Tableau Conference 25 Opening Keynote First Takeaways from The Crunch

Analysts and fellow hosts of The Crunch on the PPN, Rebecca Wettemann and David Smith, are joined by Brent Leary for a Crunch watch party for the Tableau Conference 25 opening keynote. And after watching the hour-plus event, the crew shares what they liked and what they would've liked to hear.

Will Tariffs and Trade Wars Disrupt AI in the Enterprise?

The only thing that has interrupted the non-stop AI talk has been tariffs and global trade war discussions. But can this do more than disrupt all the AI talk? Industry heavyweights Nicole France, Esteban Kolsky, Jon Reed, and Bob Stutz joined Brent Leary to spend a special few good minutes digging in a bit on how all the tariff/trade war talk could potentially effect AI's impact on the industry and its adoption in the enterprise.

ServiceNow Doubles Down on Intentions to Become a Big-Time CRM Player

ServiceNow's acquisitions of Moveworks and Logik AI reaffirm just how serious it is about being a leader in the agentic era of CRM. But what else does the company need to do for that to really happen?

How Generative and Agentic AIs Work Together for Content and CX Orchestration

Coming on the heels of this year's Adobe Summit, the CRM Playaz were joined by Daniel Sheinberg, senior director of product management at Adobe, to discuss how new offerings like Agent Orchestrator and Adobe Brand Concierge, along with updates to Gen Studio and integrations with Workfront and Frame.io, are transforming the content supply chain and shifting customer experience management toward customer experience orchestration.

Talking My Way Through Building an Agentforce AI Agent in Less Than 10 Minutes

Kareem Salman, distinguished solution engineer at Salesforce, spends a few good minutes with Brent at #TDX25 designing and building an AgentForce AI agent by having a verbal conversation with AI.

Brad Birnbaum of Kustomer: AI Will Lead the Move from Seat-Based to Conversation-Based Pricing

The traditional subscription model, dominant for decades in enterprise software, is being challenged by work-based pricing, offering greater flexibility and predictability for customers. In customer service, conversations are emerging as the primary unit of work for pricing, according to Kustomer CEO Brad Birnbaum.

Customers Want AgentForce Agents Interacting with Google DialogFlow

During Salesforce TDX, Nick Johnston, senior vice president of strategic partnerships and business development at Salesforce, gave me a few good minutes to provide some detail on how the recent partnership announcement with Google will help customer service reps provide a more seamless experience when taking handoffs from AI agents.

Remembering Marshall Lager

Family, coworkers, colleagues, and friends remember Marshall Lager who passed away Feb. 12.

Will We Need Big-Footprint CRM in 5 Years or Will Agents Follow Us Around Wherever We Work?

Jeff Rosenthal, head of CRM product strategy and go-to-market for North America at monday.com, discusses how the company's approach to integrating CRM into its platform has led to more than 27,000 CRM customers in two years and which AI will have the bigger impact on enterprise applications, generative or agentic.

Don Schuerman of Pega: LLMs + Agentic AI + Workflow Orchestration Bring Reliability and Predictability

Pega's Chief Technology Officer Don Schuerman discusses how its newest tool, Pega Agent Experience, enables any workflow to be transformed into an agent-driven experience while reducing the reliance on prompt engineering, which can yield inconsistent results.

David Roberts of SugarCRM: Mechanical Strategy, Contextual Intelligence and Pragmatism Key to Bringing AI to Sellers

SugarCRM's new CEO David Roberts tells why he joined the company as CEO, why he describes himself as a mechanical strategist, and how the company will help customers benefit the most from AI.

Colin Fleming of ServiceNow: We are a CRM Company in the Age of Agentic AI

ServiceNow Chief Marketing Officer Colin Fleming shares why the company is rebranding itself as a CRM company in the midst of the rapid and significant impact that agentic AI is having on the industry. He also shares a glimpse into how the focus on strategic partnerships with companies like NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Genesys assists when something like DeepSeek happens.

Sridhar Vembu on Becoming Zoho's Chief Scientist - I've Always Been Focused on Efficiency

During ZohoDay '25, I spoke with Sridhar Vembu about stepping down as CEO to become chief scientist to focus on efficient computing and technological innovation and to get his take on where Zoho stands as the company nears its 30th anniversary.

Why Zoho Co-Founder's Move to Step Down as CEO Isn't Surprising

Zoho Co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu surprised many with his announcement to step down as CEO to become the company's chief scientist. But when taking a closer look, was this really a big surprise?

IRL 2025 - A New CRM Industry Conference from Guys Who Aren't All That New

To mark their 16th anniversary, the CRM Playaz are holding IRL 2025 Wednesday, Jan. 22. It's a conversational thought-leadership event taking place physically in Atlanta and streaming everywhere else, featuring a variety of industry thought leaders, analysts, industry executives, and more.

Partnering with Nvidia and Microsoft Helps ServiceNow Advance AI and Compute Power Responsibly for Customers

Kellie Romack, chief digital information officer of ServiceNow, discusses the company's strategic partnerships with Nvidia, Microsoft, and Genesys and the role those partnerships play in advancing AI and workflow technologies.

CRM in 2025: AI Should Be Used to Humanize Not "Hyperize" CX

While the term hyper-personalization has become a staple talking point and a goal in the industry in the plast few years, the executives participating in the CRM Playaz "What is CRM in 2025" series feel AI should focus more on helping to humanize personalization rather than "hyperize" it.

CRM in 2025: It's Not About AI, Agents, or Even CRM; It's Still About Data

During the CRM Playaz "CRM in 2025" series of shows, the analyst conversation with Sheryl Kingstone, Liz Miller, Rebecca Wettemann, and Michael Fauscette addressed about what CRM in 2025 should and shouldn't be. And surprisingly, the group agreed on one thing: It isn't about AI.

What Is CRM in 2025? 13 Senior Executives from Leading Industry Vendors Share Their Definitions

Senior executives from leading industry vendors, including Adobe, Creatio, Microsoft, Oracle, Pegasystems, PROS, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, SugarCRM, UserTesting, Verint, Zoho and Zoom, give their takes on what CRM and CX are and how their roles are evolving in the enterprise.

CRM in 2025: Less About Big Databases and Monolithic Apps, More About Creating Point-in-Time Experiences

John Bruno, vice president of strategy at PROS, shares why he feels that in 2025 CRM will be less about big databases, monolithic apps, and long end-to-end processes, and more about creating point-in-time experiences that elevate CX.