OpenEnvoy CEO Says Generative AI Will Soon Spawn Companies of One

“Small forest fires” that are “ultimately good for the forest.” That’s how Matthew Tillman, CEO at automated accounts payable (AP) solution OpenEnvoy, is looking at the banking crisis, he told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse has forced many company founders to be more aware of their banking relationships — a healthy thing to have happen in a capital market, he said.

But it’s the release of ChatGPT-4 and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) derivatives that Tillman considers to be exceptional.

They promise to revolutionize the way organizations operate from the inside out, he said, and increasingly drive real, smart results across industries.

Read more: OpenEnvoy CEO Sees Fully Automated AP Departments Within 5 Years

Companies of One in Two Years

Tillman emphasized that the evolution of AI from an “add-on, or feature” that software vendors sold to companies, to a solution in and of itself that doesn’t just replace a lot of work at the customer level, but replaces a lot of need for headcount at that solution provider, which will completely transform the business landscape.

Tillman said that instead of CFOs asking about what AI can do to improve their payments and financial processes, they want to know more about how it works and how it impacts their cash flow and operating margins — meaningful metrics.

“[AI] no longer just has an implication as a use case, it has an implication on their business,” he said. The implication, he added, is that businesses can immediately see how few people they might need to run a department in the near future. He sees an immediate future in which a lot more CFOs think about “how can we run a department of one?” since AI tools don’t need a person in the middle of a process saying “approve.”

“The AI technology develops the script that a business would’ve put toward low-cost labor. And it takes action on that script.”

The wheels are already in motion, and Tillman noted that within the generalized finance space, areas like bookkeeping and non-tax audits can “go away today.” In his mind, a company with a dozen people managing $6 billion worth of spend means that the company has 11 too many people.

He sees freeing up working capital and driving greater gross margins as an immediate impact of reducing redundant headcount.

See also: The Days of Manual Invoice ‘Spot Checks’ May Be Numbered

“We’ve spoken with several CFOs where [they tell us], ‘We’ve got a thing, it works, we’ve got Janie in accounting and things seem to be going OK,’ and my reaction is, well, your business is now done. You’ve just admitted you’re protecting legacy revenues and that you’re no longer prioritizing growth,” Tillman said.

As for the implications he sees for FinTech?

“It’s no longer good enough to be yet another payment rail,” Tillman said. “[Differentiation through] user interface is no longer critical to the conversation, because we are looking at actual automation — so certain of the business models supporting FinTech companies need to change.”

So do the ways internal leaders approach their businesses’ strategies, he added, saying everything is changing rapidly now and will certainly change more rapidly in the future. “You have to be on your game.”