June 11, 2025
Matt Calkins, CEO – Appian
Elon Musk Was Right: Why Government Needs Boring AI, Matt Calkins – CEO Appian
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It’s easy to get lost in the AI gold rush exploding around the globe. On this episode of The Reboot Chronicles Show, Appian CEO Matt Calkins explains why AI’s greatest value isn’t about replacing humans, but about helping organizations work faster or smarter. Now it is time for a moment of truth about the basic value of AI.
A great American entrepreneurial growth story, Matt has grown Appian from a scrappy basement startup to the most successful software IPO of 2017 with only $10 million of pre IPO capital. Most CEOs don’t raise capital so efficiently before going public—which is one reason we wanted him on the show. I guess also because Dean did the same thing, as the CEO of Autoweb, which he took public at a billion-dollar valuation. It’s a small club…but getting bigger with AI companies.
This rapidly growing group now has a $2B market cap and thousands of employees that have rebooted into a ‘Process AI’ firm built to enable a ‘worker’ model for organizations.
Hot off the heels of their World Conference, where they unpacked the future of tech, and how to put AI to work, Matt cuts through the hype to help us peer around corners with a realistic take on what’s next for our organizations and our lives.
Looking Past AI Hype And Focusing On “Boring AI”
We have talked with a lot of C-suite who have all sang the praises of AI and the things AI could do. Matt has a very different perspective about AI, stating that “no real value has yet been generated, and at the rate we’re investing as an economy in AI we need profound real value.” He even continues that thought by stating “the uses of AI don’t come close to justifying the investment that we are making in it as an economy”. With massive bills being passed to fund AI initiatives, and social media hyperbolists making AI seem like the greatest thing since sliced bread, it is important to try and find the real value of what AI can offer at this moment.
If most of the talk about is hyperbolic in nature that does beg the question of what sort of work can AI excel at right now? Matt notes that “[AI] just does normal work with extraordinary superhuman capability.” The more mundane the work you need done the better AI will be at it. A great example being a company that could get a million pieces of mail in a month. It would be an tortuous job for an individual or even a team to sort all of it, but AI can sort and categorize it in mere minutes. Give AI a set of simple tasks and it can revolutionize a workflow.
A Place For AI To Excel
One topic that Matt was very outspoken about during our time together was the relationship between our Government and AI. From an economy that is spending too much on AI, to the notion that the U.S. government should be looking to create some AI based regulations. Even if that means adopting the UK’s regulations? Maybe. Matt was also outspoken about the fact the Government is “the perfect place to make use of AI” as the “government runs on words.” This is something that he has put into practice even has Appian has partnerships with 15 cabinet level agencies, through which he has been able to use AI to condense and help individuals parse the vast amount of public information the government has. He has even made that AI model public for all to see as it is a true testament to the power AI has when it comes to large scale simple tasks.
The Future In Mundane AI Work
Looking past all of the hype around AI, and assuming many of the promises and statements coming out around AI are more than likely false, where does that leave to future of AI? And what is Appian going to do to move forward and push AI, so that maybe one day it can reach the heights people want it too? The main goal for Appian going forward is to “allow AI to do the world’s most important high-volume work”.
The other thing to continue to look out for moving forward is where AI can actually bring real value. All of the innovation and promises sound really cool, but always make sure to do that extra stretch of research to try and look past the hype, to see where the real value is.
