Sage emphasized that this year’s Transform is a very important one, because of key changes, particularly around AI, that will greatly improve customers’ lives and productivity.
Sage CEO Steve Hare
LAS VEGAS – “What you will hear from us today is definitely not going to stay in Vegas,” were the opening words made by Sage CEO Steve Hare, leading off the inaugural keynote at the company’s Sage Transform event here Tuesday. “We have some important events to unveil.”
Hare began by reviewing a tech industry that is being buffeted by change, of which the ubiquitous generative AI is but one component.
“We see three big trends,” Sage said. “One is constant change. One is the need to adapt. And the third is pressure to transform.”
“Change management is a way of life and uncertainty is the order of the day,” Sage stated. “The economy is tightening, which brings greater expectation of the role of an employer, with employee desire for meaningful work. My generation was expected to do a lot of tedious work in their early days in the industry. People can insist that today’s new workers work the hard yards like we did – or adapt. We have been enhancing the Sage experience with AI services for some years now, but Generative AI has changed the game. We think this wave of AI will knock down a lot of barriers. Customers want an AI solution that automates much of their administration, but where they are still the decision makers in a secure environment. With the emphasis on resilience, leadership and dynamism, finance teams will be even more important.”
Hare emphasized that this is where the Sage Intacct market comes in.
“This is the best midmarket financials product bar none,” he stated. Intacct and Bill automate one of many key processes. GL [General Ledger] Outlier Detection was added in 2020. Sage Inbox handles communicates, making suggestions to do things.”
Hare noted that Sage has just launched Intacct in Germany, the second country in the EU besides France where it is available. Tomorrow, Sage will also be announcing a new sports-related partnership.
One major extension of a partnership is already public. Sage has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with long-time partner Amazon Web Services (AWS). This agreement will significantly enhance how SMBs optimize their operations with generative AI and tackle environmental responsibilities, with Sage Earth now available in AWS Marketplace. This combines Sage’s 40 years of compliance expertise with AWS’ expertise around compliance LLM.
“Last year, we talked about our relationship with AWS,” Hare said. “They help millions of SMBs to scale with cloud services. Last year, we introduced Sage Earth, carbon accounting software, and now we are announcing that it will launch on AWS Marketplace. We will not get to net zero without SMBs. They need support to get there, not more government burdens. Also, for the first time here, we are hosting sustainability clinics around AWS to show how to put things in place.”
AWS said that the combination of Sage Earth in the AWS marketplace is built on mutual innovation and delivering value to the customer, uplevelling their approach to power the next generation of AI-powered assistance.
“This is all in the name of our AI vision,” Hare said. “It’s about freeing you to have even more impact on your business, transforming accounts to do things like eliminate the monthly closing, and eliminate the audit. Generative AI will lead the charge in moving from simple task automation to workflow automation. That lets you be free from repetitive tasks and focus on repetitive value.”
Hare noted that Intacct is adding deep vertical insights, and new tools to facilitate them, like Sage Copilot, their new dedicated AI productivity assistant. Several attendees told ChannelBuzz that they considered Copilot the most important announcement of the event.
“It’s not gimmicks, just real AI solutions for real business,” Hare concluded
