Radical Transparency w/ Allyn Bailey

Let’s be honest: Recruiting has been broken for decades, and most companies have been content to just put a "tech" band-aid on a systemic hemorrhage. But the "tech upgrade" era is dead. We’re officially entering the era of the complete rewrite.

In this episode, Allyn Bailey, Senior Director of Comms at SmartRecruiters, sits down with Chad Sowash to stop pretending that your 2012-era ATS is doing anything other than repelling talent. They’re breaking down why the traditional, siloed database is a relic of the past and how AI-driven ecosystems are finally turning "integration" from a buzzword into a reality.

What’s on the menu?

• The Death of Gatekeeping: Why companies are terrified of transparency—and why their "control" over salary and candidate scores is slipping through their fingers.

• Resumes are Static; Talent is Not: Moving past the "paper" profile to a world where AI agents actually understand skills in real-time.

• Power to the People: AI is finally ending the "Candidate Black Hole." If you aren't giving candidates a roadmap to qualify, you're just giving them a reason to work for your competitor.

Stop clinging to your outdated job descriptions and your "proprietary" secrets. The companies that win will have the best-connected data; the ones that lose will just have a really expensive, empty database.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJy67JLmDRE

VIDEO PART 2 - SMART HIRING

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Chad Sowash: Allyn.

Allyn: Chad.

Chad Sowash: We're back.

Allyn: Again.

Chad Sowash: In Spain.

Allyn: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Just in Mallorca this time, as opposed to Madrid. It's great to be back.

Allyn: Great to have you.

Chad Sowash: Day two. Kind of had a half day yesterday, but it was a big, explosive day one, so it's good to get everybody get their rest and, and get back in. But there was a lot talked about, and for me, I wanna ask you.

Allyn: Yep.

Chad Sowash: Through this acquisition, it seems like you guys have, you, you've always... Every company has its own superpower, right? At least they, they, they feel like they do, which is good. Uh, and SmartRecruiters had its, a different superpower this time last year. And that superpower for me was introspection and understanding that a pivot was necessary, right? I talk about Rebecca's Domino's, uh, moment where she was like, the pizza will feed you, but it's not great, right?

Allyn: Exactly.

Chad Sowash: We can make it better.

Allyn: Yep.

Chad Sowash: So this year, after that, in a flip, big pivot, acquisition, what do you, what do you feel like your superpower is today?

Allyn: I actually think it's very similar to where it was last year. It is understanding the moment we're in, uh, the environment that's around us, umm, and being clear that, uh, one pivot is never going to be enough. We're always going to have to constantly be looking forward and seeing where things are going. You know, Rebecca stood on the stage yesterday, and I think she said something really compelling. If last year we said, umm, the way we understand the ATS is no longer relevant.

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Allyn: Umm, and it really is about recruiting AI. I think this year we firmly stood up on the stage and said, okay, guys, umm, we were a best-of-breed. We are, we are vested in that, we understand that psychology, we understand who our buyer was in that space. But the world has changed dramatically. Now it's about data, and it's about how that data interconnects, umm, and how you can leverage that data across the full lifecycle of the experience. And that means best-of-breed's no longer either relevant or valuable at this point. It is a suite game because it's about making that data connection. I think standing up and saying to an entire organization who has built, you know, for 10 years or more, we have built this company around this idea, umm, that just being in a... You know, just going with, uh, whatever recruiting module was offered to you by your HCM was not the best solution.

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Allyn: Umm, we still viably believe that that is true, umm, but we believe we are the first to walk in the door and say, oh, no, no, no, no, we can do this the right way. We are... We understand that best-of-breed psychology, but we're building it inside and in collaboration in the suite. And that's gonna be the critical differentiator because at the end of the day, that data connection makes all the difference. That's how AI's gonna work.

Chad Sowash: Well, and you're in a different position now because you are going to have access probably to more data than any other suite of companies in the world. So, yes, I mean, that's definitely... There's no question that's a superpower, having access to that data. Umm, but then being able to interconnect with that data isn't always the easiest thing to do. So, we know huge business systems like an SAP or a Workday or UKG or whatever it is, right? They have all these crazy integration points and a lot of times you just can't get the data from one point to the next.

Allyn: Yeah

Chad Sowash: Right? So the data's there, but it doesn't mean you can get to it. How in the hell are you going to get to it? How are you going to integrate to the point where you have access to data and you can start having that business discussion as opposed to just the tiny little recruiting discussion?

Allyn: Yeah. So, umm, that's the key, right? That's the unlock. Umm, right now, in this industry and across multiple industries, uh, the answer is going to be, can you navigate and manage integration well? How you think about integration is going to be the innovation of the future. How we can connect those data sources. Umm, and for us, it was taking a step back and just like we did a year ago before we brought Winston to market and we said, wait a minute, take a deep breath. And instead of just building a bunch of point solutions, let's really understand an AI architecture and how we can build a, uh, framework of agentic AI that's actually going to support the market. We're doing the same thing when we're thinking about integration now. We're saying, wait a minute, integration is not what it used to be. This is not just, umm, a bunch of us with some spreadsheets trying to figure out field mapping, right? That, I mean, I, I've lived through that enough. It's horrible.

Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. It's so bad.

Allyn: Horrible. Nobody wants to do it. It's a very, very painful experience. If we can create, umm, an experience that is almost a consumer-grade experience at the B2B level, to be able to transfer from one system to another, to be able to integrate data successfully, to be able to do that work, leverage AI to drive the integration process, not just to be the output of, if you have integration, then you can have AI components, that is the key. Umm, and it has to feel simple for people. It has to feel easy to execute.

Allyn: It has to feel like it is not, umm, overly time-consuming, umm, and that they can get an early ROI and win off of it. And once we have the first few customers who are starting to do that, we believe everybody's gonna come right along the boat. 'Cause once we can get integrated, right, into that suite system, and we've got those data connectors operating, umm, then it's just a function of making sure we can understand how to use an OpenAI architecture, umm, that allows agents to work with agents and have seamless workflows that can build across multiple places.

Chad Sowash: It feels like, and, and correct me if I'm wrong, it feels like not all point solutions, but many point solutions could die at the altar of the agent. Because an agent, which works behind the system, can actually perform a lot of tasks.

Allyn: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: That these point solutions are, are trying... Have been there for in the past.

Allyn: Exactly.

Chad Sowash: Right? So, what, what gives you kind of like that, that momentum to be able to say, okay, look, we were some... I mean, pretty big point solution, but still point solution recruiting versus the whole business aspect of a suite. How do you switch from that mindset of very large point solution to massive agent distribution model?

Allyn: So, I think there's a couple of things that are happening simultaneously when we think about the architecture of these solutions. So, one of the major reasons, umm, and I can say for myself as a practitioner, umm, in the early years, looking at point solutions, one of the major reasons we went that direction, many companies went that direction, was because the interfaces, the interaction, the UI was just better, easier to use. I could actually get people into the system. Right. So, my biggest concern, umm, when I was running a TA organization, was thinking about how can I get hiring managers into the system to actually fill out their information? How can I get... Actually get them to click over here or to go and operate in this space? And so these point solutions, SmartRecruiters is one of them, umm, came into the door and said, "We can create beautiful, seamless, interesting interfaces that have a user experience that will be compelling and give people the information they need when they need it."

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Allyn: And so that was the foundation of it. What AI, what generative AI, and what agents are really opening up for us is a first moment where I don't have to put anybody in the system anymore. In fact, people are actually starting to do their work, and they're gonna do more and more of their work directly with agents and interfacing with them in their own flow of work, whether it's on Slack or Teams...

Chad Sowash: So you have access to that data.

Allyn: I have access to that data, but I don't have to push everybody into the interface to go act on it. The agent can access that data and then serve it up to me in the place where I'm interacting, right? So, this suddenly changes the paradigm, and it suddenly says, "Okay, it no longer matters how many beautiful interfaces I have or point solutions I bring in place to make my users feel comfortable and understand how to navigate the experience." It's now much more about how I can attach agents into the right data flow, and I can have insight and hopefully get to a point where I can understand the triggers proactively. So, agents know when to serve up information in a very personalized way to drive actions and behaviors right in that flow of work.

Chad Sowash: Or even engage, let's say, for instance, from a, uh, internal mobility standpoint, Winston gets into Slack talking to you about a job that just opened that you are perfectly qualified for. Internal mobility, right? You wanna retain great talent. Great way to do it. And/or connects to the L&D system through, through Slack and says, "Hey, look, there's a new course that's just opened up that's gonna help you fill this gap that you need to be able to get to this, this next piece." The question is, and we've always had the vision of these types of big things, are we finally going to get there? [chuckle] 'Cause we just, we, we, we've been waiting for so long, and we've been hearing these great Steve Jobs-kind of, you know, pitches and visions, but it's just like they've all fallen flat on the point of execution.

Allyn: 100%. I mean, listen, Chad, you and I first got to know each other over almost a decade ago, uh, sitting in Tell and having this conversation saying, "This is ridiculous, the way we are operating in these silos and the information isn't connected to each other." And it's not just about hiring somebody. It's about understanding who they are, how they grow, how they develop, and then navigating through them that full experience of their work. Umm, this has been at the forefront of the biggest challenges that we have had in human capital from just the beginning of time. We are now really able to solve this problem. Two reasons, right? If you can have agents that are able to access data and information, those agents can now translate that and feed it back at the right moment.

Allyn: That's what changes the game. That's why integration is the innovation. Because integration used to be this very static integration component where it was like I'm going to connect, who said this field to this field. It was about pushing data either by triggers or on a very time based basis, right? Agentic AI and AI that is modern. And really looking at these data sets, it's not waiting for a trigger, it's not waiting for, umm, you to push your applicants through from your ATS to your HCM, umm, at 2 and 5 o' clock every afternoon, right?

Chad Sowash: Right, right.

Allyn: It is actually able to access and retrieve data on demand and then organize that data and feed it up to the way you, the way you need it, right? It's the difference between... Again I may be thinking about this way. It's the difference between having an assembly line that was very structured and hit at very particular moments in time. And I had to go from point A to point B to point C to point D and that's the way it operated.

Chad Sowash: Right.

Allyn: And now instead I basically have this entity and I kind of think of it that way, right? That's kind of out there in space. They're saying, oh you need to know X. I'm gonna pop into D, get that information from D. And I also think I need information from part A and I'm gonna pull it together and then feed it out to you and I'm gonna do that instantaneously. It is a... It is from going from a straight line to like an octopus of neurons out there gathering information and simultaneously pushing it out to you.

Chad Sowash: Uh, one thing that we do have to be careful of is where we get that data. Now if we're getting it internal from employee files and where they're obviously they're verified, validated. I think that's a huge superpower of being able to be a part of these big suites of services because they, they have the data and you don't have to go out to a data, uh, farm or data warehouse to try to actually gather that information. Umm, when it comes to that, do you think that candidate, uh, data and being able to validate, verify the information, do you think that's going to be... We've seen obviously with, with Eightfold's issue that uh, the, the lawsuit that's come up. We'll see how that shakes out. But that was literally an enrichment product... Project that went out to the web without the candidates knowledge per se. umm, and it worked outside of the system versus you're talking about inside of a system.

Allyn: Working inside of a system. And not only working inside of a system, but if you're fully transparent with the candidate and showing them what you're seeing, uh, and allowing them to help you enrich that data.

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Allyn: Right? Now this becomes a really... This becomes a two way conversation, right.

Chad Sowash: With the candidate included.

Allyn: The candidate included. Because it's about them for Pete's sake, right? The candidate, the employee, whoever. We're, we're kind of thinking about matching and connecting to the right opportunities and work. Umm, they should have full visibility. Umm, it is no different, right? Than umm, how any of us would want to... I will say it even this way. Wait, let's think about it this way. I'm sure you fly a lot. You've got frequent flyer miles.

Chad Sowash: Yeah. [chuckle]

Allyn: Right? So I have my frequent flyer miles. Umm, on my frequent flyer miles it then tells me at a, at a constant basis how many points I have if I take this flight, how many points am I gonna have. Now I have visibility to that and I make transparently, I make choices based on that, right? I look at it and go, oh, if I take this route over here I could actually get my gold status. And maybe that's really helpful for me. So I may go off and do that. Now that's a really simplistic example. But all of us are very accustomed now to this idea that we should have access to understanding how people, organizations and institutions are translating our behaviors so that we have control of how we want that to play out.

Allyn: Right? Umm, so for an employee or for a candidate, umm, that's about telling them, listen, here's where you're matching and here's why. And maybe you didn't know to tell me that you had X skill or Y skill. The biggest challenge we have had from the beginning of time with hiring is that we have treated this with two static issues. Static job descriptions, static resumes, right? Both being created by people who did not understand each other. Candidates never really understood what we meant by a job.

Chad Sowash: Right.

Allyn: One project manager in one company versus another project manager, another company is completely different versus what a candidate's perspective of what they think a project manager set of skills are, right? So that's already lost in translation. And then the candidate was pushing data in through the resume. Right. Which was basically their idea of how to interpret what you're gonna want to hear, right?

Chad Sowash: Right.

Allyn: And, and it was static. And they would throw it into the fun, into the pot. And so here we have this static job description that all of us know is probably only relevant for about 30 seconds, because by the time somebody's in a job, what we actually need from them is over here, right? And a candidate who put a resume in who may or may not be relevant. They tried their best. I'm not of the opinion that I think people are out there trying to defraud. Right. For the most part, I think they just are trying their best to figure out how can I best represent myself.

Chad Sowash: Sure.

Allyn: To make you understand me. But even once they put in the system, it never gets updated. We never look at it again. So CRMs never worked because we were never... We are always looking at this kind of static thing. You gave, put your CRM, you put your resume in. Two weeks later, it wasn't relevant. Two years later when I go back to reference it, and it never worked, right?

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Allyn: Now imagine in this new world, if I'm able on a constant basis to know, what, what do you know about me? What are you really looking for? How can I ask questions of what that is? How can I better prepare and share with you who I am?

Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah.

Allyn: It changes everything.

Chad Sowash: So at that point, we are actually engaging candidates. And the funny part is we see surveys all the time where job seekers don't wanna talk to, to chatbots. And it's like, I'm gonna call bullshit on that because we've thrown them into a black hole for years, for decades. Which would they rather have? Be thrown into a black hole with no transparency whatsoever, or have chatbots get a hold of them and say, "Hey, look, we, we see some gaps here. We wanna see if you can actually help us fill them." I think it's, I think it's the latter. I think, you know, whether it's, uh, a human being or a chatbot, the, the ability to actually engage candidates, we haven't done. We threw a job out, that was the most engagement they got, unless they got an interview. [laughter]

Allyn: Right. And then we may ever talk to them again.

Chad Sowash: Exactly.

Allyn: Right?

Chad Sowash: Exactly.

Allyn: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Umm, but when, when you're talking about the, the aspect of transparency, and you're an employer, you're at Intel, you've worked at some pretty big, pretty big, pretty big brands. Umm, a lot of those companies don't wanna be transparent because there's risk there. If you're a 65, and I see you as a 65, which on the back end, in many systems, you could, but on the front end, you didn't show the candidate that, right? Umm, they're afraid that that might open them up to risk. So it's, it's kind of like this balance of they want transparency, we wanna give them transparency, but where does the, the risk fall?

Allyn: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I, so, it's a great question, and I'm pausing because I have two answers in my head, right? Umm, my first answer is, is that, uh, in, in all honesty, the, the risk to the company is a bullshit issue, right?

Chad Sowash: That's, that's the perfect answer. Yes. [laughter]

Allyn: I'm sorry. It absolutely is.

Chad Sowash: It is, but that's what they will tell you.

Allyn: They... Of course they will. They, these are the same, these are the same companies I worked for as well, who would tell me, "I can't get back to a candidate and give them feedback on the interview because that put me in legal jeopardy, because they can argue about my feedback." Well, sure they can, but you're not in legal jeopardy. You know, you, you just have to not make it personal, right? You have to stick to the facts. [0:19:04.3] ____.

Chad Sowash: Yeah. Here are the requirements. You didn't meet these.

Allyn: Right. You know, umm, during the interview, we asked you a question about X. We interpreted your response as this, and so it didn't match, right? Or it didn't fit what we needed at this particular time. Very different from going in and saying, "Well, we just didn't think you had the right vibe."

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Allyn: Right. So that's about just being smarter about how we answer, how we respond, umm, and how we do that. I think that is just parlaying itself into this issue about, "Well, we can't show them," right? Listen, what we're, like, two years in now to the first, uh, pay transparency pushes, umm, that have been out there and lays up out there. Companies, uh, were petrified. "What, what would do that one? What would happen?" People will make decisions. You're gonna have to make choices and decisions as a company. We have played this game as a very one-sided game, a game where the company held all the power.

Chad Sowash: And that's the way they like it. [laughter]

Allyn: Of course they do. The challenge is it's no longer going to work, umm, because there's not only an expectation of transparency, fluidity, and information that's going back and forth. It's not just happening in the workforce. It's happening in how we interact with consumer goods. It's happening in how we interact with our own social media, right? Our minds, the way in which we process information, has changed. And so our expectation for what we're going to engage with and how we're going to participate in that has dramatically changed as well. And companies that don't keep up with that are gonna be in a really sore spot because people just won't play, right? I think that, that is the thing there. So my answer is, I don't really think it's an issue. I think we pretended it was an issue. It's all about control and power, and we're going to have to step back a little bit, umm, and change the game.

Chad Sowash: Yeah. Well, and, and I also think that many companies, once they started putting salary on jobs, started to see that, first and foremost, they got more relevant candidates because they had so many candidates that were applying for a job that, that was either, that was too low, it wasn't gonna, it wasn't gonna fit their needs. This was another filtering mechanism through transparency, of all things, to make the process just better for everybody.

Allyn: Yeah. 100, 100, I think that is a classic example that, you know, where on one hand, we are complaining about, uh, over-volume on... Uh, too much volume on our job wrecks, irrelevant people who are applying, people who are being fraudulent in their responses, which they're not, right? But all of that is based on this idea that we're trying to control a system and it's like a process and we have, you know, we have to figure out how many people it's gonna take us to process and to manage all these people, et cetera. And we're creating the problem ourselves, right? We learned it through pay transparency. When we are clear, when we share with people, uh, what we're really looking for, people will opt in and opt out based on that.

Allyn: And if they're really interested in your job, if they look at it and go, "No, no, no, no, I really want to be the VP of product marketing," right? And, "No, I've never done any product marketing in my life," right? What an amazing thing to be able to look at it and go, "Look at my resume, look at what I'm doing today, ask me a few questions through a chatbot, et cetera, and you're gonna tell me I'm a 32% score." And then, if we're really smart because we're connecting the data appropriately, we can turn around and say, "And if you wanna be a 70, an 80, a 90%, here are the skills that you're gonna need." Oh, I now have a roadmap I can follow. I can look at it and go, "I wasn't qualified for this, but I could be, and here's what I would need to go and do it."

Allyn: Internally, that's hugely powerful. We talk about workforce planning all the time. We're sitting here talking about, umm, transitioning people into new roles in the new era of AI and they're gonna have to take on new skills and new capabilities, but we're still in the back ages mapping skills on a spreadsheet and arguing about whether one department's perspective of what executive assistant is and what they do and another department's is the same. And at the end of the day, candidates are in the middle, employees are in the middle going, "But I just want that over there. Help me understand what that is. Are you going to need that tomorrow? What does that look like tomorrow?" Transparency is the answer. It gets us there.

Chad Sowash: Yeah, I agree. So, I was asking about superpowers on the front end. On the back end, I'm gonna tell you what I think your, your superpower is. Umm, it was the acquisition. Uh, being now included in a, I think it's... Well, it's a 36, I think 38 billion dollar organization.

Allyn: Yeah, yeah. I want to say it's like the seventh largest company in the world.

Chad Sowash: Yeah.

Allyn: Like, yeah. The busi... The world's businesses do run on SAP.

Chad Sowash: Well, the portfolio now available to you. That, I think the, the thing that we've seen over the years, umm, which is going to be the, the obstacle, which I'm sure you guys all have your, your eyes open to, is that they, they know who they are, right? They know who they are. So therefore, you've got to earn the trust to be able to get into those portfolios. What, what have you done thus far? Obviously, you know, acquisition to a company that large, it, it's big because of the type of tech that they're buying, but how do you earn the trust of that organization so that you can get full, not just transparency into the organization, but full cooperation from a much larger organization that could literally balloon SmartRecruiters very quickly?

Allyn: You wanna know what's interesting? We just had a whole conversation about transparency and how it changes the way in which candidates and employers operate together. Uh, we've approached this acquisition with our SAP partners very much from the same lens. And by the way, I think that shook them a little bit, uh, in a good way. Umm, we are walking in fully transparently and saying, "This is what we believe the vision and the mission is. Here are the things we can bring to the table. We need your help." umm, I think a lot of times acquisitions are about, uh, you have a product, you maybe have some people, uh, you have some something we want, umm, and so we're gonna go and... You know, we're gonna go buy you. We're gonna buy you and put you into our...

Allyn: And then we're going to envelop you and assimilate you into our, into our business. Uh, we knew, in fact, during the acquisition there were many conversations about this, umm, that SAP leadership came to us and said, uh, all those things, "You have a great product, you have great people, we think there's some, some really interesting solutions we can do in this space, but we would like you to come in differently. We would like you to come in, uh, with exactly who you are. Transparent, a little aggressive, uh, bold where we need to be bold, umm, and, uh, kind." And I think all those things go together and kind is just as, just an equal part of that.

Allyn: We, we have very transparent conversations with that team and sit down and say, "We can do this. We can't do this. Let's collaborate together and solve a problem." Uh, we're not spending, uh, the next year and a half to two years to figure out how to connect together and work together. We're going in fast and hard and putting our teams and expecting everybody on our teams to know who their counterparts over on, on the other side and to be in conversation with them. Don't wait until the legal, uh, LEC, whatever that thing is, is done. Do it now, get in the conversations and it's made all the difference. Umm, we get on the phone, Rebecca gets on the phone. Umm, on a daily basis she will call salespeople on their side and salespeople on our side.

Allyn: We make sure that our product people know each other and having conversations. We brought 150 of what we're now calling SAP Smartians. After this week, they're gonna be full on smartians. We said, listen, you've been building in the SAP world. We think in order for us to build successfully, instead of us being two camps, SAP SuccessFactors engineers and SmartRecruiters engineers, we need to be one team. Come join us. SAP trusted us and said, great.

Chad Sowash: 150.

Allyn: 150.

Chad Sowash: Wow.

Allyn: They... And they're sitting here today. For many of them, even on their end, this is the first time they've even met each other. And we're putting them in a room together with our own engineers and they are solving problems together and everybody is on an equal footing. There's no answer. There's no place where we're sitting there saying, you have the right answer. I have the... I have the wrong answer. Or vice versa. Umm, constructive confrontations there. But at the end of the day, we're solving problems together. Really clear, direct vision, one objective, one goal. We all know what we have to walk out of this year with, so.

Chad Sowash: So last year at this time, at the Domino's moment, that was a big momentum piece.

Allyn: Yep.

Chad Sowash: SAP acquisition. Another grande, uh, momentum piece.

Allyn: Yeah.

Chad Sowash: What's the next one? What's the next one?

Allyn: Integration is the innovation, my friend. I think.

Chad Sowash: Say more.

Allyn: I think what people are not going to fully understand till it's here is how sexy really good iteration is when we are able to...

Chad Sowash: Because it sucked for so long. [laughter]

Allyn: It sucked for so long. It's like, I don't wanna do that. That's horrible.

Chad Sowash: What's gonna make us wanna do it?

Allyn: It... When it is as simple and as easy and interesting to do as we... Do you have an iPhone?

Chad Sowash: Uh, no, I have Android.

Allyn: You have Android? Well, I can't help you. Okay. For those of us in the rest of the world who have an iPhone, right? There was that moment where we would have to go buy a new iPhone, right? And you'd go buy a new iPhone, you go buy a new Android. And you have to transfer all your data. I have to re-log into all my apps. I gotta download shit. Like, it's like, I want the new one because the camera's really good, but this is gonna be a pain. I don't wanna do it. And then suddenly, without anybody really noticing, about a year or so ago, they changed that dynamic completely. And suddenly I bought my new phone and I just stuck to them and they... I didn't have to connect. I just had them touch each other, be somewhat near each other. And a little button popped up and said, would you like me to transfer all. Yes. And I clicked a button and I had my new phone fully operational. With the... With all the things the way I like them to work. Working on it. That is sexy integration.

Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. [0:29:54.9] ____ it's quick and it's easy.

[overlapping conversation]

Allyn: Right? Now [0:29:55.7] ____, it's quick. It's quick...

Chad Sowash: Which has never been integration before.

Allyn: It's easy.

Chad Sowash: Yes.

Allyn: And it's intelligent. And it's supporting me. It's helping me make decisions.

Chad Sowash: So are we saying that agents are gonna be doing our integrations? [0:30:09.8] ____.

Allyn: Uh, 100%.

Chad Sowash: Okay.

Allyn: What I'm saying is we get to a place and it becomes sexy because I'm able to open up a window and say, I wanna integrate, and I click a button and it says, I'm reading all your workflows. Here are the ones that we suggest you move over and you should optimize.

Chad Sowash: Right.

Allyn: Here's why. And you look at it for a second, you go, wait a minute. That would have taken me three months of work, right? And a whole bunch of face to faces where we all argued with each other about which thing we were gonna do.

Chad Sowash: Right.

Allyn: And you're telling me in 30 seconds I can push a button because AI is gonna help me understand what I've done, what's possible in the new system and help me transfer those integrations over and it will work. Yeah.

Chad Sowash: Well, uh, kid, you heard it here first. Uh, Allyn making interview scheduling sexy because we don't have to do it. And now integrations.

Allyn: Integration's sexy, dude.

[laughter]

Allyn: It's gonna be the coolest thing. And it is the, it is the core. Because once you do that, just like we started this conversation with, then the data flows. It works, right? Now I can make all this operate. I remember sitting in a room. It was funny. We were just talking about Athena Carp. Yeah. And I remember sitting in a room when I was at Intel and we were, uh, Tyler Weeks and I were having a conversation with her and she was trying to explain to us the concept of a data cloud, right? Umm, and we were not that both Tyler and I were like, "That sounds voodoo shit." Right? Umm, but that wasn't that many years ago. They're five or six years ago.

Allyn: Umm, and that was when we were first starting to understand this idea that if you could have a way for data to live someplace and not have to worry about structuring and organizing it, but instead allow it to live there and then have a thing come in and be able to extract from it, understand what's in there and extract from it what it needs to be able to move forward, that would be amazing. We're like, "Ah, that'd be fabulous. We would love to have that." Well, at the time it sounded like this really cool idea, but what was missing was the agents. The agents are that entity, that thing that can go inside that data infrastructure and they can pull it out. And how does it do that? It does that by having a really tight understanding of the integration. And it's not about field-to-field anymore. It's about understanding how to access information and how to pull it back out again. It's a different paradigm altogether.

Chad Sowash: Yeah, I think the, the transformation of information was literally just cleaning up the shit that was in there in the first place. Being able to do that in a smart agent-like way, uh, would be magic.

Allyn: Right. I mean, who does not want to have to never again sit there and try and figure out why data wouldn't cross over? Because in one place we were talking about Site B and the other place we called it London. And we're like, "Crap. Get these two things to connect." And then we gotta figure out where they all are and map them together. Agents can do that in moments.

Chad Sowash: Deep breath. Sexy integrations, Allyn. Thanks for sitting down. It was... It's been fun. I can't wait for more. And it's...

Allyn: You're welcome. It's been fun. Oh, it's gonna be more. Come on. Can you believe that view? I would just, the sun is out today and it looks glorious out there.

Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.