November 7, 2025 • 31 mins
It’s a milestone moment! Our 200th episode of The DEX Show (and the first ever late one — sorry about that!). To mark the occasion, Nexthink Founder and CEO Pedro Bados returns to reflect on Nexthink’s incredible journey and discuss the company’s next era — from the recent investment by Vista Equity Partners to the accelerating fusion of DEX and AI. Pedro shares his perspective on how AI is reshaping the workplace, Nexthink’s vision for “an IT agent for every employee,” and why he’s optimistic about the future of technology and innovation. A landmark conversation to celebrate our big birthday.
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Download The First Annual Workplace Productivity Report hereÂ
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
For the two hundredth time, change Makers to the two
hundredth time. Hello, Hello, and welcome to this very very
special episode of the Deck Show. I'm Tom McGrath. I'm
joined as ever as ever as ever by Tim Flower.
How are you doing, Tim, Happy two hundredth anniversary.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
You never would have imagined, Tom, that we'd get two
hundred episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
When I first approached you. I bet you know, I said,
do you want to do a podcast? I bet you
didn't think, oh yeah, in two hundred episodes, we'll still
be running.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
And the idea of the podcast has been floating around
for a little while, and it was always kind of this,
would anybody really listen? But it's cool. We got an
audience and the reason to keep doing.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It, and we said in last week's episode, but we
had all this kind of all of these like momentous
anniversary milestones flying about it. Once we had your your
recent big birthday, you know, as you said, as a
zero involved, we actually take your anniversary. We've got a
two hundred episode. And then of course we had this
(01:04):
incredible news about the the new majority stake investor in
Next Thing. These directity partners coming in really changing the
whole nature of the of the Deck sector. And we
thought that what better, guest, what better way to mark
this momentous period in the show's history and Next Thing's
history and the history of Dex and to welcome back
(01:25):
onto the show Next Thing co founder and CEO Pedro
about us our boss. Welcome back to the show, Pedro,
your third or fourth appearance. I think what a time
to have you back on set.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Thank you very much at Tim and Tom and congratulations
two hundred podcast.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
That's incredible.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I remember the first one, you know, and the niche
idea right about the Deck show and all that, and
here we are two hundred and you are true true
celebrities of Dex.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
On top of that, celebrities that's a relative.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Sometimes feel like it. And Petra huge, huge congratulations on
the big big news from Next Thing. Just just a
about a week hold, isn't it in terms of the announcement.
What is the period of time being like to you?
I just would have you did mention to me, it's
a bit like having a baby. The whole process it
resembled it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Yeah, I mean certainly there are news. I don't know
if there are big news. This part of the cycle
of every company. So we are changing shareholders every four
or five years. So we had tremendous shareholders, really great
people that they were with ask for sometimes ten years,
sometimes five years, and they did their they did their job,
(02:41):
and you know, the company grew and we got to
a point which we're going to we want to go to.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
The next step.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
We're going to grow, We're going to accelerate, and we
thought that Vista Partners are the best partners out there
to really take the company to the next level. So
we are really excited. We thought that we were not
ready right now for an IPO. We see the you
know the i PO window and you know, still not
great for tech companies. And we're gonna stay private for
(03:11):
a few more years. We're going to make sure the
management team is fully committed and we are all here,
and yeah, with the right partner, I think they still
will see more acceleration in the in the next thing lascape.
So that's that's overall very good news for everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Phenomenon, and you know, we're going to focus predominantly on
the future of decks, the future of Next Thing in
the in this discussion. But obviously we have a lot
of customers partners Next Thing is tune into this show.
If you had to give them a message about what
this news means for the company of a community to
tech the future of the technology in miniature, what would
that message be.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Look, I mean new investors they invest for different reasons.
In this particular case, their investment is really based on growth,
It's based on innovation, It's based on category leadership, what.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
They want to do.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Uh, you know, with the management team and me personally,
still I'm a very important investor in Next Thing. It's
really to take it to the next level. I think
we are they already fined company, as we will discuss today.
AI is just an accelerator of companies with data. I
think there are some processes in it and and some
(04:22):
things that they're gonna change in the in the years
to common. We believe Next Thing is going to play
a very important role. And I think these investors they
saw the opportunity. Uh you know, it's really interesting because
a lot of people internally the Next Thing they are
telling me, oh, we want to invest more, can we investigate,
you know, alongside these new investors because they see the
(04:42):
opportunity from the customer and partner standpoint. Honestly, Uh, there's
not gonna be a big change when I continue innovating. Uh,
They're gonna be Uh, They're gonna engage with the same
teams that they engage within the past. As I said,
you know, most of the team this is going to
stay here for the next few years or maybe all
(05:02):
the team. So we are really not much changed from
that perspective.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And you just alluded to it, you know, the testament
to how much opportunity people who know people who invest
ce in decks at the moment and just before this
is a springboard really to tim leading us into a
discussion about the future of the technology and the future
of innovation. Here to what extent do you see AI
as having impacted the potentiality around decks as it's perceived
(05:31):
by investors, is perceived by people who kind of try
and measure the future of technology.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Look AI.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
My perspective on AI is AI is a way to
automate more and better and probably quicker many areas right
in our daily lives, especially digital areas with LMS and
all that. But this has happened throughout the years with
the induce straight revolution, with computing with uters, it was
all about automation, and obviously for the first time we
(06:04):
see that we can automate a lot of things. Right
when we can automate or of search and of decide,
we have a coach with chupt which is giving us
the result. We can automate probably service desk. We can
automate probably a customer service.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Right.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
There are things like that that we see really the
potential for automation. When it comes to the XX the
there is a tremendous opportunity because first we are a
data company and secondly we are a company that the
mission is really a data reception between people and technology
and to make things more effectively, to automate how people
(06:42):
they work with digital applications. So obviously there are immediately
there are two opportunities. One is really to democratize dex
and to give it to people that maybe before it
was too difficult for them, like HR, like network, like security.
There are lot of people now, for instance, that they're
(07:02):
in charge of AI adoption in companies that of the
sudden they start using next thing because we put AI
top and they therefore they can really use it. Many
you know, many teams in the past they couldn't use
next thing data or dex data. Now they can use it.
But the second big opportunity or tail tailwind here in
(07:25):
dex and plus AI is really the opportunity to give
an dex agent to every single employee.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
And what we call what we talk about.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Dex agent is more like an IT agent. So imagine
every person in front of a computer has a personal
IT manager sitting next to next to them, which is
able to answer any question about anything that is going
on in any application that they are using, in any
device that they are using.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Therefore, they don't need a the iity department anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Right, they're able to First of all, they're able to
not have problems because these systems that will see them
and they will fix them for their users they noticed them.
But also if there is something they want to ask
or if there is any issue, they can ask this
agent and they can get it fixed right away. And
these are two tremendous opportunities that they are opening up
right now with TEX plus AI.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
So Pedro I like to frame things in kind of
a past, present and future context. So I got a
couple of topics for us to hit on. When I
was I started here ten years ago, back in twenty fifteen.
My first all company meeting was in twenty sixteen. I
think we were in a couple of conference rooms at
the Alpha pamiers. In those on the product was very
(08:39):
much AI based and machine learning, but it felt kind
of hidden underneath the covers as part of the core
of what we did as a product, but it wasn't
really exposed to it and certainly not to employees. But
let's go back even further. Let's go back another ten years,
back to when you were at the EPFL. You fashioned it,
and a lot of people talk about the EPFL as
the MIT of Switzerland. You were studying AI. Many listeners
(09:03):
know how that research evolved into the prototype that became
next thing. I know, it feels like AI is new
to many people in many ways. But what was your
perception of AI at that time, more than twenty years ago,
especially in the terms of how you felt it could
impact what we call the digital workforce? What was AI?
Was your perception of AI twenty plus years ago?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Yeah, it's a very interesting question because back in the
days twenty years ago to AI researchers, we were playing
with other type of technologies. You know, back in the days,
the Asian networks, hidden Markov models, reasoning systems, case based reasoning,
things like that, they were very popular. Neural networks not
(09:48):
so much. And actually neural networks, which is basically the
underlying technology of trasformers, which are the main component of lamps,
they were somehow mysterious. They were trying to mimic a
little bit how the brain works, but obviously computing power
was not there. They were, you know, able to do
(10:11):
some computer vision use cases and things like that, very
primitive type of use cases. But people thought that putting
more intelligence into the way that systems are reasoning was
really the way to go, while we we just realized
with transformers that is not at all the approach.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
The approach is.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Really brute force, you know, to scale with huge amount
of data and a huge amount of uh you know, uh power,
computing power, that's really the way to go. And you know,
in all fairness, transformers there were more a discovery than
really an inventure. Right now, what I expected them to
(10:52):
really behave in the way that they ended up behaving,
and you know, making sense out of you know, prompt
and and all these type of things. So I guess
nobody twenty years ago in the AI community was expecting
that really neural networks, at least the people that they
were in our al app at the PFL where you know,
(11:14):
we're going to get to the point that they are
there today. In the case of next thing, we were
using technologies to model and user behavior. They were more
hidden Markov models to basically model the task that a
person is doing, which is called a hidden model, and
then you have observable states. So basically you say, okay,
(11:35):
I'm now serving the web, I'm right now working on
my emails, I'm now maybe working on a project. These
are your healing states, and based on these hiding states
that the model is trying to figure out, they are
observable observable things that you are doing. Okay, I'm doing
this connection, I'm doing this execution, I'm looking at this screen.
And therefore you are able to model the normal behavior
(11:57):
of people in front of those computers. It's the typical
model that you use, for instance and credit card for detection.
They emulate if the person is on holidays or here
or there, and therefore they're able to predict very different
type of models, but also very useful to understand how
people they use computers and what is normal and abnormal.
(12:18):
So it has changed a lot, and still some of
these concepts they are they at the I would say,
at the base of the platform of next sic and
it's used and it's the way we model data and
solve This is still very very important for us.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So Nextick as a company has evolved tremendously over the
last twenty years. Our product has evolved over twenty years.
Has AI evolved the way you anticipated back then? What
surprised or impressed you the most about AI's recent rise
over the last couple of years, both in general and
in terms of its impact to digital workplace and digital workers.
(12:58):
What's your common tarry on the evolution of AI.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Well, I think, as I said, everybody was surprised with
you know, the first EPT three point zero because you
know two point two point five, we saw this, Oh wow,
this is really a step change, right, this is really
something different from everything that we saw before, and now
(13:26):
that they was predicting that formers with brute force and
at least you know a few years ago it was
kind of a discovery for them, for our of people
around the world, so obviously I was very surprised. Very quickly,
we put a team of people the next thing to
really make sure because we thought that this is going
(13:46):
to change fundamentally the way people they interact with applications.
So they don't need to do a dashboard, they don't
need to do a query. They're going to just talk
to the system and the system is going to be
able to do it. So that's why we were the
first solution actually in DX that was able to release Assist.
And the first version of assist actually was not very
(14:08):
good if you look at the best parts, was actually
pretty bad. The second version was already pretty good, and
now the third version, I think we are eighty percent
and actually they just told me yesterday that actually assists
is able to pass all the certifications that we have
on the website. We're able to actually get ten out
of ten in the MQL coding, so it's really advanced.
(14:30):
So I think we did that. We did a good
job there in mixing decks and AI, but we continue
working a lot on the possibilities. I think again coming
back to our new Agents Park, that we're going to
give to every single employee. We are just trying to understand,
you know, how we're going to make it more personable,
(14:52):
more personalized, with other sources of information we need to
pull to make sure that we're able to solve every
single question that an employee will have in the future.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
So that's that's that's important. We're very excited about it, honestly.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So one thing that science tells us is that evolution
never stops. Right NEXTNIK is now evolving into its next age,
a new and exciting chapter AI. You could also say
that AI maybe is that the birth of the or
the dawn of a new age of AI as it
continues to evolve. Where do you see AI headed in
the future. What's your vision of AI shaping the world
(15:31):
of not only enterprise IT employees, but all employees that
are interacting with the digital workplace. What are things going
to look like for them in the future.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Look, and I'm part of the group of people that
you know, we're I'm quite optimistic about AI. I'm quite
optimistic about the capabilities and the potential of AI. Like
any other technology, there is a bad side. We can,
you know, kind of saggerate this bad side but at
the end of the day is a super power, powerful tool,
(16:01):
you know, which is able to do wonderful things in education,
in healthcare, in obviously in it. You know, that's what
we do at next thing, I'm you know, almost everybody
now with all these AI technologists can really have a
very personalized coach on anything. That's that's incredible. When you know,
(16:26):
we compare where we were twenty years ago to now
that we're able to ask a question about anything and
coming back with a pretty good advice and you know,
pretty good pointers on how to do things. I think
that's that's fantastic. It's much more there's much more goodness
than bad things there. There is certainly a danger in
(16:49):
the future how much we're going to automate. But I
always say the following. I think in every revolution, productivity
brought some sort of prosperity. And you know the companies
that they are using AI today, they are hiring a
lot of people. Next think is you know, getting twenty
thirty percent productivity in the R and D and still
(17:11):
we are hiring a lot of developers.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
We are not eliminating jobs.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Is the opposite, because you have many more ideas and
the number of ideas are really limitless. So the more
you can get productivity, the more you can you can
get new ideas done right. And that's the approach of
many companies really investing in AI. So I'm really positive
about it.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
That's great to hear. So let's bring it all together
with next think as a company and a platform, Decks
as a as an IT discipline and a market a segment,
and it's intersection with AI. There's barely an industry in
the world that we don't expect to be transformed by
AI in some way over the next few years. But
(17:54):
what is distinct for you about des What makes these
two forces of AI and deck especially complimentary? Why can't
you do a digital employee experience capability without AI? Why
do they What's what makes them so necessarily complimentary to
each other.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
I think what has changed fundamentally is if we take
decks digital employee experience and again we go back to
what is it is to really look at the world
from the employee's I it's.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Really is this.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
The reason why Decks was created is because we said, look,
we need to understand how employees are consuming digital services,
how employees they are experiencing all these technologies, what is
hindering their productivity? How we can make them better professionals
with digital applications? All these type of questions, right, So
(18:49):
really the true interception between people and technology. So with AI,
the fact that now we have llms, that they also
can create this bridge between people and technology, right, because
you can ask questions with natural language, which is people,
and they can tap into databases of very technical data
(19:12):
and give answers to that. So this next use, this
link between people and technology is very similar to the
text link. So if you put them together, you can
create fantastic new technologies. Like what I just said, right,
is man the ability to really solve any IT problem
right in a personalized way for every single employee. You
(19:33):
don't need to apprenticate. Why do you even need an
ITSM solution? If this works, right, why do you even
need to call the service desk? Maybe the one percent case,
right is something very exceptional. But these models today they
are able to you know, to solve questions at PhD level.
Of course, they're able to solve questions on an IT
(19:54):
level and digital application level. And I think it's a
tremendous opportunity for for Dismay.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Thinking Pedro about AI transformation company by company, What do
you think is going to separate those companies who thrive
in this new era with those that struggle, with those
that perhaps even't ultimately fail to adapt and grow.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I think, in my opinion, like any other change, we
need to embrace, we need to be open minded. I
think sometimes there is a little bit of skepticism because
they the challenge with AI, like the challenge with any
new technology, is you need to invest for a few
(20:40):
years before you get there. Or and we see a
lot of companies that they're saying, ah, I gave Copilot
to all my employees and I'm not seeing the productivity improvements. Well,
wait a couple of years. Make sure that people they
adopt AI, make sure they understand, you know, they make
their decisions with you know, the power of AI coaching them,
(21:02):
Or get a little bit of time so you know,
AI can be automated with APIs and all that, so
you can really improve processes. I think they're looking for
short term AROI. That's a mistake. There are other companies
that they are looking at AI as an investment for
the next two three years, and I think they're approaching
(21:23):
that in the right way. I'm a little bit worried
about the overregulation. I think there are some countries less
companies that they are over regulating AI before even having AI.
They are worried about the impact of AI. Okay, let's
first have AI. Let's see if there is some danger,
and then then we can't regulate. So you know, these
(21:46):
are some of the mistakes that I'm seeing. I do
think there is also a little bit of AI is here,
and there is a lot of jobs they're going to
be eliminated. Look, the there is auto pilots in planes
that still would and still would have pilots right that
they are able to oversee many of these planes. Somebody
(22:11):
told me the Earthy about radiologists, Right, one of the
first use cases of AI was really about eliminating the
need for radiologists. So you know, AI would be able
to diagnose all these things with computer vision. Well that's
not really true. I mean AI is a tool for
(22:31):
a rodeologists. But still they are the same number of
radiologists in the in the hospital. So I think we
need to be a little bit and there will be
some jobs that it would change, and maybe you know,
jobs that they are more repetitive, more busy work that
probably they are not jobs with a lot of fulfillment
right for those who who would do them. But I
(22:53):
think overall and very optimistic, it would be an excellent
tool to do a job much better.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
And when we think think about the transformation over the
next year or two, in particular at individual companies, it
arguably finds itself in a uniquely powerful influential position. How
should it leaders be approaching this challenge, in this opportunity,
and what principles should they have to help their companies
be as successful as possible?
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, I think, as I said before, I think it's
really important for leaders to understand that they need to
invest and they need to put any investment, any transformation
and investment in three to five years horizon and understanding
really how you know they would transform and their how
(23:46):
their I will we materialize in three to five years
ninety six months? Right, That's one thing. The second really
is maybe the mystifying a little bit AI is really
a great way to automate next right there is you know,
there are factories that they are automating a lot of things, computers,
they were automating a lot of things. So I think
(24:08):
they have to use it as a tool, and they
need to understand where are the processes that they are
very repetitive again, customer service, probably service desk, KI service desks.
They are excellent candidates because they are very repetitive processes,
right and get these maybe quick wins in these processes
(24:28):
that they are great candidates for you know AI. And
then from there they can they can go to the
next level. That's the two things that I'm seeing you
know best leaders do in this area.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
One thing I've heard you talk about a lot down
the years, pedro is is about the importance of like
there being a harmonization between technology and employees, right and
with an emphasis on technology serving the employee, not overwhelming
the employee as a it becomes more powerful, more embedded.
How do we ensure that that balance continues to be
(25:05):
a player and how important is that balance in the
ultimate success of AI transformation in businesses?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I think for me, people and AI are two different things.
I think we need to understand that the motivations of
AI AI AI agents are not workers. Some people they
mix them AI agents. They don't have feelings, they don't
have motivations, they don't have a career dreams.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
They don't have ski in the game.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Autely, it's absolutely no ski in the game for an
AA agent, you know. So obviously they can do things
in processes, they can automate a lot of things, but
it's still humans. We have a lot of SKI in
the game, right. We have emotions, we have creativity, We
are able to link things from one place to another,
(26:00):
to bring up you know, maybe to take risks, and
that's that's a complete different skill. So this balance, I
think it starts by understanding that humans and AI workers
or AI agents as they say today, are two different things,
very different. I think one is really a tool, the
(26:22):
other is really humans, right, which we are at the
core of any business.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
That's a really cool way of putting it. And final
question for you, Pedro, final question about two hundred episodes.
What's the most exciting thing as we head into twenty
twenty six about being next things? CEO? They and I
actually wrote on my question cee io, which is incorrect,
devoted them.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Pedri got demoted. Sorry to tell you.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
There are so many things.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
I mean, I'm really excited about, you know, this new
possibility to give a you know, an IT agent to
every single employee. I mean employees when they have proms today,
their opening tickets waiting for two days. This is the
you know, there are teams that are coming back two
days later, two days, two days later, and they're saying, oh,
(27:17):
I don't have the problem anymore. And and you know this,
this couldn't really cannot continue for for more years. I
think we can really revolutionize and change the game there,
so finally expose all the power of techs to every
single employee. So that's really you know, a mission that
is very close to our hearts. Uh, democratizing decks so
(27:39):
using dex information to many other departments HR, network security.
I think that's something is going to be really big.
I'm always very excited about, you know, working with my
team and obviously everyone inside the company. I will have
the I have the privilege to really have a very
talented team in every single area, including you guys. Now,
(28:04):
I learned a lot from you and and I learned
from I learned a lot a lot from everybody at
next NICK and this is really a true plasure every morning.
So I'm really excited about that as well. So, yeah,
and a lot of innovation also that we are planning
for the next couple of years. The team in Switzerland
actually are arstopable and unestopable in terms of innovation. That's
(28:25):
that's really amazing. And not only in India, right, not
only in those and by the way, also in India
and Spain across the board they are We're seeing all
this innovation, mixing decks, AI feedback from customer is really unbelievable. Now,
the hard job is really to prioritize, you know, some
of these ideas because we want to be really impactful.
(28:46):
So yeah, we we are really excited about the next
three years.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Absolutely, and hopefully we'll showing too, you know. And look,
I just want to say, if the listeners right, this
is I think only episode has been late in those
two hundred days, in those two hundred episodes, so we're
really sorry about that, but we hope you feel it
was worth the wait. And I'm going to say a
very very short Oscar speech here and just thank everybody,
(29:13):
obviously customers and partners for supporting the show, for coming
on the show, every guest, every influencer.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Who's come on.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
We're hugually grateful, everybody who listens to the show, all
the people in the community who support them, people like
Stuart and Danik Gartner. We really really appreciate everybody's support.
Of course, to the show team itself, Catherine Shay, Alan
Drymer in particular, phenomenal producers over so many years, as
well as a reality bite its team Megan, Oreanna, Diana, Sean,
(29:40):
Sam Holsman. I'm sure people remember Sam, and I want
to thank some Next thingers past and present who who
also helped to sort of establish the show, who had
the idea for the show, not least Eba Calderan, Yes,
scenes I Eid, Heather Moses, and of course our guest today, yourself,
Pedro about us. We're so grateful to everybody hoping we
can do another two hundred episodes and it's real. It's
(30:02):
really out pleasure and thanks for coming on, Pedra.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Thank you very much. Big names you just mentioned there,
great unders.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Yeah, a lot of all stars there. I couldn't have
said it any better time. You wrapped it up really well.
And thanks to all the listeners, to the ones that
come up to us at the events and want to
not only talk about decks and talk about Next Thing,
but I've even had listeners come up and want to
talk about the episode where we talked about music, and
we talk about music trends and favorites for twenty minutes.
And it's really great to be able to have this
platform to reach out to the audiences. So thanks for
(30:31):
thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Man. Yeah, great pleasure.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite
podcast player, And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, make
sure to leave a rating of the show. Just tap
the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. If
you'd like to learn more about how next Thing can
help me improve your digital employee experience, head over to
next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
(31:00):
Next time,
Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
For the two hundredth time, change Makers to the two
hundredth time. Hello, Hello, and welcome to this very very
special episode of the Deck Show. I'm Tom McGrath. I'm
joined as ever as ever as ever by Tim Flower.
How are you doing, Tim, Happy two hundredth anniversary.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
You never would have imagined, Tom, that we'd get two
hundred episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
When I first approached you. I bet you know, I said,
do you want to do a podcast? I bet you
didn't think, oh yeah, in two hundred episodes, we'll still
be running.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
And the idea of the podcast has been floating around
for a little while, and it was always kind of this,
would anybody really listen? But it's cool. We got an
audience and the reason to keep doing.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It, and we said in last week's episode, but we
had all this kind of all of these like momentous
anniversary milestones flying about it. Once we had your your
recent big birthday, you know, as you said, as a
zero involved, we actually take your anniversary. We've got a
two hundred episode. And then of course we had this
(01:04):
incredible news about the the new majority stake investor in
Next Thing. These directity partners coming in really changing the
whole nature of the of the Deck sector. And we
thought that what better, guest, what better way to mark
this momentous period in the show's history and Next Thing's
history and the history of Dex and to welcome back
(01:25):
onto the show Next Thing co founder and CEO Pedro
about us our boss. Welcome back to the show, Pedro,
your third or fourth appearance. I think what a time
to have you back on set.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Thank you very much at Tim and Tom and congratulations
two hundred podcast.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
That's incredible.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I remember the first one, you know, and the niche
idea right about the Deck show and all that, and
here we are two hundred and you are true true
celebrities of Dex.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
On top of that, celebrities that's a relative.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Sometimes feel like it. And Petra huge, huge congratulations on
the big big news from Next Thing. Just just a
about a week hold, isn't it in terms of the announcement.
What is the period of time being like to you?
I just would have you did mention to me, it's
a bit like having a baby. The whole process it
resembled it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Yeah, I mean certainly there are news. I don't know
if there are big news. This part of the cycle
of every company. So we are changing shareholders every four
or five years. So we had tremendous shareholders, really great
people that they were with ask for sometimes ten years,
sometimes five years, and they did their they did their job,
(02:41):
and you know, the company grew and we got to
a point which we're going to we want to go to.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
The next step.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
We're going to grow, We're going to accelerate, and we
thought that Vista Partners are the best partners out there
to really take the company to the next level. So
we are really excited. We thought that we were not
ready right now for an IPO. We see the you
know the i PO window and you know, still not
great for tech companies. And we're gonna stay private for
(03:11):
a few more years. We're going to make sure the
management team is fully committed and we are all here,
and yeah, with the right partner, I think they still
will see more acceleration in the in the next thing lascape.
So that's that's overall very good news for everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Phenomenon, and you know, we're going to focus predominantly on
the future of decks, the future of Next Thing in
the in this discussion. But obviously we have a lot
of customers partners Next Thing is tune into this show.
If you had to give them a message about what
this news means for the company of a community to
tech the future of the technology in miniature, what would
that message be.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Look, I mean new investors they invest for different reasons.
In this particular case, their investment is really based on growth,
It's based on innovation, It's based on category leadership, what.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
They want to do.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Uh, you know, with the management team and me personally,
still I'm a very important investor in Next Thing. It's
really to take it to the next level. I think
we are they already fined company, as we will discuss today.
AI is just an accelerator of companies with data. I
think there are some processes in it and and some
(04:22):
things that they're gonna change in the in the years
to common. We believe Next Thing is going to play
a very important role. And I think these investors they
saw the opportunity. Uh you know, it's really interesting because
a lot of people internally the Next Thing they are
telling me, oh, we want to invest more, can we investigate,
you know, alongside these new investors because they see the
(04:42):
opportunity from the customer and partner standpoint. Honestly, Uh, there's
not gonna be a big change when I continue innovating. Uh,
They're gonna be Uh, They're gonna engage with the same
teams that they engage within the past. As I said,
you know, most of the team this is going to
stay here for the next few years or maybe all
(05:02):
the team. So we are really not much changed from
that perspective.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And you just alluded to it, you know, the testament
to how much opportunity people who know people who invest
ce in decks at the moment and just before this
is a springboard really to tim leading us into a
discussion about the future of the technology and the future
of innovation. Here to what extent do you see AI
as having impacted the potentiality around decks as it's perceived
(05:31):
by investors, is perceived by people who kind of try
and measure the future of technology.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Look AI.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
My perspective on AI is AI is a way to
automate more and better and probably quicker many areas right
in our daily lives, especially digital areas with LMS and
all that. But this has happened throughout the years with
the induce straight revolution, with computing with uters, it was
all about automation, and obviously for the first time we
(06:04):
see that we can automate a lot of things. Right
when we can automate or of search and of decide,
we have a coach with chupt which is giving us
the result. We can automate probably service desk. We can
automate probably a customer service.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Right.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
There are things like that that we see really the
potential for automation. When it comes to the XX the
there is a tremendous opportunity because first we are a
data company and secondly we are a company that the
mission is really a data reception between people and technology
and to make things more effectively, to automate how people
(06:42):
they work with digital applications. So obviously there are immediately
there are two opportunities. One is really to democratize dex
and to give it to people that maybe before it
was too difficult for them, like HR, like network, like security.
There are lot of people now, for instance, that they're
(07:02):
in charge of AI adoption in companies that of the
sudden they start using next thing because we put AI
top and they therefore they can really use it. Many
you know, many teams in the past they couldn't use
next thing data or dex data. Now they can use it.
But the second big opportunity or tail tailwind here in
(07:25):
dex and plus AI is really the opportunity to give
an dex agent to every single employee.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
And what we call what we talk about.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Dex agent is more like an IT agent. So imagine
every person in front of a computer has a personal
IT manager sitting next to next to them, which is
able to answer any question about anything that is going
on in any application that they are using, in any
device that they are using.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Therefore, they don't need a the iity department anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Right, they're able to First of all, they're able to
not have problems because these systems that will see them
and they will fix them for their users they noticed them.
But also if there is something they want to ask
or if there is any issue, they can ask this
agent and they can get it fixed right away. And
these are two tremendous opportunities that they are opening up
right now with TEX plus AI.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
So Pedro I like to frame things in kind of
a past, present and future context. So I got a
couple of topics for us to hit on. When I
was I started here ten years ago, back in twenty fifteen.
My first all company meeting was in twenty sixteen. I
think we were in a couple of conference rooms at
the Alpha pamiers. In those on the product was very
(08:39):
much AI based and machine learning, but it felt kind
of hidden underneath the covers as part of the core
of what we did as a product, but it wasn't
really exposed to it and certainly not to employees. But
let's go back even further. Let's go back another ten years,
back to when you were at the EPFL. You fashioned it,
and a lot of people talk about the EPFL as
the MIT of Switzerland. You were studying AI. Many listeners
(09:03):
know how that research evolved into the prototype that became
next thing. I know, it feels like AI is new
to many people in many ways. But what was your
perception of AI at that time, more than twenty years ago,
especially in the terms of how you felt it could
impact what we call the digital workforce? What was AI?
Was your perception of AI twenty plus years ago?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Yeah, it's a very interesting question because back in the
days twenty years ago to AI researchers, we were playing
with other type of technologies. You know, back in the days,
the Asian networks, hidden Markov models, reasoning systems, case based reasoning,
things like that, they were very popular. Neural networks not
(09:48):
so much. And actually neural networks, which is basically the
underlying technology of trasformers, which are the main component of lamps,
they were somehow mysterious. They were trying to mimic a
little bit how the brain works, but obviously computing power
was not there. They were, you know, able to do
(10:11):
some computer vision use cases and things like that, very
primitive type of use cases. But people thought that putting
more intelligence into the way that systems are reasoning was
really the way to go, while we we just realized
with transformers that is not at all the approach.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
The approach is.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Really brute force, you know, to scale with huge amount
of data and a huge amount of uh you know, uh power,
computing power, that's really the way to go. And you know,
in all fairness, transformers there were more a discovery than
really an inventure. Right now, what I expected them to
(10:52):
really behave in the way that they ended up behaving,
and you know, making sense out of you know, prompt
and and all these type of things. So I guess
nobody twenty years ago in the AI community was expecting
that really neural networks, at least the people that they
were in our al app at the PFL where you know,
(11:14):
we're going to get to the point that they are
there today. In the case of next thing, we were
using technologies to model and user behavior. They were more
hidden Markov models to basically model the task that a
person is doing, which is called a hidden model, and
then you have observable states. So basically you say, okay,
(11:35):
I'm now serving the web, I'm right now working on
my emails, I'm now maybe working on a project. These
are your healing states, and based on these hiding states
that the model is trying to figure out, they are
observable observable things that you are doing. Okay, I'm doing
this connection, I'm doing this execution, I'm looking at this screen.
And therefore you are able to model the normal behavior
(11:57):
of people in front of those computers. It's the typical
model that you use, for instance and credit card for detection.
They emulate if the person is on holidays or here
or there, and therefore they're able to predict very different
type of models, but also very useful to understand how
people they use computers and what is normal and abnormal.
(12:18):
So it has changed a lot, and still some of
these concepts they are they at the I would say,
at the base of the platform of next sic and
it's used and it's the way we model data and
solve This is still very very important for us.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So Nextick as a company has evolved tremendously over the
last twenty years. Our product has evolved over twenty years.
Has AI evolved the way you anticipated back then? What
surprised or impressed you the most about AI's recent rise
over the last couple of years, both in general and
in terms of its impact to digital workplace and digital workers.
(12:58):
What's your common tarry on the evolution of AI.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Well, I think, as I said, everybody was surprised with
you know, the first EPT three point zero because you
know two point two point five, we saw this, Oh wow,
this is really a step change, right, this is really
something different from everything that we saw before, and now
(13:26):
that they was predicting that formers with brute force and
at least you know a few years ago it was
kind of a discovery for them, for our of people
around the world, so obviously I was very surprised. Very quickly,
we put a team of people the next thing to
really make sure because we thought that this is going
(13:46):
to change fundamentally the way people they interact with applications.
So they don't need to do a dashboard, they don't
need to do a query. They're going to just talk
to the system and the system is going to be
able to do it. So that's why we were the
first solution actually in DX that was able to release Assist.
And the first version of assist actually was not very
(14:08):
good if you look at the best parts, was actually
pretty bad. The second version was already pretty good, and
now the third version, I think we are eighty percent
and actually they just told me yesterday that actually assists
is able to pass all the certifications that we have
on the website. We're able to actually get ten out
of ten in the MQL coding, so it's really advanced.
(14:30):
So I think we did that. We did a good
job there in mixing decks and AI, but we continue
working a lot on the possibilities. I think again coming
back to our new Agents Park, that we're going to
give to every single employee. We are just trying to understand,
you know, how we're going to make it more personable,
(14:52):
more personalized, with other sources of information we need to
pull to make sure that we're able to solve every
single question that an employee will have in the future.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
So that's that's that's important. We're very excited about it, honestly.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So one thing that science tells us is that evolution
never stops. Right NEXTNIK is now evolving into its next age,
a new and exciting chapter AI. You could also say
that AI maybe is that the birth of the or
the dawn of a new age of AI as it
continues to evolve. Where do you see AI headed in
the future. What's your vision of AI shaping the world
(15:31):
of not only enterprise IT employees, but all employees that
are interacting with the digital workplace. What are things going
to look like for them in the future.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Look, and I'm part of the group of people that
you know, we're I'm quite optimistic about AI. I'm quite
optimistic about the capabilities and the potential of AI. Like
any other technology, there is a bad side. We can,
you know, kind of saggerate this bad side but at
the end of the day is a super power, powerful tool,
(16:01):
you know, which is able to do wonderful things in education,
in healthcare, in obviously in it. You know, that's what
we do at next thing, I'm you know, almost everybody
now with all these AI technologists can really have a
very personalized coach on anything. That's that's incredible. When you know,
(16:26):
we compare where we were twenty years ago to now
that we're able to ask a question about anything and
coming back with a pretty good advice and you know,
pretty good pointers on how to do things. I think
that's that's fantastic. It's much more there's much more goodness
than bad things there. There is certainly a danger in
(16:49):
the future how much we're going to automate. But I
always say the following. I think in every revolution, productivity
brought some sort of prosperity. And you know the companies
that they are using AI today, they are hiring a
lot of people. Next think is you know, getting twenty
thirty percent productivity in the R and D and still
(17:11):
we are hiring a lot of developers.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
We are not eliminating jobs.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Is the opposite, because you have many more ideas and
the number of ideas are really limitless. So the more
you can get productivity, the more you can you can
get new ideas done right. And that's the approach of
many companies really investing in AI. So I'm really positive
about it.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
That's great to hear. So let's bring it all together
with next think as a company and a platform, Decks
as a as an IT discipline and a market a segment,
and it's intersection with AI. There's barely an industry in
the world that we don't expect to be transformed by
AI in some way over the next few years. But
(17:54):
what is distinct for you about des What makes these
two forces of AI and deck especially complimentary? Why can't
you do a digital employee experience capability without AI? Why
do they What's what makes them so necessarily complimentary to
each other.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
I think what has changed fundamentally is if we take
decks digital employee experience and again we go back to
what is it is to really look at the world
from the employee's I it's.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Really is this.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
The reason why Decks was created is because we said, look,
we need to understand how employees are consuming digital services,
how employees they are experiencing all these technologies, what is
hindering their productivity? How we can make them better professionals
with digital applications? All these type of questions, right, So
(18:49):
really the true interception between people and technology. So with AI,
the fact that now we have llms, that they also
can create this bridge between people and technology, right, because
you can ask questions with natural language, which is people,
and they can tap into databases of very technical data
(19:12):
and give answers to that. So this next use, this
link between people and technology is very similar to the
text link. So if you put them together, you can
create fantastic new technologies. Like what I just said, right,
is man the ability to really solve any IT problem
right in a personalized way for every single employee. You
(19:33):
don't need to apprenticate. Why do you even need an
ITSM solution? If this works, right, why do you even
need to call the service desk? Maybe the one percent case,
right is something very exceptional. But these models today they
are able to you know, to solve questions at PhD level.
Of course, they're able to solve questions on an IT
(19:54):
level and digital application level. And I think it's a
tremendous opportunity for for Dismay.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Thinking Pedro about AI transformation company by company, What do
you think is going to separate those companies who thrive
in this new era with those that struggle, with those
that perhaps even't ultimately fail to adapt and grow.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I think, in my opinion, like any other change, we
need to embrace, we need to be open minded. I
think sometimes there is a little bit of skepticism because
they the challenge with AI, like the challenge with any
new technology, is you need to invest for a few
(20:40):
years before you get there. Or and we see a
lot of companies that they're saying, ah, I gave Copilot
to all my employees and I'm not seeing the productivity improvements. Well,
wait a couple of years. Make sure that people they
adopt AI, make sure they understand, you know, they make
their decisions with you know, the power of AI coaching them,
(21:02):
Or get a little bit of time so you know,
AI can be automated with APIs and all that, so
you can really improve processes. I think they're looking for
short term AROI. That's a mistake. There are other companies
that they are looking at AI as an investment for
the next two three years, and I think they're approaching
(21:23):
that in the right way. I'm a little bit worried
about the overregulation. I think there are some countries less
companies that they are over regulating AI before even having AI.
They are worried about the impact of AI. Okay, let's
first have AI. Let's see if there is some danger,
and then then we can't regulate. So you know, these
(21:46):
are some of the mistakes that I'm seeing. I do
think there is also a little bit of AI is here,
and there is a lot of jobs they're going to
be eliminated. Look, the there is auto pilots in planes
that still would and still would have pilots right that
they are able to oversee many of these planes. Somebody
(22:11):
told me the Earthy about radiologists, Right, one of the
first use cases of AI was really about eliminating the
need for radiologists. So you know, AI would be able
to diagnose all these things with computer vision. Well that's
not really true. I mean AI is a tool for
(22:31):
a rodeologists. But still they are the same number of
radiologists in the in the hospital. So I think we
need to be a little bit and there will be
some jobs that it would change, and maybe you know,
jobs that they are more repetitive, more busy work that
probably they are not jobs with a lot of fulfillment
right for those who who would do them. But I
(22:53):
think overall and very optimistic, it would be an excellent
tool to do a job much better.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
And when we think think about the transformation over the
next year or two, in particular at individual companies, it
arguably finds itself in a uniquely powerful influential position. How
should it leaders be approaching this challenge, in this opportunity,
and what principles should they have to help their companies
be as successful as possible?
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, I think, as I said before, I think it's
really important for leaders to understand that they need to
invest and they need to put any investment, any transformation
and investment in three to five years horizon and understanding
really how you know they would transform and their how
(23:46):
their I will we materialize in three to five years
ninety six months? Right, That's one thing. The second really
is maybe the mystifying a little bit AI is really
a great way to automate next right there is you know,
there are factories that they are automating a lot of things, computers,
they were automating a lot of things. So I think
(24:08):
they have to use it as a tool, and they
need to understand where are the processes that they are
very repetitive again, customer service, probably service desk, KI service desks.
They are excellent candidates because they are very repetitive processes,
right and get these maybe quick wins in these processes
(24:28):
that they are great candidates for you know AI. And
then from there they can they can go to the
next level. That's the two things that I'm seeing you
know best leaders do in this area.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
One thing I've heard you talk about a lot down
the years, pedro is is about the importance of like
there being a harmonization between technology and employees, right and
with an emphasis on technology serving the employee, not overwhelming
the employee as a it becomes more powerful, more embedded.
How do we ensure that that balance continues to be
(25:05):
a player and how important is that balance in the
ultimate success of AI transformation in businesses?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I think for me, people and AI are two different things.
I think we need to understand that the motivations of
AI AI AI agents are not workers. Some people they
mix them AI agents. They don't have feelings, they don't
have motivations, they don't have a career dreams.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
They don't have ski in the game.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Autely, it's absolutely no ski in the game for an
AA agent, you know. So obviously they can do things
in processes, they can automate a lot of things, but
it's still humans. We have a lot of SKI in
the game, right. We have emotions, we have creativity, We
are able to link things from one place to another,
(26:00):
to bring up you know, maybe to take risks, and
that's that's a complete different skill. So this balance, I
think it starts by understanding that humans and AI workers
or AI agents as they say today, are two different things,
very different. I think one is really a tool, the
(26:22):
other is really humans, right, which we are at the
core of any business.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
That's a really cool way of putting it. And final
question for you, Pedro, final question about two hundred episodes.
What's the most exciting thing as we head into twenty
twenty six about being next things? CEO? They and I
actually wrote on my question cee io, which is incorrect,
devoted them.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Pedri got demoted. Sorry to tell you.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
There are so many things.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
I mean, I'm really excited about, you know, this new
possibility to give a you know, an IT agent to
every single employee. I mean employees when they have proms today,
their opening tickets waiting for two days. This is the
you know, there are teams that are coming back two
days later, two days, two days later, and they're saying, oh,
(27:17):
I don't have the problem anymore. And and you know this,
this couldn't really cannot continue for for more years. I
think we can really revolutionize and change the game there,
so finally expose all the power of techs to every
single employee. So that's really you know, a mission that
is very close to our hearts. Uh, democratizing decks so
(27:39):
using dex information to many other departments HR, network security.
I think that's something is going to be really big.
I'm always very excited about, you know, working with my
team and obviously everyone inside the company. I will have
the I have the privilege to really have a very
talented team in every single area, including you guys. Now,
(28:04):
I learned a lot from you and and I learned
from I learned a lot a lot from everybody at
next NICK and this is really a true plasure every morning.
So I'm really excited about that as well. So, yeah,
and a lot of innovation also that we are planning
for the next couple of years. The team in Switzerland
actually are arstopable and unestopable in terms of innovation. That's
(28:25):
that's really amazing. And not only in India, right, not
only in those and by the way, also in India
and Spain across the board they are We're seeing all
this innovation, mixing decks, AI feedback from customer is really unbelievable. Now,
the hard job is really to prioritize, you know, some
of these ideas because we want to be really impactful.
(28:46):
So yeah, we we are really excited about the next
three years.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Absolutely, and hopefully we'll showing too, you know. And look,
I just want to say, if the listeners right, this
is I think only episode has been late in those
two hundred days, in those two hundred episodes, so we're
really sorry about that, but we hope you feel it
was worth the wait. And I'm going to say a
very very short Oscar speech here and just thank everybody,
(29:13):
obviously customers and partners for supporting the show, for coming
on the show, every guest, every influencer.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Who's come on.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
We're hugually grateful, everybody who listens to the show, all
the people in the community who support them, people like
Stuart and Danik Gartner. We really really appreciate everybody's support.
Of course, to the show team itself, Catherine Shay, Alan
Drymer in particular, phenomenal producers over so many years, as
well as a reality bite its team Megan, Oreanna, Diana, Sean,
(29:40):
Sam Holsman. I'm sure people remember Sam, and I want
to thank some Next thingers past and present who who
also helped to sort of establish the show, who had
the idea for the show, not least Eba Calderan, Yes,
scenes I Eid, Heather Moses, and of course our guest today, yourself,
Pedro about us. We're so grateful to everybody hoping we
can do another two hundred episodes and it's real. It's
(30:02):
really out pleasure and thanks for coming on, Pedra.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Thank you very much. Big names you just mentioned there,
great unders.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Yeah, a lot of all stars there. I couldn't have
said it any better time. You wrapped it up really well.
And thanks to all the listeners, to the ones that
come up to us at the events and want to
not only talk about decks and talk about Next Thing,
but I've even had listeners come up and want to
talk about the episode where we talked about music, and
we talk about music trends and favorites for twenty minutes.
And it's really great to be able to have this
platform to reach out to the audiences. So thanks for
(30:31):
thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Man. Yeah, great pleasure.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite
podcast player, And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, make
sure to leave a rating of the show. Just tap
the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. If
you'd like to learn more about how next Thing can
help me improve your digital employee experience, head over to
next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
(31:00):
Next time,
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