Ramp and the AI Opportunity

It’s an interesting question to think about. Profit is the ultimate arbiter of a business’ financial success. It’s not just about saving money – spending too little can be as damaging as spending too much – but about investing money intelligently in the things that produce outcomes.

Finance is the nervous system of the company. Everything that a business does flows through finance in some way, and no department has a better bird’s-eye view into how the company operates.

The data that the finance team has is extremely valuable for AI. The data generated by financial transactions - what companies are buying, how much they're spe... See more

Finance is the nervous system of the company. Everything that a business does flows through finance in some way, and no department has a better bird’s-eye view into how the company operates.

And that comes down to the fact that finance is the most valuable workflow to own.

“ Owning the workflow” means embedding the product so deeply into the customer's operations that it's not just a tool, it’s the nervous system of a department.

“there was a loud and clear desire (1) to consolidate even more parts of the finance stack and (2) for Ramp to be that consolidation partner.”

I think the more likely outcome in B2B will be that point solutions – software products that do one thing – are more at risk from integrated platforms that can more easily bundle point solutions into their platform, making their whole offering more valuable as they do.

Because Ramp will see so many trips across its more than 25,000 corporate customers, it will be able to suggest expense controls based on what other travelers are paying, not a generic “average cost for this route.” It might also suggest restaurants, hotels, and other local trips that other Ramp companies enjoyed.

It wasn’t about a corporate card, or even just building better software for finance teams to use, but about improving every part of the business that involves a transaction.