your team up around that, you know, each different area of the business. But what I think is really as a product manager, what I think is most beneficial is to, to organize around the outcome.
What are you trying to do? What are you orchestrating or bringing to the value that you're bringing to the organization? So at a previous company, we had it, um, around teams. So our sales platform and our CRM, our customer service platform and our HR platform. I do think when you're focused around that problem that you're trying to solve, no matter what the platform is, you have that unique ability to really focus in on who your customer is and what problems you're trying to solve with it, be it workflow, data, ai, any of that.
How [00:14:00] does that square with your definition? Robert, you've done a lot in the world of modern operating models and such things. I, it's a nice one actually. I like the idea of. Connecting things together easily and depends where you put your order on the platform. So yeah, some platforms can be thick and highly capable, like the one we've been describing here with lots of functionality and others can be slimmer and providing a basis for you to operate.
Do you service now or the Stanley Cup platform, Rob? Well, they're both. I mean, Stanley Cup is the highest order of any platform to be considered. Yeah, but you get this, um, it's physically manifested. If you think about the type of the work that you need to do, the platform needs to facilitate that work and that it's, its intent, right?
So if you take it that it's a facilitated service that's zero touch, easy to use, self configured, then uh, the thickness can vary based on the need. So cloud native DevOps needs one, uh, changing workflows or higher order functions need another, and then there's something in between as well. So yes, [00:15:00] it fits very well with that.
But essentially it's a thing that facilitates my life to make it easier and I get there with higher productivity and the generalist terms of what is a platform. Yeah, so it fits very well, David. I see the same happening and a lot of clients that are working like platform teams in. Infrastructure. So they're the platform teams as a service.
You know, they need to spin up or, or, or, or lower down whenever they want to even at night. Uh, that's what I hear a lot when they think about platform teams and being as a servant towards the other teams as a service. Yeah. Yeah. It's that, it's very interesting. I, I, I want to elect our service that does a job for me.
It's a well-defined, understood thing. Yep. I know my responsibility. Yes. And your responsibility as platform. Sure. So that shared point, and then I know what our role is within it. I know what I've got to do. I know what you are gonna give me. That well-defined thing, service use that word, uh, from the platform is I think the, one of the keys.
It can't be a munched concept. It's gotta be clean for it to [00:16:00] be a well-functioning platform. And a lot of automation, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Huge. Yes. As much as I think every team or area of the business likes to think of their processes as a unique unicorn, it's truly not. Everyone's trying to, you know, really get information in.
Do some type of workflow and have an outcome. So, you know, really being able to understand that deeply in your area is great, but it's really not all that different from the other areas of the business. Everybody thinks they're special, you're not. It's probably 90% of what you do is the same as what everyone else does.
The same across everyone else. 10 percent's probably your differentiator, but yeah. Yeah. It's that thing, which is E everybody has to do that type of work, so why would I try and do all the plumbing myself? Let's use a platform that helps me get there a hell of a lot faster. I had a, that's right. All boss of mine once who had done, um, you know, like a mayers, briggsy sort of assessment, but I don't think it was a, the framework that was being used wasn't super explicit.
He was just sort of talking to like [00:17:00] a coach or something. Anyway, so he goes back for his, uh, his feedback meeting like a few weeks later or whatever, and this coach starts to sort of, you know, kind of go through the feedback and he's like. Man, you've like really nailed me. Like, unbelievable. And the guy goes, dude, there's only six personality types.
How special do you think you're
Well, it's, it's very true in it. Everybody thinks they're special. It's so true. And we're all individuals, but we tend to have certain behaviors that, you know, can be common. Yeah, exactly. Every team I've ever worked with on any platform has always said, well, we can't join the platform because what we do needs to be in a homegrown system.
It's unique, entirely unique to us. It's, it's truly not. You take tickets or you automate a workflow and guess what? You can be a, you can come onto a standard platform as well. Right. Well look, let's, let's dive deeper into the world of ServiceNow and where you are up to at the moment. Yeah. We're gonna come on in a second to talk specifically about some exciting announcements that you guys are talking about at ServiceNow Knowledge 2025, [00:18:00] which is happening as we speak in Vegas at the Venetian.
Uh, yes. You know, that's gotta be a lot of fun going on there and we're gonna dig into that in a second. But what I, I'm interested in talking to you before we get to that, about how you are seeing where ServiceNow is up to at the moment. So obviously it starts out life very much in sort of IT optimization, you know, Siam tool sets, that kind of thing.
And of course you've done a lot of work since then in terms of expanding the scope of it. I'm interested in like how you are framing. The ServiceNow offer at the moment, just in your head, and also like what do you think the state of the art for really good automation is? Like where, where are we up to at the moment?
Is it like you could automate 60% of your it, you could automate 90%? What? What do you think the absolute edges that you can currently achieve on the platform? Yeah, I mean, I think for ServiceNow especially, we started in that it ticketing that, um, that ability to [00:19:00] really help drive that mundane, rote processes into a, a easily automated, you know, and at that point, even everyone said, oh gosh, you know, I don't need as many humans, but you still need humans.
That's the backbone of, of all of these great platforms and foundations. Even if we do automate 90% of the work, which at ServiceNow we hope you do, you're still having. That ability to free up your agents and your, your team members truly for really focusing on that high priority work. And that is at the heart of what ServiceNow wants to do and is, is really successful in doing, which is automating what needs to be automated and bringing to light what needs to be focused on by those humans and taking that time to deeply understand that and configure it.
So we're a highly configurable platform. I think that's why everyone from developers to IT professionals to now across the organization and customer success in hr, [00:20:00] in field service management is looking towards ServiceNow to help their area of the business automate as well. And now with the advent of AI and agentic ai with AI agents, we're taking that to the next level and really supercharging the platform to be able to.
Additionally automate, but have now agents to be able to support some of those, those works as well. Got you. And when you look at the potential of ServiceNow fully implemented in an organization, how, how high do you think the bar should be in terms of setting the expectation of where we could get that automation to?
Like, I mean, 50% of the tasks, the sky's the limit. Yeah. I think more than 50% of the tasks should be automated. Um, especially when it comes to, you know, day to day, what do you need to do? Even, even as far in as having quarterly conversations, [00:21:00] you know, with your employee growth conversations with your employee, that's in and of itself an automated process.
Every quarter I need to look across my team and say, I need to have a quarterly growth conversation with them. I need to pull feedback from other cust from other employees and other partners of my employees. I need to have them write their goals. I need to review the goals. All of that could be automated either by workflow or it could be automated by AI agents going out, gathering information, bringing that back in.
So even processes where we've previously thought have to be. Personal, a human constantly doing each of those steps, even those we see should and could be automated. So I would say up to 90% of the work that most people do could be automated and should be. Hmm, hmm. Yeah. I, I, I love setting a really high bar for that.
'cause I, I certainly agree. I think it, a lot of the time humans tend to get in the way, don't they? Of, of Yes. Of being able to, um, fully automate these things for whatever reasons. [00:22:00] Sometimes those are good reasons. Maybe sometimes they're like not so good. Anyway, uh, I wanted to get that little atu, um, just 'cause it, that actually it's a one, it's a number that I've been trying to pin down for a little while.
Uh, so that was extremely useful. Thank you for that. Let's move on to what's going on in Vegas at the moment. So. Set the scene for us, Amanda. Um, have you done a number of knowledge, uh, events in the past? Yes, yes. This is probably my fifth knowledge. Great. So give, give us a little bit of history on them and how have they grown and how do they typically sort of show up?
If you, if you show up on the marketplace flow, what's it like? Yeah, so my first knowledge, uh, I was very excited up until March 15th when we all got sent home what ostensibly was supposed to be for two weeks. Um, and so my very first knowledge was non-existent. It was at home. Was that in. It was, it was in 2020 when the world shut down for, for quite some time.
Then after that we went to Regional Knowledges. I got sent to Sydney, Australia and then to New York to do, [00:23:00] um, those two knowledges. So they were smaller and regional. So my first big knowledge was about four years ago, and in Vegas it is quite the site we take over the Venetian. Um, we have a huge show floor where you can come and talk to each of our, um, workflow business units as well as in the center is the, is the platform, which is where my, my team sits, and we are highlighting all of the major features that we're bringing to market.
Then there's a hands-on area in the Creator Con where developers can go and actually create code. This year you can create your own AI agent in minutes. And really get hands on with the platform. That's what we wanna do. All throughout the whole experience, you can, um, attend sessions, hear roadmaps, hear from our customers, and of course our partners on how they're having success with the platform and learn the whole, uh, the whole week is about learning and [00:24:00] growing and deeply understanding and sharing that passion that we all have for, for this platform.
And of course, there's keynote sessions where our executives, um, you know, come and speak as well. On most days you'll see Bill on the floor. Um, he comes through as well to to talk to people, to meet people. And of course, he hosts many of his interviews from the show floor as well. So it's really such an exciting week.
How many steps a day do you typically get in 20,000 plus? Yeah. Um, and I always wear the, the I Watch show because if it doesn't, if it's not recorded, it doesn't matter, or it doesn't, it's not true. If that didn't happen, it didn't exist. If you, if it's not recorded, we know all about that on this podcast.
Hey, myself, if it wasn't recorded, bring it up. Never. Yeah, I brought it back up. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so usually 20,000 plus, and there's always, um, you know, nights as well where we're doing karaoke or having dinner as well. So there's always, there's always something going on. Uh, yeah, the, the great these show [00:25:00] weeks out there, I've never, I've never been to a knowledge sadly, but the Oh, you have to come?
Just the, the, there's just the big events in Vegas. I do, I I, I love them as, um, like a good benchmark of where everything's up to. You know, like when you're walking around the, the big marketplace flaws, you just get a real sense of where the edge of the industry's at at that point. And it's, that's right.
Useful, I think. Yeah. And who, who, you know, more and more partners as well. Like we, I'm always amazed at the people who are, you know, partnering with us for success is always so exciting that that area is always growing as well. And that, that's taken off post Covid, the understanding of it's, it's the, it's three of you together, the partner, the ISV Yes.
Platform and the client with the need. I, I think that's, that's, we've doubled down on that and we understand we, it gets a lot more success when you do it that way, so, yeah. I, I've seen partnering increase at the conferences an awful lot. Yes, yes. Many of our sessions are customer and [00:26:00] partner. Um, it's, it's, it's really exciting for us to see as well.
And I always love in the Venetian, when you come out of the conference area, you can always look up and there's that phony, baloney painted ceiling that you can look at to pretend you're actually staring at the sky, but you're not. And then you have to, and an actual canal. It's, it's, you know, it's just like Italy.
What for us in, in the US we, why need Italy? It's right here in Vegas and it's right there. And then you have to walk through some maze of shops to eventually see the real sun. But it's probably gone down by the time you managed to make it out of the event center. That's true, yes. I always found, the first time I went to Venetia looked at, went, actually, I did not expect it to be like this, but there was still an impressive element to the fact that they'd, they'd done it.
You're like, oh, there is actually a gondola floating past me in the hotel. There's a gondola. Yes. Much like, you know, we have the Eiffel Tower there as well. Exactly. Paris. I mean, you can travel Europe in what is a mile down the strip. It's amazing. In your 12,000 steps a day, you can travel [00:27:00] Europe. Okay, well look, we, we might come back to some of the highlights of, uh, outside of the conference, va uh, Vegas, uh, towards the end of the show.
But before that, let's dig into what you guys are planning to bring to us. And some of these will be, I'm sure at the point that the show drops we'll be out in the world. Let's start with something that we're seeing, you know, kind of talked about by all of tech at the moment, which of course is ai and how AI is, is being framed, I think 20 25, 20 26 of the years of scaling ai.
So we're seeing, you know, kind of drops of technology that are now allowing you to manage infrastructural AI and being able to deploy AI much more broadly across your organization than just proof of concept. So what does ServiceNow bringing to us, Amanda? Yeah, where we, we see this happening, you know, we launched our analysis product last year, which was our, our first AI product, which really helped you with your skills and your, your bots and make, [00:28:00] and really bringing AI into the enterprise.
And we're taking that to the next level this year with AI agents. Uh, you'll hear iter at, at our conference at Knowledge that we're launching our AI agent fabric, which is multi-agent multimodal communication and coordination, all within a layer that connect ServiceNow, the customer and the partner built AI agents to models that, you know, we, we may not traditionally connect to, right?
So we see this as that. We know that there's gonna be investment in areas of. Ai and we wanna be that connection layer for our customers and for our partners to be able to bring this all together to communicate across. And for ServiceNow. We've invested so heavily in our orchestration that we have the unique ability to orchestrate across all of these.
So imagine you build an agent, or Capgemini builds an agent that is unique and can take, it can really [00:29:00] help a customer leverage their investments across the organization. We have the orchestration now to be able to bring that into a workflow, to leverage it as part of the AI agent fabric across the company.
So we're super excited about that. Some of our launch partners that are gonna really be that first part of the backbone across the system. Adobe Box, Cisco, Google Cloud, IBM. So we are so excited about our AI agent fabric and the ability to really. Coordinate and have that coordination layer across.
There's a lot of talk about agents at the moment and Yes. And, and this year, very much the year of, of agent to agent protocol. And agent to agent interaction. Yes. What's your take on what's possible with it? So do you, do you have in mind any, uh, any work scenarios or anything like that you've sort of seen functioning?
I've seen a lot of [00:30:00] great innovation. It never ceases to amaze me at our customers and especially what our partners do with our innovation and with our products. Um, there's so much, I think, around an enterprise that can take advantage from not just that question and answer chat bot, but taking that to the next level and truly being able to say, I want to look across my team, pull all my P one incidents, summarize them, and then.
Look at how they've been resolved in the past in real time sentiment analysis, be able to say, these are the best, and now have a team of agent to go and resolve all of those. I think that's so powerful that you are learning. You have a team of agents that's pulling data, learning from that data, taking that in, and transforming that into real actionable work that's done on behalf of our teams of humans.
So we always say human in the loop, but we, it's truly just empowering [00:31:00] that human to be able to just survey, approve, and move on. And, and of course, if a human, if a bunch of humans were executing a process in the way you described there, there is a, you know, there is a, there is time required for a human to do the work.
Yeah. Then they pass to another human. There's time required for that human to do the work and on on it goes. And that might be a 20 minute thing, or it might be a 20 day thing, depending on the nature of it. Yes. It could be a, when it's agent to agent, are we talking pretty much instantaneous? How does it show.
I, I think it really depends on the workflow we're seeing and we're doing so much work to make it streamlined and faster. Um, but it could take days. It could take minutes. I think this is different in what, what I hear a lot of people saying is, oh, it's, you know, just fancy chat or fancy RP bit like rpa.
Yeah. I'm going on strike. It's a bit like RPA. Um, we've got someone on our team that I see it a little coming that, that's constantly saying something like that, Amanda, so it's not me. Maybe you can help one pick it from him. [00:32:00] Yeah. I, I hear it a lot. I hear it all the time when I talk to customers. Oh, we have chatbots.
What makes this unique? Yeah. Right. I think what really makes it unique is. The learning aspect and that long-term memory, which is something we just launched recently as well. That ability to know what the, the last thing I did was what worked well previously. Almost that tribal knowledge that we want our human agents to have.
Our AI agents can now learn and remember it, which is really important and a bit different than what we think of with a chat bot, which is, I have the data. You asked for it. Here it is. It's transactional. This goes on. This could go on longer. It is not an instantaneous thing. And, and RPA back in the day, it, or I still, I'm, I'm, I'm not up to speed like Rob is on RPA, but it was quite screen script, if I remember.
And it would do scripted. Exactly, yes, exactly. It would just script and fill in script and fill in. That's not what we're talking about with, with these agents, right? No, absolutely not. No. And, and we talk a lot about, you don't need to script [00:33:00] anything. This is leveraging our LLMs and in fact, we are expanding beyond what we have as our core LLMs.
We are going to be supporting many LLMs across the enterprise. So almost bring your own whatever you wanna leverage, right? And that's really helping propel this into not a scripted workflow, not a chat bot scenario, but opening and leveraging that large language model to be able to train, to learn, and then to empower your workflows.
And I think if I'm right, one of the other announcements this week is around AI control tower. So is that the thing that allows great segue, allows you to then see across this landscape Exactly right. And not just your AI agents, but your AI entirely. So AI Control Tower is our vision for that central command center to govern, to manage, and then really most importantly for us is security.
To know that there's nothing happening on the platform that's malicious. These agents [00:34:00] aren't having access to things that they can't get access to, and to really look at the model and the workflow from that perspective across your AI investment. So our control tower is going to be able to look not just at your ServiceNow investment, but as your third parties, um, and as well your partners to give full visibility and then control at scale.
Hmm. Help us understand what that looks. Is that a visualization? What, how does it show up? Yeah, it will be. Yeah. So we talk a lot about, you know, where you visualize this or where you interact with this. This is kinda your starting point. Think of it almost as your, you know, evil layer. Not really, but, um, you know, you have all those, they have all those screens up and, and we wanna be that main screen.
So you can look at, um, definitely your metrics and your, um, your performance and your value and what's being consumed, where, what's working and what's not, but also your security. So yes, it will look much like [00:35:00] a dashboard with much more information and control. I think that, and it's, and I, I'm assuming then you can query that and change the shape of it and get involved Absolutely.
Involved with it and, you know, 'cause that there was a day when we used to put screens up in terms, and that was, it was static. And if you wanted something different, you had to go hunt it. Now I'm, I'm seeing the, the operational experience dramatically change with the, uh, I can have a conversation with the system and try and get it to visualize things in a different way.
It's quite cool. Absolutely. Yeah. Everything, everything is configurable. Do you see people naming agents with, like people names, or do they still, you know, more as a functional name? I see it still as functional. I can definitely get to a point. Uh, it's a unique, it's a unique point of view of, you know, how much of these are agents.
We talk a lot about it, about onboarding and offboarding, your life cycle of your agent. What happens when they're [00:36:00] offboarded are no longer needed. Um, so in, in that sense, I would hope it's not a name. Oh, Amanda's now, no longer needed in the organization. That's quite sad. So they just get like, delete Deleted.
Yeah, delete, delete. So we've just deleted Amanda by accident. I mean, it feels, it's like I, like you might have your own little favorite agent. Like the one that's like really gets something done like the R 2D two of the agents, and you're like, you trained that agent and then you unplug them. That 1, 1, 1 of the biggest frustrations of my architecture career many moons ago was I, I was always an advocate for naming servers after a.
A cartoon show or a sitcom or a film or whatever and the governance police would never let me call the server Iman crude. It had to come out with that 7 9 3 4 B nine. Of course, when you're talking about the server or you need to do some work calling it Iman. True. Everybody knows what you're talking about, but B 7 4, 3 9 F, whatever it was, that has no personality and I think we should give more personality to it systems.
I prefer it, but [00:37:00] yeah, then you do get rise to Totally agree. Accidentally deleted uh, Dave or something like that. Can we get Dave back? Did anyone back Dave up? No. Oh no. We lost Dave. Oh no, we lost Dave in all his information. Luckily he didn't have much information so it was fine. Half of the course I like it, like things are gonna run a lot smoother and he's gone.
He was that cog in the wheel. Good thing we deleted him. Yeah. Exactly. Anyway, let's, um, let's move on because I think in, in the world of CRM you all also, there's also something fairly significant happening this week. So maybe let's set out where ServiceNow is in the, in the, uh, world of CRM and, and what exciting stuff is happening this week around that.
Yeah, it's definitely, it's such an exciting area. Customers are already looking to us and wanting full order management fulfillment service with one AI enabled platform. So we're definitely leaning into that and you'll hear so much about that, uh, around [00:38:00] the, the conference this week, you know, that sell, fulfill service, that multichannel, omnichannel, CRM, connecting the customer experience across the entire front, middle, and back office value chain.
That's really what we are pushing forward in a large way in 2025 and into 2026. So we have some partners that you'll hear. Um, we're announcing a CCP Q partner in logic.ai. Um, we have a, we have also been recognized as a CRM leader in the Gartner mq, so we really see this as a very fast. An innovative growing business for us at ServiceNow.
Um, we also work at our launching this week, our NICE partnership, which is, you know, that solution for the fully automated customer service fulfillment all built on NICE's AI powered customer service platform. So that those two partnerships, so the customer service partnership in NICE and the ServiceNow AI platform [00:39:00] for customer and service management is a huge partnership that we're really excited about this week.
And what will that mean for an organization that they can have like fully automated, AI driven CRM with like minimum human intervention? Yeah, that's correct. So, I mean, we see this as, you know, really stepping into that automation in the front office. So mm-hmm We're bringing to light, you know, our full agentic platform with many partnerships across the industry leading platform, so that that better together story is what is gonna propel corporations and the customers into using ours as a front office solution.
It's, it's that, that be together is a key point with the actual implementation around. 'cause uh, there, yes, there's always this talk about industry platforms. Yes. But what we found was the industry platform that surfaces itself, if you just use it on your own, it doesn't quite give you what you want. You need that last mile configuration and support that's gonna, that's gonna turn it into something that really has impact for you.
So think that's a, it's much like what we've just been talking [00:40:00] about. Everyone thinks their process or their workflow or their, their industry is a unicorn and unique, but really that you can automate so much of this and there's so much that if we partner and then that last level of automation, all your, your partnership can leverage that to make that truly unique and feel like it is customized directly to you.
I'm really excited about this because I, when you, you already heard rumors last year, like, oh, ServiceNow is moving into CRM. You already heard the, the, the biggest competitors. Well, well, well, they're, you know, they're never gonna, and I actually see things shake up and I think that's really good for CRM itself.
'cause it's been the same for Yeah. To be honest, for like a decade, you know, it was accounts, contacts Yes. And, uh, orders opportunities. Yeah. And now really bringing that back office highly connected with the front office, I think. Yes. That's a huge game changer. And I, and that's good. I think also for the competitors, uh, and to help everyone, uh, or all [00:41:00] organizations, no matter what type of CRM you're using.
That's correct. That's exactly what we see. And, and that's what we're excited to launch this week. Now before we draw our announcements, part of the show to a close, I wanna talk about what sounds like quite a meaningful one. Like you're starting a university, I think, uh, which is, uh, which is, which is free for learning.
So given the amount of capability uplift, the world is gonna need to deal with a lot of the technology announcements that are coming out in 2025. Tell us about ServiceNow University. Yeah, ServiceNow University is all about empowering people. We do think you need to lean into all of this and it's new and it's.
It feels a little uncomfortable. It's much like that shift from, you know, if any of us remember, which I do, that shift to the cloud where everyone was so excited and right, you know, new. It was, it was a whole new era. Cloud, um, based enterprises or the Internet of things, that was a big era as well. AgTech and AI is no [00:42:00] different learning.
It is gonna be critical to the success of so many of our partners, our customers, and our employees. So, ServiceNow University is all about empowering people. So there's key factors in scaling that, which are people related. Change management, knowing how to hire and train AI talent, and of course governance.
So we want to help that. Education of that whole new language and, um, work that needs to be done. So ServiceNow University is a big, exciting free, um, education platform that we're launching here this week as well. Really, really encourage the use of these things, like the cloud providers as well, also have similar offers and stuff like that.
I think, and it's so important, isn't it, from sort of a human capability perspective. I if education, many moons ago, many, many, even before Marcel was born, education was an exclusive. Privilege, wasn't it? Yes. And you know, absolutely it was, it was hard to get access to. It was [00:43:00] almost protected. And now, especially in the digital age, as we move into the information age, it's like it has become demo, uh, democratized.
You can basically go on free resources to educate yourself. It's a great big, powerful thing that's happened in human society. It's great that it's altruistic for the, and I, I know it's, it's good that people learn you and your technology, but it's a way of expanding your horizons. Very much so.
Understanding different approaches, and it is, it is a really powerful absolutely thing. From a societal perspective. So it's a a absolutely it. Yeah. Absolutely. We, we even hear that, you know, in the United States, one in two jobs by 2027 will be AI jobs and could be left unfilled because of this education gap.
Yeah. In the u in the UK we hear of shortfalls in talent could be as high as 50% by 2027. So I think these are so critical that, you know, we hear so much worry that AI's gonna take our jobs. No, we just need to learn that AI so that we become that partnership with the AI and be valuable to [00:44:00] not just our organization, but customers and partners.
This is really, you're gonna be able to build your career in this area and we wanna help that. Yeah, I was talking to um, um, a friend's daughter who's just finished her conversion masters and she's done it in AI and data and she was having trouble sort of breaking into finding a job because they all want certain types of experience.
And we talked about certification programs from people like yourselves Yeah. And stuff like that. And that was a, I think, hopefully helpful. But you'll have like pointed her in that direction. 'cause it's like that's a sort of good way to start your. Practical experience journey and because these things are offered Yeah.
Free, I mean, it's like, it's amazing to go and be able to leverage that as a, as a straight out of university person who is desperate to get on in life. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I. Well, in addition, I think it also helps open up the ecosystem. Mm. Yes. Because usually you're very focused on one platform.
You know, you've been a developer for Platform X for [00:45:00] 20 years, and you stick to that platform. Mm. Even maybe because of loyalty, but, but also because you know that system in depth. And what you now see is you see a lot of developers and functional consultants, they go and, and, uh, educate themselves for the other platforms as well, so that, that it can also help clients, organizations to adopt that type of new platform or other platforms so they can compare it better.
I think that's good, but it also opens up all that knowledge between the different platforms as well. So I think it's a win-win on, on a lot of sites. Hmm. I totally agree with you. Yeah. Just giving that additional knowledge, like where you're, you're not gonna go to university for AI skills, that's, it's just too new.
So being able to give people that data, even. If you've been in your career for a long time, how do you pivot? How do you take advantage of all this new information? You, you have to learn it. And I think leaning into that's gonna be critical for the success of all of this. Now before we come off the Vegas topic, there's [00:46:00] a, a critical bit of, a bit of, oh, was this what your research was for Dave?
It was. I don't play crap, so don't quiz me on craps. We, we, we don't worry, like we also don't do that. But what we do do is we do troll fairly heavily the casino bars and, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on, hang on. Wha is, what happens is Dave has this thing for casino bars and because he's quite a, you know, a powerful character, we all just go along with it.
And so it's like, you know, it's, it's either we'll have an early night or we'll go out and do something as broadly the, as broadly as a debate, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, Dave, I see why he likes the, he likes the casino bar 'cause the drinks are free usually if you're playing well. Well they ironically, 'cause we don't play, they actually disproportionately they charge expensive.
Yeah, they did. I don't think charge is the cry, the, the right verb. I think Fleecing fleeing us is, is the correct verb to use there. Yeah, I think that's right. Anyway, so where I was going was Venetian. Venetian casino [00:47:00] bars. I think there were, there might be more, and I'm talking about the plateau as well.
Do one, Amanda, have you frequented the casino bars in either the Venetian or the Palato previously? And do you have a preference? Oh gosh, there's one bar. And have I frequented? I, I speak, I have three sessions. I think I speak every day. I speak to customers. I have 20,000 steps throughout the conference.
Daily. Um, yes, at the end of the day I do reward myself by making it through and still being standing straight upright at a bar. I do that. Um, I usually go to one that is closest to where I need to be for hosting a dinner or just attending something in the night. There is one, it, it looks like a, a bird cage.
That's, I just think of it at, I can't think of the name of it, is that there is one right in the last That's in the plateau, isn't it? I think it's in the palazzo. Yes. I think you're right. And it, but it does look like, it just looks like a bird cage when you walk in. That's the one I usually gravitate right towards after my [00:48:00] sessions.
I like Bar Luca in the Pal Plateau. That's quite good. That's how on it flow, isn't it? It is this your research? Are you actually watching the pictures? I know of the different bars. No, I went to, um, I, I couldn't remember the name of Bar Luca, so I had to go and find out. Oh, always professional mate. I'm I doing my research for this show?
No. Yeah. Speechless. Speechless. Exactly. Uh, that's a good, that's a good word. Speechless. Let's just leave that out. Well, I'm, I'm glad all my preparation is landing so Well, you know, this is what, this is what I do for, well, I think we should get into like, what, what is your favorite cocktail at Bar Luca?
Like, that's, that's what, honestly, you're, is it a, an AOL spritz? I could see you Dave with an AOL spritz at the end of the day. I wouldn't turn an AOL spritz down, but I typically go, uh, vodka and soda. Oh. I like, I like quite a bit. Uh, and also an old fashioned bit later on. Because am I two? What? What are yours, Robert?
Go on. So I, I'll do the vodka soda as well, but, uh, my, my [00:49:00] go-to one later on is, unfortunately for me, the Long Island iced tea. Oh no. Don ever goes well as a, as, as a pungent cocktail, uh, has some kick to what's brilliant. Are you a 22-year-old university student here? This is, you turn into one at the end of the night.
Yeah, that's where his head goes. But hands up. Yeah. Yeah. Year old. Middle aged man. They're just very, very tasty. I mean, this, you know, it'll, it'll punch you. Yeah. Yeah. So, Amanda, what, what is your, if you've vodka sodas, what's your vodka of choice in there? We are not sponsored by any vodka company. Just interested.
Uh, you know, I'm really not that picky. I do, there's a US vodka that I like, Tito's. That's usually my, my go-to as well. That's, that's usually Tito's and soda is usually with four limes. I'm pretty particular about my limes. That's a lot of lime four limes A, it's a lot of lime. I like a lot of lime. And then at the end of the night, I'm usually an espresso martini girl, but it has to have liquor.
43 [00:50:00] secret ingredient. I'm telling you all here today, this is a secret ingredient. It's top tips. It's consumer organic. Forget about everything else at knowledge consumer advice 25 IT 43. This is the knowledge. This is the value knowledge, isn't it? This is the life knowledge as well as platform knowledge.
There was this one I once got taught you put quantro in a gin and tonic. Yeah. And, uh, you're just a tablespoon of it type thing. Drop it in and it, it transforms the drink. It's like, you know, little twist, little orange twist on top there. Orange twist. Anyway, it's a whole other podcast, isn't it? A drink.
Well, I think, you know what, so technology, let's go just do, do this for, you're quite good. Yeah, yeah, we can, anyway, um, I do wanna, I do wanna bring us back a little bit and just maybe get some advice. So yeah, if you're an organization, you may or may not have ServiceNow, you might have only deployed it in a certain area, or you might, you know, kind of, let's say you are, you are deployed, you've done quite a successful deployment.
You've [00:51:00] maybe got 30, 40% automation, all of this new tech coming. Maybe just bring us to a close, Amanda, with some tips of how, how you might take your environment forward. Data, data, data, data. We. Especially with our workflow data, fabric product, but also looking at your network of data. All of this is driven upon what your company has already at its fingertips.
So getting your knowledge base in order, making sure you don't have duplicate data across your organization. That cleanup and that. That first look at what is going to train these large models and these AI agents in real time, but also connecting data from your systems and integrations. So I say first look at your, the health of your data across your organization, across your knowledge base, as well as streamlining your workflows, knowing what outcomes you wanna solve across the, the, the enterprise and what problems [00:52:00] that will unlock for your workforce is gonna be critical in getting started, but also creating a really powerful AI agent and AI leverage workflow system in your company
Esmee Go for it. Yeah. So what if the biggest blocker for enterprise transformation is your backlog? I know we've been talking about backlogs for quite some time, I think for years now, and it remains like even a very, very long list or very short list depending on the team and uh, on the environment. But what if we just go towards a zero backlog operating model?
How would that I on whoa, zero backlog. Do we just sort of zero back, sit there with our feet on the desk and not do anything? Well, no. We're entering the era of composable enterprise. This is a usual run. [00:53:00] I've built my career on that. Maybe this should just, I didn't know it was called zero backlog, but now I've got a term for it.
I've got, this is amazing. Well, in the era for the composable enterprise, as defined by Gartner, organizations are designed like modular systems, right? Built for speed, adaptability, continuous reinvention. And at the same time, if you look at holacracy. It challenges traditional hierarchies, replacing rigid roles and roadmaps with fluid, purpose-driven collaboration.
And then there's ai. And if it's not just a tool, it's actually a catalyst. It enables real time decision making, automates delivery, and adapts faster than any human roadmap a roadmap ever could. So why are we still managing work in endless lists and refinements and a lot, a lot, a lot of refinements to get that backlog, right?
So if we kill the backlog, you know, what if teams just operate through life value streams, dynamic, autonomous, and constantly aligned with [00:54:00] real outcomes. So we're not delivering features anymore, we're just delivering value. What would that do to product management? I was wondering, and then Amanda, you've been in product management for quite some years.
Like, you know, you're have senior in that area. What, what would you think if we don't have backlogs anymore? I love the idea. I think that that's been something a product manager's dream has been a zero backlog, but I do think there's always gonna be an organization of work. How do you know what's the most important?
How do you know what outcome it should be? The top or the high, the highest? So I think there's always gonna be an order of prioritization. I do think in any tech company, we love organizing and lists. As we know ServiceNow is built on lists and forms. Um, we, a list is, is a great way to organize in a backlog is a list as well.
But pivoting that to your outcome and having, I think a rigorous [00:55:00] prioritization will help. I, I think it's a dream to get to a zero backlog. You speak to the product Nature's heart in me. I love it. Uh, I think AI is the first and probably the best way to be able to. Achieve that vision. Um, is it a tomorrow vision?
I don't know, but I sure hope. I sure hope so. And I think AI and AI agents helping you accelerate the, the drawdown of your backlog, it could really help us see that vision in the short, in the short, near, near term maybe. Hopefully. No, that will be good though. Yeah. Rob's been working on, you know, the old cowboy trick of, uh, when they are watching the herds and they can go to sleep with their eyes open.
Yes. I think a combination of zero backlog and that trace, I mean, honestly, that's peak, isn't it? I mean, all you need human in the loop. It's just put a clipboard near me. A clipboard again. Yeah, a clip with your printed boarding pass. Yeah, exactly. I'd like that in one end. And you're off to the races. Hey, [00:56:00] no, uh, yeah, no, that would be the perfect, uh, situation.
That would be, yeah. But I think with the zero backlog though, the fear I have is that. If you are constantly aligning to, you've now got to adjust to this value. How are you judging that that value is, and how is the organization agreeing and responding to that requirement? Because you could have a situation where something goes into it, it all happens, but actually it wasn't what the collective needed or wanted.
So how are you judging value and how do you measure that and make sure that work is valuable to create that outcome? So I think there's a, there's a bit in there about, uh, it could generate chaos. Or low value outcomes, if not correctly done. So, I think there is a consciousness that has to be within that that says that we're all doing the right thing.
So maybe it's a measure afterwards. I dunno, a lagging indicator that says you haven't messed it up. But, uh, yeah, that's the fear I have that, uh, skills are short, productivity is [00:57:00] precious. You need to make sure you direct it all correctly. So I think there's a, there's a bit in there for me that says, I like the idea brilliant.
Love it. But the how mm-hmm. You deploy it. Yeah. I think is like, there's a, there's a, there's a, a fair bit in that. Okay. Well said. Rob. I think you brought that to a very nice conclusion. I. And I will say thank you for spending some time with us on this Friday, Amanda, of course. Really exciting announcements this week.
Thank you for sharing them. And, uh, enjoy those Titos and sodas. I will for sure. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Now we end every episode of this podcast by asking our guests what they're excited about doing next. And that could be, you've got a great restaurant booked at the weekend, or it could be something in your professional life, or a little bit of both.
So Amanda, what are you excited about doing next? I'm super excited and looking forward to my family vacation, which is two weeks after knowledge wraps up. Oh, nice. We're heading off to Jamaica for some fun in the sun. Travel keeps me going and work. I absolutely love to travel. Hmm. I [00:58:00] just live for it. So Jamaica in a few weeks is definitely what I'm looking most forward to.
You know, the Caribbean Sea is my, I think it's my, of all of the seas I've been in. Stunning. It's absolutely gorgeous, isn't it? It's, it's, I, it's like the saline level, the temperature, I dunno what it's, yes, but God, it's nice. It gives you no chill when you get into the water. You just ease right in. It just feels like relaxation upon immediate entry.
Yes. Now, uh, Marcel owns an island in the Caribbean, don't you? Marcel? Which one is it again? Stanley Island. Yes. Hey, that's a new one. Maybe you should force them to rename it. Stanley Island. 'cause you do pay for the Department of Education. He was talking about Marcel Island, don't he? Yeah, Mar he was. Why would, why would it name it after Stanley is called Marcel.
I own Bonaire, so That's right. Bon. Yeah. Yeah. He funds the Department of Education though, and as all his supercars parked up there, all that's right. Island. We did a, why did we do this as a remote podcast? We should have all [00:59:00] been in Marcel's Island. He, he's done it from there on a number of occasions, Amanda, of, so we've heard the waves lapping in the background.
We've watched the sunrise, but he never invites us. He makes us stay, you know, under the track. See now, yeah, stay here. And he gets to go and, you know, nce off to Bonaire. We had to have him on mute. The waves are so loud, so we had to have him on mute because we were picking him up on the mics. And that's not even a joke.
Nope. No, no. I'm, I will, I will agree to do this podcast again if we do it from that's silent. Yes. And we should have those terms and conditions, Esme. Yes, you all should. We are just doing it from any old place like fools that we are. Oh, tropical places. Let's get that in there. If you would like to discuss any of the issues on this week's show and how they might impact you and your business, please get in touch with us at Cloud [e-mail].
We're all on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to connect in DM if you have any questions for the show to tackle. And of course, please rate and subscribe to our podcast. It really helps us improve the show. [01:00:00] A huge thanks to Amanda. Our sound an editing Ben and Louis, and our producer Marcel .
Uh yep. And of course to all our listeners. See you in another reality next week.