Dangerous generic AI and the CFO - how BlackLine hopes its agentic strategy will add up to a compelling truth for Finance

Thank you Owen Ryan, co-CEO at ERP firm BlackLine, for a timely reminder of a fundamental reality that’s in extreme danger of being drowned out by the noise of the hype cycle. AI is not an end in itself - say it again and again and again! Ryan in fact goes on to make the point:

If you remember, if you're old enough, the BASF commercials [where] they didn't make the product, they made the product better. [Editor's note - the tagline was, 'We don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better'.] The way we thought about AI is, in fact, through the idea of how do we make the BlackLine platform and solutions better, more reliable, more trustworthy for our customers?

With that level of pragmatism striking the right note, BlackLine CTO Jeremy Ung ...