GTM: ⁠How AI Will Go From Influencing 20% to Making 90% of Your Decisions | Steve Lucas, Boomi CEO

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Boomi was founded in the early 2000s by Rick Nucci, acquired by Dell in 2010, and then spun out to Francisco Partners and TPG Capital in 2021. Today it powers 30,000+ enterprise customers globally and moves more data per second than the entire Visa card network, times two. What started as an integration platform has evolved into something bigger: the leading data activation company, purpose-built for the agentic AI era.

Steve Lucas took over as CEO in early 2023, just as ChatGPT was about to reshape the entire software landscape. A three-time CEO with nearly 30 years in enterprise software, Steve previously led Marketo through its $4.75B acquisition by Adobe (the largest in Adobe’s history at the time), scaled iCIMS into the world’s leading talent acquisition cloud, and held senior roles at SAP, Salesforce, Adobe, and BusinessObjects. He’s also the author of “Digital Impact: The Human Element of AI Driven Transformation,” a book arguing that the AI revolution will stall unless companies fix the fragmentation of their data first.

In this episode, Sophie Buonassisi sits down with Steve at HumanX in San Francisco to unpack why 2026 is the year AI moves from pilot to production, the three diagnostic questions every CEO should ask before deploying agentic AI, and why “change only happens at the speed of trust.” Steve also gets candid about the internal protest that erupted when Boomi rolled out its first CSM agent, his prediction that AI will go from influencing 20% of executive decisions to making 90% of them within 2 years, and how he picked up Claude Code on an airplane to vibe-code a contracts agent for his sales team.

If you’re a founder, operator, or GTM leader trying to figure out whether your business is actually ready for agentic AI (or just chasing the buzzword), this one is for you.

Episode highlights

0:58 – Welcome to GTMnow at HumanX

1:10 – Why 2026 is when AI moves from pilot to production

2:32 – Influencing decisions vs. making decisions: the next 2 years

3:18 – Digital Impact: why fragmentation will stall the AI revolution

5:01 – “Get your data to the gym”: the new slogan

5:20 – The 3 questions to know if your company is AI-ready

6:47 – Change happens at the speed of trust

7:53 – The internal protest behind Boomi’s CSM agent

9:32 – From integration platform to data activation: the strategic shift

10:50 – Steve’s most transformative AI workflow as a CEO

11:12 – Vibe coding with Claude on an airplane

12:20 – Where to follow Steve and Boomi

Key takeaways

1. AI is shifting from a curiosity to a decision-maker. In 2 years, expect AI to drive 90% of executive decisions, not 20%.

2. If your data doesn’t work for humans, it won’t work for AI. Fragmentation is the #1 blocker to enterprise AI adoption.

3. The 3-question AI readiness check: Are your systems connected? Are your processes automated? Are your systems agentic?

4. Change happens at the speed of trust. The biggest risk in AI rollouts is not the tech, it’s how your people feel about it.

5. Data sitting in a database is dormant. Value is created only when data is in motion, activated, and fed to AI in real time.

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GTM 189 Episode Transcript

00:00 – 00:13
Steve: AI is going to go from influencing 20% of my decisions to making 90% of them. For me here at human X. There are literally hundreds of companies demonstrating thousands of technologies for I can run your business.

00:13 – 00:22
Sophie: Steve Lucas, CEO, Boomi. You recently reintroduced Boomi as the leading data activation company. Why the shift and why now?

00:22 – 00:40
Steve: Boomi has over 30,000 customers all over the world. We move more data per second for those 30,000 customers than the entire visa card network globally. If you got to get your data on a GLP one so it gets skinny, but get your data going, get it to the gym, get it working out.

00:40 – 00:42
Sophie: I love that. Get your data to the gym.

00:42 – 00:43
Steve: Get it to the gym.

00:43 – 00:57
Sophie: The new slogan yeah, yeah.

00:58 – 01:08
Sophie: It’s SoFi with DTM now or Share Human X, the AI conference speaking with leading voices in tech and bringing you what you need to know about AI in 2026. Steve good GTM.

01:08 – 01:10
Steve: Now. Thank you. Thank you. Thrilled to be here.

01:10 – 01:32
Sophie: Yeah. Likewise. Likewise. Thrilled to have you here. And now, you said before that 2026 is the year that I moved from pilot to production. And we’re sitting here today at human X together, an AI conference. And the same notion is being echoed from leaders. Now, what do people not in the room need to know? Because the GTM now audience is hundreds of thousands of people globally.

01:32 – 01:38
Sophie: And realistically, not every single person is here with us in San Francisco. So why 2026? What do people need to know?

01:38 – 02:07
Steve: Well, I think we’ve gone from AI not existing more or less for most of us a few years ago. Now, if you’re OpenAI or anthropic, they’d say, well, you know, we’ve been doing this forever. Yeah, since 2017. I mean, I up until large language models, pre-trained transformers, it was more of a yeah, somebody somewhere does a thing. And now for at least the past several years, every human being, at least every human being with a phone or a computer has experienced or used AI some way, somehow.

02:07 – 02:32
Steve: So that’s it’s become the dominant kind of technology of our age. Now, AI is shifting from interesting curiosity, right? A song and Star Wars language to help me run my business. That’s been the big pivot over the past few years. And of course, you can’t go ten feet without at least hearing someone say AI agent. Yes, but agents, they’re this undefined concept right now.

02:32 – 02:53
Steve: An agent could be a weather agent that just tells you it’s sunny today or it’s raining. Bring a jacket. But agents can go much further. Now, here at human X, there are literally hundreds of companies demonstrating thousands of technologies where I can run your business. So really where we are right now is we’re in this interesting space where I feel like I’m as a CEO.

02:53 – 03:18
Steve: I’m used to AI influencing my decisions. I’m there. AI is influencing my decisions, but we’re very quickly going to go from that to two years from now. AI is going to go from influencing 20% of my decisions to making 90% of them. For me, this is going to happen to a certain degree, and I know you sense it because you’re here, but when you’re here, you can see the future already.

03:18 – 03:40
Sophie: Fantastic. It’s true. We are very much so here. And you know, Steve, you’re actually an author. You’ve offered a book. I actually had the book at my house. Great read. But in your book, Digital Impact, do you actually argue that the AI revolution that we’re talking about will stall if fragmentation isn’t actually solved? Yeah. So what does actually blocking people.

03:40 – 03:40
Sophie: Yeah.

03:40 – 03:57
Steve: Well, I think the question and and you can answer this as well as everybody that’s watching this video, which is do you feel like at the company you work for today. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s just a realistic question. As a human, do you have access to the data that you need in real time? Is it accurate?

03:58 – 04:29
Steve: Does it help you get your job done? In the vast majority of the time when I ask that question, people say no, and that’s for human intelligence, right? Artificial intelligence works thousands of times, if not millions of times faster than humans do in terms of its thought. It’s modeling its decisions. So if you can’t get your data right, if it’s all over the place, if it’s inaccurate, if it’s not available in real time, how is this going to work for AI if it’s ineffective for humans, it will be detrimental to your deployment of AI.

04:29 – 05:01
Steve: So our focus is building what we call an AI or data activation platform. It’s let’s get this data that you have. Let’s get it into shape, right. This means if you got to get your data on a GLP one so it gets skinny, but get your data going and get it to the gym, get it working out. So our data activation platform literally connects everything in your company, automates your data between all of your systems, and then feeds that data, the valuable data to AI in real time.

05:01 – 05:08
Steve: That’s when you know you’re ready for what everybody here is calling the agent driven enterprise, or the agen tech enterprise.

05:08 – 05:20
Sophie: I love that get your data to the gym, get it to the gym. The new slogan. Yeah, yeah. Incredible, incredible. But for people, how do they actually know if their company data is ready for AI? Is there a benchmark?

05:20 – 05:39
Steve: Well, you know, there’s these the originally a long like if you go way back and anyone that’s sitting in front of you on your phone or computer, type in the four V’s of data, things like veracity and volumes or the accuracy of data, those four V’s of data have long ruled the data landscape as rules for how you think about data.

05:39 – 05:58
Steve: And I think we’re getting to the four seas of AI, things like connected things like contextual these these matter. So there’s no look, I think knowing is hard. What I would say is this I tend to use that previous answer where I think about, well, if my data doesn’t work for me as a human, how is it going to work for AI?

05:58 – 06:23
Steve: So that’s a good benchmark. But I think the three things to think about in the world of AI simple questions anyone can ask. An answer are my systems connected? And if the answer is no, you’re not ready for AI. Are my processes automated? If the answer is no, you’re not ready for AI and then are. My systems are genetic, but everybody’s rushing to agent or a genetic driven.

06:23 – 06:43
Steve: Right? Everyone? Well, I don’t want to fall behind in AI, so let me go there. The world is going to shift it. Something I mentioned a second ago with that great question you asked is, are you the type of company where AI is kind of influencing your decisions, or are you moving to become a business where AI is driving and even making your decisions?

06:43 – 06:47
Steve: If you aren’t the latter, you are already in trouble.

06:47 – 06:49
Sophie: I think some people listening might be a little scared.

06:49 – 06:51
Steve: Now time to get moving.

06:51 – 06:53
Sophie: Just instilling fear.

06:53 – 06:54
Steve: Time to get moving.

06:54 – 07:02
Sophie: Well, I read you also layer on another prerequisite around the AI revolution, and it’s that change happens at the speed of trust. Yes. What do you mean by that?

07:02 – 07:29
Steve: Well, and you mentioned the book Digital Impact that I wrote. And the subtitle of that is The Human Element of AI driven Transformation. What no one factors into this whole equation is how we feel and look as humans. We feel nervous. We feel threatened. We read stories about AI taking our jobs. These are real human emotions and these things matter.

07:29 – 07:53
Steve: And when I say change only happens at the speed of trust, that means that if I don’t trust something, it’s not happening. We build a technology using AI at Boomi internally, and it was to help our customer success managers. The people that look after our customers, help them be more effective. We named the the AI agent a CSM or Customer Success Manager agent.

07:53 – 08:11
Steve: The torches, the pitchforks, the weeping and wailing that came after that. It was pretty strong. There was a there was a big protest and a lot of pushback. No one wanted to use it. And the reason no one wanted to use it is because they thought we were launching something to take their jobs, when in reality it was help them be more effective at their jobs.

08:11 – 08:26
Steve: So part of it is the positioning and it’s how people feel. 99 times out of 100. I think I will drive human acceptance if we pause and remember it’s how people feel about this new technology 100%.

08:27 – 08:50
Sophie: At GTM fund, we invest at the very early stages of the startups journey and one critical and surprisingly complicated decision could be naming your startup. Founders often spend weeks chasing the perfect dotcom domain, only to overpay or settle for a name that doesn’t quite click and also potentially pivot names down the line. Before you spend a time securing Adcom domain, I recommend checking out tech domains.

08:50 – 09:04
Sophie: Tech tells the world, your customers, your investors, anyone googling you that you’re building. In technology, it’s very simple. So if you’re building a tech startup, this is a great option for you. You can secure your tech domain today from any registrar of your choice.

09:04 – 09:10
Sophie: Still human. And that’s I mean big part of the name human not going away humanizing the process right there.

09:10 – 09:32
Steve: That’s right. And as efficient as I can make your company, the reality is, right now, humans still make the vast majority of decisions today, humans will implement AI. And if you want to be that, I first AI forward company. If you’re not bringing humans along, then you won’t succeed either. Fine line to walk.

09:32 – 09:46
Sophie: Yeah. And Steve, you’ve been known for I mean well over a decade now as that a leading integration platform. But you recently actually reintroduced Boomi as the leading data activation company. Yeah. Why the shift and why now?

09:46 – 10:13
Steve: Boomi has over 30,000 customers all over the world. We move more data per second for those 30,000 customers than the entire visa card network globally. Times two. We move a lot of data, and as I step back and think about what’s valuable, what is the service that we provide to our customers that’s valuable to them? Well, moving data to the right place at the right time, to the right person or.

10:13 – 10:40
Steve: Yes, I that’s that’s what we do. We activate data and if you think about it further, most companies, they collect data but it’s just dormant. It sits in a database. It’s not in motion. It’s not doing anything. Putting data in motion is when it creates value. It does something more than just occupies space in a database. So for me, it really is about activating your data, moving it to the places where it will have an impact.

10:40 – 10:44
Steve: Otherwise I keep it virtual nurture.

10:44 – 10:50
Sophie: And what is one AI workflow that you’re actually using yourself as a CEO? That’s been transformative for you?

10:50 – 11:12
Steve: Hey, I workflows that are transformative for me. Well, one is the ability to just send any expense reports or receipts in and they automatically get approved. It’s the bane of my existence. But, you know, I, it’s interesting. Over the past 24, 48 hours, I found. This is an interesting thing. Boomi is, you know, near kind of 20 year old software company.

11:12 – 11:35
Steve: We have a lot of customers, and those customers have bought software from us with different contracts over different periods of time. We’ve acquired companies. They’ve had their own contracts. I heard this from one of our, account managers. He said to me, weeks ago, you know, one of our big challenges is understanding which customers have which contracts and which rights to which software.

11:35 – 11:59
Steve: For the first time in a long time, I picked up cloud code and started writing code myself. Now, granted, Claude wrote the code, but I had Claude build a system that looked at contracts across multiple sources. This is me on an airplane vibe coding, and had Claude build a series of agents that would help our sales reps understand what customers had, what rights to what products.

11:59 – 12:08
Steve: I did that. Now, that’s not a breakthrough thing, but the fact that I can step back and see a business problem as a CEO and in my spare time on an airplane, do it. This world is changing.

12:08 – 12:12
Sophie: As it is, and it probably feels so good to just get in there. And actually, what.

12:12 – 12:14
Steve: Right does this is a cathartic thing.

12:14 – 12:20
Sophie: Yeah. 100%. For anyone looking to follow along with Boomi or yourself, where can they find you?

12:20 – 12:42
Steve: Well, you can always, I love this question. You can always find me. First of all, I post constantly on LinkedIn. I’m active every day, so please find me there. Number one boomi.com. Number two, please come check out what we’re building in the world of AI. From agents to a genetic governance. There’s so much that we’ve built out right now, we can’t wait to innovate with you.

12:42 – 12:45
Steve: So hit us up. Follow us on LinkedIn.

12:45 – 12:47
Sophie: I love it. Thank you Steve. Thank you.

Sophie Buonassisi

Sophie Buonassisi is the SVP of Marketing at media company GTMnow and its venture firm, GTMfund. She oversees all aspects of media, marketing, and community engagement. Sophie leads the GTMnow editorial team, producing content exploring the behind the scenes on the go-to-market strategies responsible for companies’ growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind the strategies and companies.