Episode 130 of Constellation TV covers a lot. Moderated by Liz Miller, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, the event is fast-moving and pulls no punches. Here’s what we covered:
Tokenmaxxing: right or wrong?
Liz opened the debate with a term she made clear she didn’t like, and invited Holger Müller and Mike Nee to weigh in.
Holger framed this as a potential democratization of business automation. For the first time, individual employees can experiment with AI without having to submit change requests or keep IT personnel waiting. It’s new and important.
Mike’s interpretation centers around the protagonist. Employees who explore and push the limits of what AI can do will ultimately create a cultural shift that engages the rest of the organization. Using tokens as metrics is straightforward, but unlocking the right talent is not.
Liz pushed them both back. The problem is not the experiment. That’s when maximization becomes the measure of success. Purposeless use is not a strategy, and organizations that treat it like one will not get further ahead, but will fall further back. The correct measure is not “amount.” It was because of that that things changed.
Constellation Shortlist: Digital Asset Management
DAM doesn’t get enough attention. Liz argued that digital asset management is the last mile of experience delivery and the first technology to bring experience teams together in a way that actually works.
She gave a step-by-step explanation of the three stages of maturity. One is the brand guarantee and is about ease of storage and retrieval. Brand security involves controls, versioning, and metadata. In brand safety, AI becomes the autonomous force that keeps assets usable, rights compliant, and built for delivery at scale.
Brand Folder in Smartsheet stood out on the shortlist for its seamless integration with work management, clean UI, and ability to serve both power users and occasional visitors without making them feel like they’re climbing a hill just to find the logo. If you’re still treating your DAM like a big bucket of folders, it’s time to reconsider.
AI problems PSO keeps making mistakes
R “Ray” Wang speaks with Robert Cesafsky, COO of Certinia, behind a recent HBR article, and the conversation cuts to the heart of why so many AI deployments in professional services are underperforming.
Most PSOs are focusing their AI investments on service delivery. Customer service work. Research, content, and project execution. That makes sense on the surface. However, the service management side – estimating, estimating, resource management, billing, and revenue recognition – is almost completely ignored. And that requires a fundamentally different approach.
Service provision can tolerate probabilistic AI. This is not possible with service management. ASC 606 revenue recognition requires deterministic AI. Rule-bound, auditable, and traceable. The mistake PSOs keep making is lumping both sides into one strategy and wondering why it doesn’t work.
Another insight worth considering is that where you insert humans in the loop is more important than the automation itself. Expertise is becoming a commodity. Experience is not. We are the last generation of managers who only manage people. Organizations that build their AI architectures around that reality will win.
Larry Dignan’s Buzzword Bingo
Liz ends the episode by bombarding Larry Dignan with Enterprise Technology’s worst buzzwords, eliciting an unfiltered reaction from him. Automagical. Agency. Customer commitment. IMHO. And of course, tokenmaxxing.
Larry’s thoughts on maximizing tokens: There’s nothing more painful than a 60-year-old CEO saying maximize. That sounds ridiculous and proves nothing. A donkey may eat a lot of hay and still not win the Kentucky Derby. If the barometer of your AI’s success is the number of tokens it burns, you’re measuring the wrong thing.
Watch the full episode and subscribe Constellation Research YouTube Episode 131, hosted by Martin Schneider, will air in two weeks.
