Jon Knisley

🚨 RPA is dying. Long live Agentic Process Automation (APA). Traditional RPA was a breakthrough...but it’s showing its age. Hard-coded scripts, brittle workflows, limited adaptability, and fixed-capacity contracts are no match for today’s dynamic business needs. Enter Agentic Process Automation (APA) - a new wave of intelligent automation powered by interoperable agents. With emerging interoperability standards like Agent2Agent and MCP (Model Context Protocol), agents can collaborate, coordinate, and scale across systems with unprecedented flexibility. 🚫 We’re not just automating screens anymore. ✅ We’re orchestrating intelligent ecosystems. #APA #Agentsourcing #IntelligentAutomation #FutureOfWork

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We've unveiled our vibe coding assistant as apart of our new Pega Blueprint update. 🎉 Now teams can design workflows conversationally while maintaining enterprise-level governance and reliability. 🧠 Read more about it in Mi3: https://lnkd.in/emSYTn5S

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Salesforce aquisition of Informatica for $8B isn’t just a headline, it’s a signal. Congratulations Amit Walia and the whole team at Informatica. It reinforces the fact that no AI first transformation succeeds without a solid data foundation. More importantly, no data fabric strategy is complete without a concrete MDM component. MDM (Master Data Management), CDPs (Customer Data Platforms), entity resolution, call it what you will, remains the laborious, most painful lift in any organization. It receives little to no love, yet it’s the most critical. That’s what makes data debt so real. In my own journey as a CDO at a fortune 10 firm and now as an advisor to some of the most successful CDOs through my advisory practice, it’s clear, CDAOs and CDOs inherit this perpetual debt. Whether its business priorities overlooking foundational needs, or the need of shiny initiatives (for right reasons), or in some cases due to lack of voice (cases where CDOs who're home grown and share an archaic vision, opposed to change) the result is the same, foundational data management is ignored and service industry struggles with not having high quality, high fidelity foundational data unlike tech organizations where foundation data is of very high importance. DIY MDM approaches rarely succeed, without a fully automated, scalable SaaS product, that’s where the battle is lost, dead on arrival. As data anatomy rapidly evolves, DIY strategies fall behind. This gap is widening, especially in a high GRC onerous environment (Governance, Regulatory Risk, Compliance) industries like health care, biotech, financials and investment banking. When that happens, ROI on data efforts collapses, and data unification becomes more complex and unresolved, exacerbating the core issue. Everyone wants to launch AI, build shiny products, and scale commercialization, but if your foundational data is broken, your train is running on fractured rails. It’s data hygiene that determines the probabilistic success of product outcomes. In hindsight it's to be seen if Salesforce’s move is defensive play really, but this seems more of a BUY Vs BUILD conundrum, like some of their prior acquisitions which they could never solve for and rather done to deepen stickiness and defend its client retention share. At this juncture, it's interesting to see what the next move will be for the rest of the Data and AI players, especially with so few data unification providers in the market. Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, Palantir, and others your move. Will it be defensive or offensive? While I believe Palantir’s ontology puts them ahead of the curve and removes the need for external data unification tools, the others may not have that luxury. The race for clean, governed, AI-ready data is no longer a technical issue, it’s a board-level agenda. Excited to see what this sets in motion across the rest of the industry. #DATA #CDO #CDAO #Informatica #AgenticAI

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It’s the final Channel Up Podcast episode of 2025! I’m wrapping up the 2025 podcast season with Velosio live at Convergence | AI + ERP Conference, and this conversation perfectly captures many of the themes we explored all year — practical AI, real outcomes, and what’s coming next. Here’s what we covered: How Velosio is using AI agents behind the scenes to improve the customer experience Why giving consultants time back leads to better outcomes for customers How security and trust stay front and center with AI adoption What’s coming in 2026, including Velosio’s agent marketplace “AI isn’t just hype — it’s already improving the customer experience by giving consultants time back to focus on real business value.” — Ashley Fogler, Velosio If you’ve been following the podcast this year, thank you. If you’re new, this is a great episode to start with. Here’s to closing out 2025 strong and getting ready for what’s ahead in 2026. https://lnkd.in/ePJkQYxu

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🔥 **AI Agents are no longer “coming soon” — they’re paying off *today*.**  A growing number of early adopters are seeing **real ROI** from autonomous AI agents — from workflow automation to customer ops — while the rest of the market debates the hype.  This WSJ piece highlights what’s working *right now* and why the “wait-and-see” crowd might soon regret it.  Key takeaway:   > **First movers aren’t just experimenting — they’re building sustainable advantages.**  Whether you’re leading the charge or still evaluating, one thing’s clear:   **The agent era has begun.**  Who else is seeing returns from AI agents in your org? Drop your wins (or skepticism) below 👇  https://lnkd.in/eqVkkeaR  

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Founders building vertical enterprise software get contradictory advice. Someone says: “Avoid concentration risk.” Another says: “Come back when you have a few tier one logos.” A long time ago at Pega, we debated breadth versus depth and ultimately made it explicit. We worked from a target account list, and if a prospect did not fit the size and complexity profile, we qualified them out. That discipline simplified product decisions, sales motions, and services delivery. For founders in these spaces, the most strategic path is often "narrow and deep" dominating the "Power Buyers" when they control the vast majority of industry spend. There are many many examples, but some public ones that come to mind: Veeva Systems (life sciences) - Early on, Veeva’s top 10 customers were more than half of revenue. In fiscal years 2013 to 2015, the top 10 represented 54% to 56% of revenue. Over time, Veeva expanded inside those majors and broadened the base. In fiscal years 2023 to 2025, the top 10 represented 28% to 29% of revenue. Guidewire (P&C insurance) In its pre IPO period, Guidewire disclosed that the ten largest customers represented 41% to 48% of revenue across fiscal years 2009 to 2011, and 51% for the three months ended October 31, 2011. This path works when: * The Market is Top-Heavy: A small group of "Power Buyers" control 50%+ of the total addressable budget. * The "Library Effect" is Real: Every project you do for a major allows you to build reusable assets that make the next program significantly faster. * Sales Cycles are Compressible: By establishing yourself as the standard for the majors, you can drop sales cycles as you move from discovery into expansion. In a Horizontal Market, high concentration is a red flag 🚩 - it means you haven't achieved broad distribution. In a Top-Heavy Market, high concentration is a Green Flag 💰 - it means you have captured the "Power Buyers" who dictate the industry's direction. #EnterpriseSaaS #VerticalSaaS #Fintech #Insurtech #LifeSciences #healthcare

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We listened. When Apex Consulting Group launched the first version of the APEX AI Co-Pilot for Smartsheet, the feedback was clear: powerful concept, but the experience needed to live inside the sheet - not outside of it. So we went back to work. The new APEX AI Co-Pilot now lives right where you already are. Open any Smartsheet, and you instantly get: - AI Sheet Summary — a quick, intelligent read of your data the moment you open a sheet. Risks, anomalies, workload gaps — surfaced automatically, no prompting required. - Workflow Tools — copy automation workflows from a master template sheet into any client sheet in seconds. No more manually rebuilding the same automations across 50+ workspaces. This is built specifically for Smartsheet power users and consultants managing large, complex portfolios. If you're running 10, 50, or 100+ workspaces — this changes how you work. We're opening up a small beta group now. DM me "COPILOT" if you want early access. #automation #ai #smartsheet #projectmanagement

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 Salesforce to acquire Informatica in a landmark $8B deal - a strategic move to elevate its AI and data infrastructure. This acquisition brings together Informatica’s enterprise-grade data management with Salesforce’s Agentforce AI and Data Cloud. The goal is to build the most complete, agent-ready data platform, empowering smarter, scalable decision-making across industries. The deal is set to close in early FY2027, marking a major step in Salesforce’s AI-driven growth strategy.

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It's been incredible to be able to survey Propel's >5 million SNAP households on questions about client experience I've *always* wanted to answer. One big one right here: for a given state, what % of clients said that state's online self service portal was "very easy" to use. Ranged all the way from 32% to 69%. (And honestly I imagine both sides of this distribution present a surprise to some fellow SNAP wonks reading this!)

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