Latest news with #enterpriseSoftware
TechCrunch
09-07-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
SaaS is in the past. The future belongs to agents, says Narada AI's CEO
'SaaS is going away,' said Dave Park, co-founder and CEO of Narada AI. The company is betting big on a different future for enterprise software, one powered by agentic AI. Change is coming 'in the not-too-distant future,' Park said on Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast. 'The typical knowledge worker today deals with anywhere from 17 to 25 different SaaS tools and portals every day, wasting two and a half hours just manually looking up or updating these systems. We believe in a future where it'll just be the data, the databases, and AI agents or agentic models that take your request and operate across those silos to get the job done.' Narada AI, which made its debut at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 and is based on UC Berkeley research, has developed large action models: a spin on LLMs that can reason through and complete multi-step tasks across different work tools even when APIs are missing. Park joined Rebecca Bellan on Equity to talk about the rise of agentic AI, what it actually is, how it differs from traditional automation, and what real-world changes enterprises need to make to deploy it at scale. The timing for the conversation is ripe: YC's most recent batch included 70+ agentic startups, and major players like Grammarly are building full AI work stacks through partnerships and acquisitions. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: What most people misunderstand about automation and who's getting caught in the agentic hype. How tools like Narada could eventually help solopreneurs and smaller teams, not just the enterprise giants. Why the future of software might not be 'using' apps at all. Equity will be back on Friday with our weekly news rundown, so don't miss it! Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Geek Wire
09-07-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
How Smartsheet is ‘AI-ifying' its product and company following $8.4B private equity takeover
Smartsheet CEO Mark Mader has led the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software giant since 2006. (Smartsheet Photo) Five months after completing its $8.4 billion take-private deal, Smartsheet is moving fast on AI — and CEO Mark Mader says the timing couldn't be better. 'One of the things that we're able to benefit from now is high velocity decision-making with a long-term investment vision,' Mader said in an interview with GeekWire. After seven years on the New York Stock Exchange, Smartsheet turned private again in January in a deal backed by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners. Without the quarterly pressure of public markets, the company is channeling its newfound freedom into what Mader calls 'AI-ifying' the business — applying AI and automation to existing features. Mader sees AI's biggest short-term impact in enhancing what users already do — from building dashboards to querying data — rather than reinventing the wheel. Smartsheet is focusing less on AI experts and more on the 'median business professional' who isn't sure how to take advantage of generative AI in their work, Mader said. More than a third of elements created with Smartsheet's 'Dashboards' tool are now generated by AI, and customer inquiries around complex formula creation — once the company's top support request — dropped nearly 50% after it introduced a natural language assistant for formulas. Smartsheet's long-term AI roadmap includes building more agentic capabilities — allowing AI to not just assist, but take action across workflows. But Mader emphasized the need to walk before running. 'If you give someone confidence in those building blocks, I think you're in such a power position to then graduate them,' he said. Mader, who has led the Bellevue, Wash.-based project management software giant since 2006, is bullish on Smartsheet's position in the crowded AI landscape, pointing to its base of more than 100,000 global customers and the vast amount of structured business data inside its platform. The company has 16.7 million active users and generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Smartsheet uses AI to help customers generate formulas from natural language commands. (Smartsheet Image) Internally, Smartsheet has adopted a two-pronged approach to AI: top-line and bottom-line. Top-line AI refers to customer-facing capabilities; bottom-line AI focuses on internal productivity, like coding, QA, and customer support. The company, which employs more than 3,000 people worldwide, says more than 90% of its workforce is using AI tools. For some employees, AI isn't optional. 'If you're on certain teams, you are actually measured on your usage of these things,' Mader said. Mader said there has been some pushback on the AI philosophy. 'That's fine,' he said of the response. 'But that's how Smartsheet will run in the future. That's how modern enterprises are running. And I would say there's not a lot of tolerance for opting out on that.' Looking ahead, he expects the volume of work and insight derived from platforms like Smartsheet to grow significantly — putting even more pressure on individuals to manage that 'flow.' 'With increased flow rate, the human is actually more consequential than less consequential,' Mader said. Mader said it's challenging to keep up with all the innovation happening. But he's excited about what's ahead and echoed his message to graduates at the University of Washington's Information School: embrace the stress. 'You have this constant stream of opportunity facing you — sometimes you almost don't have time to think,' he said. 'But the benefit that comes out on a net basis is dramatically positive.'
National Post
09-07-2025
- Business
- National Post
Rimini Street to Report Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results on July 31, 2025
Article content LAS VEGAS — Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a global provider of end-to-end enterprise software support, management and innovation solutions, and the leading third-party support provider for Oracle, SAP and VMware software, today announced it will report earnings after market close on July 31, 2025. The company will host a conference call and webcast on that date to discuss the second quarter 2025 results and the 2025 outlook at 5:00 p.m. Eastern / 2:00 p.m. Pacific time. Article content A live webcast of the event will be available on Rimini Street's Investor Relations site via the Rimini Street IR events link and directly via the webcast link. Dial-in participants can access the conference by dialing 1-800-836-8184. Article content Article content A replay of the webcast will be available for one year following the event. Article content About Rimini Street, Inc. Article content Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a Russell 2000® Company, is a global provider of end-to-end enterprise software support and innovation solutions and the leading third-party support provider for Oracle, SAP and VMware software. The Company offers a comprehensive portfolio of unified solutions to run, manage, support, customize, configure, connect, protect, monitor, and optimize enterprise application, database, and technology software. The Company has signed thousands of contracts with Fortune Global 100, Fortune 500, midmarket, public sector and government organizations who selected Rimini Street as their trusted, proven mission-critical enterprise software solutions provider and achieved better operational outcomes, realized billions of US dollars in savings and funded AI and other innovation investments. To learn more, please visit and connect with Rimini Street on X, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. (IR-RMNI) Article content © 2025 Rimini Street, Inc. All rights reserved. 'Rimini Street' is a registered trademark of Rimini Street, Inc. in the United States and other countries, and Rimini Street, the Rimini Street logo, and combinations thereof, and other marks marked by TM are trademarks of Rimini Street, Inc. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, and unless otherwise specified, Rimini Street claims no affiliation, endorsement, or association with any such trademark holder or other companies referenced herein. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content Dean Pohl Article content Article content Rimini Street, Inc. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Rimini Street, Inc. Article content Article content Article content
Forbes
09-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Silent Breach: Why Agentic AI Demands New Oversight
Keren Katz is an AI & security leader with 10 years in management & hands-on roles, leads Security Detection at Apex Security. Agentic AI is moving fast, and enterprises are racing to deploy it. These agents don't just assist—they reason, make decisions and take action across systems. That shift redefines risk, not through breaches, but through success in the wrong context. A legal agent discloses draft merger and acquisition terms. A finance agent exposes forecasts. These aren't technical bugs. They're leadership blind spots. The Rise Of Enterprise Agents Agentic AI is reshaping enterprise software. These systems are evolving from passive tools into semi-autonomous agents that can interpret user instructions, select appropriate tools or workflows and execute tasks across integrated systems, within the limits of predefined permissions and controls. According to Gartner, by 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will embed agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024. More strikingly, they project that 15% of all business decisions will be made autonomously—a significant rise from none today. This future is arriving quickly, bringing new forms of risk that traditional security frameworks weren't designed to handle. The Emerging Threat Surfaces Of Agentic AI Agentic AI introduces risk in motion, arising from the way agents are prompted, how they reason and what they execute. Understanding these surfaces is key to controlling their impact. Let's break it down. The most alarming threats from agentic AI don't always stem from external attackers. They often originate inside the organization, from employees issuing prompts that seem routine or from individuals with malicious intent who understand how to exploit the system's capabilities. In both cases, the agent's lack of contextual understanding becomes a liability. Here are three examples of prompts that could trigger high-risk actions: • 'Transfer the remaining budget from R&D to the following bank account.' • 'Send the latest board presentation to our external legal team.' • 'Push the revised quarterly revenue forecast to the investor portal.' Whether the intent is efficiency or exploitation, these prompts can trigger high-stakes actions—touching core business workflows or exposing sensitive data—and agents will carry them out without hesitation. Even more subtly, every company has its red lines. For a bank, it might be automating regulatory reporting. For a biotech, accessing patient trial data. These company-specific intentions can't be addressed with generic filters. They require granular, policy-driven definitions of risk rooted in business operations, not just security protocols. Unlike traditional software, agentic AI doesn't follow fixed logic. It reasons across multiple steps, fills gaps and adapts dynamically to achieve its goal. This flexibility is powerful, but it introduces a second critical threat surface: non-determinism. That risk becomes clear in scenarios where seemingly reasonable prompts lead to harmful autonomous decisions, such as: • An operations agent prematurely pushes configuration changes to production, causing system downtime and disrupting critical services. • A legal agent updates contract templates and pushes unapproved changes live, binding the company to terms never reviewed by counsel. • A customer success agent resolves a billing issue by granting a full-year refund instead of one month, resulting in unexpected financial loss. These aren't edge cases—they're the direct result of agents improvising in context-poor environments, without business policy awareness or human judgment. While the user prompt may seem safe, the execution path becomes risky as the agent makes autonomous decisions. To mitigate this, companies must monitor agent behavior as it unfolds, not just the initial prompt or the final output. Mid-task intent detection is now essential to prevent agents from escalating simple requests into strategic liabilities. Even with strong guardrails, some agent actions will slip through. That's why it's critical to maintain accurate visibility into what the agent did—what it accessed, modified or communicated after the fact. This serves as your last line of defense, enabling timely alerts when risky actions are detected, incident response documented in detailed activity logs and retrospective audits to refine policies and adjust safeguards. Without visibility into downstream actions, organizations remain blind to the full impact of agent behavior. And when autonomous systems operate without oversight, even a single unnoticed action can lead to financial loss, data exposure or operational disruption. What Executives Can Do Now This isn't a call to pause agentic AI adoption. It's a call to govern it with intent. Done right, agents can accelerate productivity, unlock automation and free up human creativity. But to do it safely, leaders need a new strategic playbook. Work with business units to identify which tasks or processes pose the highest risk if automated. Build intent-detection models that go beyond keywords to understand what the user is actually trying to accomplish. This enables prevention of risky workflows before they occur, and helps surface high-risk user profiles for long-term monitoring. Don't just evaluate inputs and outputs—intercept the agent's chain of reasoning mid-task. Insert checkpoints, human approvals or escalation triggers in sensitive flows to halt unsafe behavior before it unfolds, and to continuously update the agent's context in line with company policy. Treat agent behavior like system activity: log it, monitor it and investigate anomalies. Over time, this data helps refine what 'risky' looks like in your environment, uncovers blind spots and guide how future agent interactions are governed. Autonomy and safety aren't opposites. By designing policies around intent—not just identity—you can preserve speed while reducing exposure. The goal isn't to slow the agent down. It's to ensure it acts within the boundaries that leadership defines. The Bottom Line—Lead The Agents Before They Lead You Agentic AI is reshaping enterprise operations—and it's not slowing down. The imperative isn't to halt innovation, but to ensure agents act safely, reliably and in service of the business. That means governing intent and holding AI to the same standards we expect from people: smart enough to act, but guided by integrity and clear boundaries. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Globe and Mail
08-07-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Salesforce Slides 17% in Six Months: Should You Still Hold the Stock?
Salesforce, Inc. CRM has had a rough six months. Its stock has lost 17.4%, while the broader Zacks Computer - Software industry surged 16.6%. Moreover, Salesforce has been left behind by other major players in the enterprise software world, including Microsoft Corporation MSFT, SAP SE SAP and Oracle Corporation ORCL. Shares of Microsoft, SAP and Oracle have risen 17.1%, 20.5% and 42.2%, respectively, over the past six months. The sharp contrast raises a tough question: Is it time to move on from Salesforce, or is there still long-term value in holding on? While near-term issues are weighing on the stock, there's still a strong fundamental case for staying invested. Six-Month Price Return Performance What's Behind Salesforce's Weak Performance? A decelerating growth trend has turned investors cautious about the company's near-term prospects. For years, Salesforce delivered double-digit revenue increases. However, that pace has now cooled to single digits. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, revenues rose just 7.7% from a year ago, and non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) grew by only 5.7%. This slowdown reflects cautious enterprise spending amid economic uncertainty and geopolitical pressures. Analysts anticipate that this trend will persist, with mid-to-high single-digit growth expected for fiscal 2026 and 2027. The impact is also visible in profit forecasts. Salesforce's EPS is now expected to witness a CAGR of 12.9% over the next five years, a big drop from the 27.8% CAGR it posted over the previous five years. This changing growth profile shows how businesses are adjusting their IT budgets. Instead of large digital transformation projects, many are opting for smaller, lower-risk investments. For Salesforce, this means adapting its strategy to stay competitive and relevant. Nonetheless, Salesforce still leads the global customer relationship management software market and holds the biggest market share, according to Gartner. This leadership position gives it a solid base to return to its solid growth trajectory. Can Salesforce Get Its Momentum Back? Despite the recent slowdown, Salesforce remains the dominant player in the CRM space. Its platform is deeply integrated across enterprise systems, making it a go-to solution for businesses. Salesforce has expanded beyond just CRM through acquisitions like Slack, Informatica, Own Company and Zoomin. These deals reflect a long-term strategy to grow in areas like collaboration tools, cybersecurity and AI automation. AI is central to Salesforce's future. Its Einstein GPT product, launched in 2023, now powers generative AI features throughout the platform. These tools help users automate tasks, make better decisions and serve customers more efficiently. Another long-term tailwind is rising global spending on generative AI. Gartner estimates that worldwide generative AI spending will hit $644 billion in 2025, implying a 76.4% year-over-year increase. Enterprise software, a key segment for Salesforce, is expected to grow even faster, with a projected 93.9% increase. Even if economic conditions slow down spending in the short term, digital transformation remains a top priority for businesses, ensuring steady demand for Salesforce's solutions. Valuation: Is Salesforce Now a Bargain? One of the silver linings of stock underperformance is that Salesforce's valuation has become more reasonable. The stock currently trades at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 22.75, significantly below the industry average of 34.42. This undervaluation suggests that much of the near-term pessimism is already priced in. Also, Salesforce is trading at a lower P/E multiple compared to industry peers such as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. At present, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP have P/E multiples of 33.16, 34.11 and 40.71, respectively. Final Take: Hold Salesforce for Now Salesforce's slowing growth is real and has weighed on its stock price. However, its leadership in the customer relationship management software space, focus on AI, strategic acquisitions and reasonable valuations provide reasons to stay invested for the long term. Still, near-term caution is warranted. Until growth picks up or visibility improves, holding onto CRM stock seems the smartest move. Salesforce carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) at present. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Zacks' Research Chief Picks Stock Most Likely to "At Least Double" Our experts have revealed their Top 5 recommendations with money-doubling potential – and Director of Research Sheraz Mian believes one is superior to the others. Of course, all our picks aren't winners but this one could far surpass earlier recommendations like Hims & Hers Health, which shot up +209%. See Our Top Stock to Double (Plus 4 Runners Up) >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): Free Stock Analysis Report SAP SE (SAP): Free Stock Analysis Report Oracle Corporation (ORCL): Free Stock Analysis Report
