Boomi highlights business thought leaders, trends they see, and the work of their organizations. We also get their hot takes on pizza integrations.
In late 2023, Boomi issued an internal policy for the safe use of generative artificial intelligence and surveyed employees to gauge attitudes about the game-changing technology. Were people excited? What were their concerns? How could the company facilitate the adoption of AI tools in their everyday work lives?
The takeaway for Luke Hagstrand, Boomi’s Head of Enterprise AI, was that his colleagues wanted help to navigate this brave new world.
“Our teammates struggled with questions like, ‘What tools do I use? Should I be using ChatGPT on my consumer account? What data can I put in?’” Hagstrand added. “These questions were all very valid and came down to saying: ‘Tell us the direction that we should go.’”
That feedback led to the lightning-quick release of ChatB, an internal generative AI chatbot that acts as a secure, trusted assistant to help employees do their jobs more efficiently. Within the first quarter of ChatB’s launch, over 50% of company employees were monthly active users, and today, nearly half of employees rely on the knowledgeable chatbot daily. It’s just one example of the explosive growth of generative AI and agents throughout the company’s operations.
“AI is pretty much in every corner of the business at this point,” Hagstrand said. “That’s why I’m super-excited. With AI, we’re reducing barriers to entry for all our products and bringing to life better customer experiences.”
Hagstrand sat down to discuss the rising importance of a connected digital architecture, his thoughts on AI adoption, and a look at what keeps technology executives like him awake at night. We’ve lightly edited our conversation for length and clarity.
How do you explain to people what you do?
Luke Hagstrand: It’s pretty easy now because AI is so mainstream. I just say, “I lead AI for a software company.” Once I say that, the next question is, “Oh, wow, what does that mean?”
So, what does that mean?
Luke Hagstrand: It means I have a lot of cognitive overload because I’m trying to stay abreast of all these industry trends. The technology is changing so quickly. But at the end of the day, it’s about bringing value back to the business through people, process, and technology innovation. I’m fortunate to work with our legal and privacy leaders, chief risk officer, CISO, CIO, HR partners, and every other function to grapple with how we manage this opportunity in front of us. The role focuses on governance, evangelism, people activation, and adoption. We have to win the hearts and minds of our teammates for how AI is changing our world and how we work with technology.
How does ChatB show generative AI’s potential?
Luke Hagstrand: It’s been phenomenally successful because we could move quickly and roll things out to our teammates using Boomi. We’re a low-code integration platform that can deliver interfaces and workflows with very little effort. So why wouldn’t we wire up these large language models like ChatGPT with our own products? It gave our company something tangible about what GenAI can look like for the enterprise. As we go through this change journey, customers also come to us for answers. They’re asking, “Well, where do I get started? Would I implement a chatbot like this? And how would I do that?” Now, we’re also having conversations about agents. How do we manage them? What security concerns do they raise? They’re asking us because they know we’re in the game, building our own GenAI applications, chatbots, and agentic experiences. Our teammates are learning firsthand what this looks like internally. We’re not going to get everything right as we experiment. But that’s scar tissue we can learn from, and it translates to having honest conversations with customers looking for our advice and guidance on critical business decisions. These experiences and lessons are what we call practical AI. It’s why we’re coming to the market with real solutions in a differentiated way.
It sounds similar to being a test kitchen chef who is fine-tuning dishes.
Luke Hagstrand: I have the privilege to work in both worlds. I work across our internal teams to deploy AI for our teammates. And our internal deployment of AI has become the recipe and playbook we’re preaching to the marketplace. We’ve built AI agents for the platform to help customers design integrations, but we’re also building our own agents for other internal uses. It just adds to our credibility because we drink our own champagne.
Taking a step back, how do integration and automation technology create outcomes that improve lives?
Luke Hagstrand: My background is in building business applications, software systems, enterprise data platforms, and AI technologies that power B2B experiences. But at Comcast, my work was supporting the customer experience. Comcast has been an established company for decades and has grown through acquisitions. It has a very heterogeneous operating system and technology landscape with, for instance, five or six billing systems. My job was delivering a better customer experience with a personalization platform that allowed us to understand you when you talk to someone in a retail store, or speak to someone at a call center, or when a technician comes to your home to install your Internet service and set up your home security. Those systems never talked to each other before. We had to build the platforms and systems to make that possible in real time. We made huge strides in improving customer satisfaction by investing in modernization, data infrastructure, and AI capabilities that reduced friction and delivered proactive experiences. By the way, these are the kinds of problems that Boomi was built to solve: digital fragmentation and complexity.
How does that frictionless customer experience inform your thinking about AI adoption?
Luke Hagstrand: Think about the best companies in the world. Employees are their No. 1 stakeholder. Those are the people who are delivering your business to the world day in and day out. If you don’t show up for your workforce with the best technology, experience, culture, and strong purpose for coming to work, do you think you’ll have the best people? Probably not. Do you think you will have the best business in the world? Probably not. All of that is important because AI translates into a competitive advantage. That’s why this is an existential issue for most companies. Those who don’t believe and join the journey as quickly as possible will simply be unable to compete in the future we’re headed toward.
What keeps you up at night?
Luke Hagstrand: Two things. Am I going fast enough and am I making a misstep in moving too fast? That’s the tension. We’ve got an ambitious business that wants to do big things. If I don’t move fast enough there, I face risk. And if I go too fast, I face risk that could cost us trust in the marketplace. I’ve had days where I wake up in a cold sweat because it’s either I’m not going fast enough or something like security and penetration testing is slowing us down. But this goes back to what I said about scar tissue and what lessons we’re learning. We’re trying to do the practical things that make us confident in taking that next step.
Were you always destined for a career in technology?
Luke Hagstrand: I started in physical sciences engineering. I paid my way through college as an understudy for my dad, who was the CIO of a small health network system. So, I learned how to build data centers and about telecommunications, end-user support, and business and clinical applications. But my first job was as an environmental engineer. I decided I didn’t want to drill holes in the ground and test soil samples. Instead, I wanted to do stuff with applications and technology and build software systems. I went to a technology-oriented business school. While there, I started a medical device company that focused on developing wearables for people with Parkinson’s disease to improve their quality of life. That was my first startup experience, and I’ve been hooked on it ever since.
We saved a fun question for last. What’s your favorite pizza “integration?”
Luke Hagstrand: Sausage and onions. My best friend from high school was also my freshman-year roommate at college, and he loved the combo. I guess it stuck.
Up Close With Luke Hagstrand
Home: Lower Merion Township, Pa.
Family: Wife Ana; children Tyler, Nina, and Simone; an Irish doodle named Wally
Education: Bachelor’s of Science from Cornell University and MBA from RPI’s Lally School of Management
Career: After beginning with startups, Luke spent 12 years in leadership roles at Comcast in engineering/technology, consumer experience, and product before joining Boomi.
Read more about how an AI chatbot built and powered by Boomi elevates employee productivity.