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This blog post highlights three key messages from a conversation between Basico AI Lead Lasse Rindom and Kathy Pham, Vice President of AI Research and Open Technology at Workday. The conversation was originally recorded for Lasse's podcast "The Only Constant", which is sponsored by Basico, and is best described as a lesson in responsible transformation – relevant for leaders across the Nordics and beyond. Enjoy this short read to get the most important insights, listen to their full conversation to ensure you don't miss a single reflection, or do both.
The rapid expansion of AI agents across all industries and software systems begs the question: how do you build AI agents into already existing workflows with purpose and deliberation?
If you are also seeking an answer to this all-present question, you should listen in to the full episode with Kathy Pham on The Only Constant. But as an introduction to it, and to get your mind tuned in on the topic, below we have condensed three short messages from Kathy to set the tone:
Listen to their full conversation
You can listen to the full conversation between Lasse Rindom and Kathy Pham in the podcast "The Only Constant" – a podcast produced by Lasse Rindom and sponsored by Basico that offers deep conversations at the intersection of business, technology and AI. For those who enjoy difficult questions more than easy answers.
Find it on Apple, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts.
1. Don’t outsource purpose to technology
AI's potential lies not in replacing human agency, but in augmenting it. Kathy Pham's core insight: every act of delegation ‒ whether to a system, process or person ‒ requires clarity of intent.
Her point is that automation should always support the overarching business objective, not dilute it. The risk? That an unreflective obsession with efficiency strips "productive friction" from work, undermining collaboration, governance or culture. Leaders must remain vigilant.
Technology is powerful, but meaning, purpose and intent should always come first, or you risk eroding the foundation you sought to strengthen.
2. Governance as an engine, not a brake
“Move fast and break things” is a typical, almost cliché start-up mentality. However, while this may work for consumer start-ups, in finance, HR and critical enterprise services where Workday operates, it's an unaffordable bet.
Kathy Pham emphasises that responsible innovation demands robust governance – embedded controls, standards and real interdisciplinarity, so teams can move quickly and safely. Good governance is not bureaucracy, but the underlying conditions for scalable value and resilience.
In her view, companies should question solutions that promise speed at the expense of visibility, trust or auditability.
3. Integration is more about clarity than connectivity
As AI agents become more embedded across platforms ‒ Workday, SAP, Salesforce ‒ the need for shared language, standards and world models becomes acute.
Kathy Pham states that true value comes when ambiguity is reduced, and it's possible to trust that agents are making the right decisions at the right points in the process. She refers to this as building roads before building more cars- ‒ establishing shared structures so multiple technologies can operate in concert, rather than chaos.
Three practical pieces of advice
- Before you implement automation, always ask why. Ask "what purpose should this automation serve?" rather than "what can we automate?" This ensures you have a clear goal for the business impact you want to achieve.
- View governance as a practical business enabler, not red tape. Governance done right delimits the road where you can move at speed, not the blocker to prevent you from moving.
- Invest in clarity and standards as integration accelerates. Digital agents require low-ambiguity digital environments, and this must be a long-term strategic focus to achieve in a world of autonomous machines.
Most scaled value is built on trust, order and responsible innovation. As AI raises the stakes, there's no substitute for clarity of purpose, embedded accountability and pragmatic optimism.
For the CFO space in an AI age ‒ and for critical processes in general ‒ this is an important message to champion.
Would you like to automate for the right reasons?
Then give our AI Lead, Lasse Rindom, a call. He's the person you're looking for if you're seeking inspiration on how to use and implement generative AI so that it aligns with your company's purpose, vision and strategy. Moreover, Basico is a Workday partner with deep experience in Adaptive Planning. So, if you are looking for more information on how to get started with Workday in practice, we can help you with that too.
