>> From New York City, it's the cube, covering automation anywhere, Imagine brought to you by automation anywhere. >> Hey welcome back everybody Jeff Rick here with theCUBE. We're in midtown Manhattan at the automation anywhere, imagine 2019 event we were here last year, it's grown quite a bit and we're excited to be back. Our very first guest of today is Kashif Maboob, he is the VP Product Marketing and Global Head of our PA at automation anywhere. Great to see you. >> Nice to be here. >> Yeah so a year ago, in June I looked up the date and since June you guys have had a very exciting year, you raised like a half a billion dollars the RPA space is blowing up and this conferences I think outgrowing the venue so it's been quite a years. >> It certainly has been quite a year, yes we did have the largest Series A for a enterprise software company ever we are still on the Series A which is quite significant in our industry at the moment, the growth has been phenomenal, last year when you and I met here we had nine offices we have 35 offices today we have... we are looking at exiting 2019 with about 3,000 employees the numbers just speak for themselves. RPA that category itself has been at a growth space that I certainly have never seen before. >> So here had a great keynote a little bit earlier and he touched on a couple of really key topics and he did this last year too when he talked about, truly transformational technology shifts. And he talked about mobile before and personal computing and some of these things and he had three kind of things, it has to work for everyone it must be available anywhere and it must work for any size company and you guys are making real concrete moves into that area and one thing he talked about, is this concept of community edition. So i wonder if you can give us a little bit more flavor what is community edition, why is it important automation anywhere? >> Absolutely the concept, the vision that we are driving towards, is automation for all. For all types of users, by that we mean business user, IT user, developer. You don't have to be somebody who is proficient at coding you don't have to be somebody who is doing just one part of the business. Anybody in the business should be able to pick up the software and start using it. So with that concept in mind, we then thought about all types of businesses. Because until not too long ago RPA was a realm for the largest of the large companies. So last year fourteen fifteen hundred of our enterprises that number has grown to about 2,800 now. Still some of the largest companies in the world. Now taking it further is also talking about the various channels through which we deliver our software. so not just on premises which is most of RPA today but going forward enabling cloud delivery models. So with all that combined what is the fastest way to get people started on it and that is to remove all barriers to remove all friction and that's where community Edition comes in. It's a free product, it is the entire digital workforce platform. So not just RPA but RPA with AI and with analytics all combined, with a mobile app ready system. So when you when you sign up or download, whichever way you want to call it. You are actually signing up into a very robust, very comprehensive the most complete digital workforce platform that enables business users, students, educators, but perhaps most importantly developers to start developing their own bots, their own software robots. A community edition is just one piece of a larger ecosystem strategy that we have, that includes the community edition. So download the software or sign up into it and start building, but where do you learn how to build bots? well, we have Automation Anywhere University. We have about 175,000 students signed up already. We're fast becoming the world's largest University as well and then... So you have free courses available, you can get certifications as a trainer as a developer, as a business user. Once you have that training you can start developing bonds. Let's say you have questions that you want answered or you feel like the expert who should be sharing his or her knowledge for that we have the A people community, it's again RPA's largest community in the world, seventy-five thousand plus users already so that's piece number three and last but not the least, you've downloaded the Community Edition, you've become proficient in building boards, you're sharing knowledge and your expertise what's the next step? The next step is to build bots that the rest of the world can use so we are we have bought stores that we launched last year >> right >> so you can actually upload your bots and you will start monetizing the bots so it isn't a virtuous cycle, it's an ecosystem of free software, free education, free community, in a marketplace that lets you share your knowledge your expertise with the world. So that's our vision that's what we are very much into it and more than a vision it's in practice today. >> Right it's an interesting play right because we always hear about the democratization of data, and the citizen developer, so you guys are really talking about the democratization of automation and I'm sure there were some interesting conversations we're going to have the CFO on later, about you know taking some revenue off the table to enable kind of this community outreach to go out and offer really a full stacks almost like a freemium, classic kind of freemium play, to let people and as you said developers, schools, small businesses get involved in this. What if you could talk about kind of the strategic reason that you're giving up some short-term revenue for obviously a much potential bigger gain down the road. >> So a great point , if you look at the vision, the vision is to automate any process that can be automated right. Is to automate any process any organization that should be automated so what does that mean? That means an enormous workforce that is RPA ready. RPA educated that has knowledge of RPA and not just RPA but any automation per se because AI is included in here. >> Right >> So the only way we can reach that goal, of having millions and millions of users using not just our product, but any RPA product is to educate them to get products in their hands and so we can't think short term in that way. Our our vision is multi-decade vision. And its enormous vision as you as you heard also you mentioned so it's automation for all. For any business size and through any delivery channel >> Right >> And that's where the strategy is that's why we launched Community Edition and you will see a lot more coming down the pipeline as well >> Right So the next big theme is cloud right, we were both at the Google cloud show, last week there you got an announcement here about Oracle cloud and then here talked about, your guys own cloud so I wonder if you can talk a little bit about kind of the cloud strategy and then some of these different options that you guys are enabling for a cloud enabled version of automation anywhere. >> Absolutely so that's a big step just like freeing up our software, through community edition, we need to open a channel through which anybody can have software available so so you don't have just the option of on-premise software, but cloud ready web ready software so for that we announced today, the intelligent automation cloud. The the focus is simplicity, security and scalability. Those three things are critical for any business should be simple enough for anybody to use the software without having to download and install and maintain and so they're big huge cost IT costs for maintaining and price of it >> Right >> So removing that cost, that's what we mean by a zero footprint software it's simple but simple does not mean it's weak or its anything like that. Simple mean is powerful, easy enough to use, intuitive enough to use for a business user >> Right >> Who is who's expertise lives in the process, not necessarily in the coding and scripting environment >> Right >> On the other hand giving the the developers a very robust and IDE you know development environment so that all users, the business user the developer and the IT manager they all get the capability. Security is built-in. We cannot have robust security if you're dealing with world's largest financial organization nine out of ten largest banks, are already in business with us so security is paramount. Audit compliance is paramount >> Right >> Audit ease is paramount and last but not the least is the scalability. So cloud provides us and our customers infinite scale. So simplicity, security, scalability, delivered through cloud and an intelligent cloud not just a cloud that is basic, but cloud where AI is built in >> Right >> Where cognitive capabilities are built in so that's that's a vision that's the goal >> Right but it's and even more of that it's just choice right depending on what the customer needs what their particular application is, within a within a single customer or a single entity pick a large bank, they may have some implementations behind the firewall, on prem they might have some, on your cloud they might have some on some of these big public clouds. You're really offering now the choice it's not necessarily a locked in delivery strategy. >> So we are certified with the five largest cloud platforms available today. Whether it's Google, Oracle, Amazon Web Services, Azure, you will see Microsoft talking here today you will hear from IBM executives here today. Very close partnerships with these organizations >> Right >> So not only that we are technology partners, but we are certified with their cloud platforms which makes which gives our customers the peace of mind. >> Right >> That if we are certified, say with AWS Amazon Web Services, the security that's built into Amazon Web Services, the scalability that comes out of it, the 99.99% uptime and all of those amazing things that amazon has invested in >> Great >> Over the years and now available to our customers as well >> Right >> So that's that's an important factor. >> A lot going on since we last that down a year ago but let's let's look at forward again and I think I asked you last year, you know what are we going to be talking about 2019? So what's coming next? I mean you guys have a huge war chest, you're in a very hot space, you have a lot of momentum Like how you said you doubled your offices in a year, hiring like mad, so what's next? what are you what are you working on in the near term, and the mid term? >> So we started with Community Edition a month ago so in a month we have about 12,000 signups and downloads which is very significant for our enterprise business. It's from throughout the world but in a month's time we are coming out with one of our most the biggest releases if you will ever and that's where we introduce the cloud, that's where we introduce for the business user, a completely web-based interface, which is what we call bot sketch, that gives you the ability, to drag and drop and build your process and in the backend we will develop the bot the software robot for you so it's sort of a bridge between a business user, and she might be on the accounting side or billing side but she's the expert in knowing her own process but she's not a scriptor, she's not a coder she's not a developer, her area of expertise is is the process itself >> Right >> It could be a logistics process , it could be an HR process and she can sketch out their process just like building a workflow and once she finishes her work and she's complete with her workflow or her process end to end, the the development side can take over and the code is already written for them at that point the developer can bring in their own Python code, can run it on Linux, in IT is the third user of course and they can see the entire environment so we are launching an environment that is ready for business that's robust enough for for the developer and secure and gives peace of mind to the IT so that's a major release it of course comes with our built-in security, cloud management and all of that so >> Right >> That's what we are rolling up to and Community Edition is there and you will see more and more talk about digital worker, you earlier you saw me here and it described the digital worker, bot store is there, it's the first-ever automation marketplace so there are lots of firsts >> Right >> And there are lots of the biggest and the largest so we are running out of you know superlatives to use here. I'm in marketing of course, so I have to be careful what I what I come up with >> That's right there's people playing bingo probably so we have to careful that they don't fill up their card. I just want to give you the last take you know when we talk a year ago you talked about three things, about RPA by itself, no kind of cognitive automation and in incorporating you know machine learning and artificial intelligence and then smart analytics and as you're talking and I'm listening, you know I don't even necessarily need to build the body, I mean you just kind of built around the bot but now I can I can get somebody else's bot, now you're talking about actually building the bot for me so you you're leveraging a lot of these, core technologies to power the compute and cloud to actually help me build the bot, taking me one step further where I just need to know my process to be able to start to implement my own digital assistants and and add automation to my world. >> Absolutely so the story is not the bot, the story is always the customer, looking at the customers pain point and what can we do to solve that pain point. How can we make the process more efficient, better faster cheaper right so the bot is a vehicle for us to really enable our customers, to really simplify their lives so that as Mahir mentioned, we as humans can do more cognitive more intelligent work >> Right >> That's the vision >> Right >> and everything that we are announcing today, everything that we have done in the past 15 years that we've been business and our vision is all about you know a fanatical customer focus, we have a large partner base as well we work with largest advisories over 700 partners so if you look at the overall picture it's again building an ecosystem for our customers where they are not tied to one thing >> Right >> We are not we are trying to open it up it's an open platform, we work with best-of-breed, at the same time we provide our customers readiness with AI and security right out of the box as well if they already have a Best of Breed system installed, we will work with that, if they would like to work with our systems, we will work they have capability there so it's a it's a very open approach, it's a very flexible approach because there's no way we you cannot tie down your customer and expect them to stay with you. We want to enable them to automate their process in the most efficient way possible. >> Yeah well congratulations, it's quite a ride and I think the real fun stuffs just getting started. >> Yes absolutely thank you. >> All right thanks again. >> All right, he's Kashif I'm Jeff you're watching the cube were on a mission anywhere, imagine 2019 in midtown Manhattan. Thanks for watching, see you next time (upbeat music)

>> From Times Square, in the heart of New York City, it's theCUBE. Covering, Imagine 2018. Brought to you by, Automation Anywhere. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown Manhattan at Automation Anywhere, Imagine 2018. Eleven hundred people buzzing all around us here. The eco system is hot, everybody's looking at all the various solutions, all the various bots, all the various activities going on. And we're excited to have relatively newcomer to the company. He's Kashif Mahbub, the VP, Product Marketing for Automation Anywhere. Kashif, welcome. >> Thanks for having me. >> So you said you've been here, we've had all the founders on I think, so you've been here about a year. So, first impressions, I imagine this is your first show, what do you think? >> It's actually my third show. >> Oh it is your show. >> Things are moving. >> Oh, were you a customer before? >> Company standard, yeah by company standards I would say I'm a veteran. (Jeff laughing) So we are doing these shows, all of these marketing activities at a very rapid pace. >> Very good, so one of the topics we haven't talked about so much today is this kind of digital workforce concept. And you guys have a really specific idea of what makes, kind of taking these things to actually be considered a digital workforce. So what are those three things that you guys combine, to have something that's unique in the market place? >> So we pioneered the concept of digital workforce. And in our parlance, in our definition, a digital workforce, especially at enterprise scale, comprises of three key components. RPA, which is robotic process automation. Cognitive automation, which is the ability of using AI and machine learning capabilities with the RPA. And last but not least, smart analytics. So, the combination of these three make up what we call a digital workforce. If any of one of these elements is missing, we feel that's not really a true digital workforce. So it is the workforce platform that we call enterprise, combines all of these capabilities together to really deliver a true enterprise class, digital workforce platform. >> Now how long have you guys been baking in the AI component of it, in the cognition piece. 'Cause there's a lot of talk about cognitive computing, and it's a big theme that IBM has had for a long, long time, and we're seeing AI work itself in to all kinds of interesting applications. Now kind of, where was your guys' AI journey, how long have you been at it, and where are you seeing kind of the break through to get to this digital workforce concept? >> So automation anywhere has been around for about 15 years now. So we have a very mature product. I look after the enterprise platform, and we just released version 11. So it makes it the most mature platform in the industry at the moment. Now to answer your question about AI, and bringing AI into it, that's fairly recent. But we are based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Google is one of our customers, so is Tesla, so is LinkedIn. These are three big AI companies, with their own AI Technology, yet they use Automation Anywhere platform as well. So, there is AI, and then there is AI with RPA. So think of it as purpose built AI capabilities that are infused through our digital workforce platform, to enhance our RPA capabilities. And you bring in analytics, then we talk about predictive analytics. So overall again, it's building a digital workforce that is enhanced by AI, that is enhanced by cognitive capabilities, so that RPA is not just RPA. It's RPA to the next level. >> Right, and really RPA that's gonna evolve. RPA that's eventually gonna write itself right, or write new versions of itself based on new things. And process improvement, new discoveries in terms of better ways to get things done. Using those other two legs of the spool. >> Yes, so you will see a lot of publications out there that talk about RPA evolving into AI, or AI taking over RPA. The fact is, there is again AI, and then there is AI combined with RPA. So if you take Google's example. Google uses us in the back end, yet it is one of the largest AI companies in the world. So AI, think of it as a big hammer. It has to be used very carefully, and we have purpose built AI into our product to make sure that we extract all the unstructured data. And then we, as Mihir mentioned, our CEO mentioned earlier in the key note, it is feeding this RPA monster that needs more and more data. And all of that data comes through our AI and cognitive capabilities. >> Right, and we know right, and for the machines to learn, they need more, and more, and more data so they get better and better. It's just the way computers do learn. It's very different from the way humans learn, it's a slightly different model. >> It's about building a digital map. You know, we use Waze and Google Maps and all of these different GPS driven capabilities to find our way around, Manhattan for example. Or Bay area for that matter. (Jeff laughing) Think of our digital workforce platform with AI capabilities and with analytics capabilities, as a digital map of an enterprise. We touch so many different infrastructure components. From CRM systems to ERP systems to HRIS systems, that the amount of data that we capture that passes through our system, gives us perhaps the best look that anyone can have into how data flows through an enterprise. And what's the best way to use it. >> Right, so I'm curious in terms of those vertical applications that you described, where have you seen the biggest impact now that you've started to bring the AI in? Are there certain verticals that are just ripe for significant positive change, and some that are less so? >> Yeah absolutely. So, there is a lot of data locked in documents still. So banking, finance and insurance. Those are the three verticals, three industries where our first step with our IQ Bot, which is our cognitive product. We have seen a lot of traction there. The reason for that is again, when we decipher these documents, when we decipher and capture all the data, we then use it very intelligently in automating the processes. So the first step to answer your question would be, organizations, industries that use unstructured data that is locked into their documents, all this dark data of methodology. We unlock that data, and then we use RPA and we feed this RPA monster to really automate the various processes. >> Every time you guys talk about all the data locked in these documents, I can't help but think of the old OCR days, when I got my first $1000 flatbed scanner to try to read a couple documents. It never worked back then, the era of a different place. >> Funny that you mention that because the OCR technology that got built into a lot of scanners later on, a lot of that technology we use under the covers, but at a much more enhanced level. So we partner with some of the best OCR technologies out there, but then we put AI on top of that to really take it to the next level. So when the data comes out of a simple OCR process, it's no longer just some data that you can, like we used to see. Now it's data that is structured, that can be automated in a few clicks. >> It has context right. And most importantly it has context, which makes all the difference in the world. Okay, so what are some of your priorities for next year, before I let you go. What are some of the things you're working on? If we sit down a year from now, what are we gonna be talking about that's new? Don't tell me any secrets, no NDA's have been signed here. (Jeff laughing) >> At Imagine, we come with an approach of an open book. Open kimono if you will, and we share all that we are working on. And all that we are working today, but also going forward. So AI is a big element of that. Automation, combined with any sort of automation, especially RPA combined with AI and machine learning capabilities, that's already, we have a product, as opposed to just an idea. It's a working product with dozens of organizations using it. But then we are infusing that AI into RPA, and making it intelligent RPA. Making it an intelligent digital workforce platform. That's the ultimate goal, and we are already well on our way. >> Alright well Kashif, thanks for a taking a few minutes of your time and congrats on a great show. >> Thank you, thanks for having me Jeff. >> Alright he's Kashif, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE from Automation Anywhere Imagine 2018 in New York City, thanks for watching. (electronic music)