347: Will AI Agents Redefine Automation? Balancing Autonomy and Guardrails with Bhaskar Roy, Chief of AI Products and Solutions at Workato

Bhaskar Roy is the Chief of AI Products & Solutions at Workato, the workflow automation leader with more than 11,000 customers and a $5.7 billion valuation. He has been with the company for nearly 11 years, previously serving as CMO. A serial head of products, Bhaskar co-founded Qik, which was acquired by Skype in 2011 for $150 million and later by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, and later held leadership roles at Playphone. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the Birla Institute of Technology in Mesra, India.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Bhaskar’s journey from co-founding Qik to leading AI products at Workato, and why a lightbulb moment convinced him to pivot from marketing back to product innovation
• What Bhaskar learned from building products that scale globally and how those lessons shape his view on AI’s real-world impact
• Why Bhaskar sees AI agents as the next leap beyond low-code automation and how they orchestrate complex business processes
• The balance between deterministic workflows and AI’s reasoning capabilities, and how to maintain human oversight
• How enterprises can move beyond AI experiments at the fringes to transformative use cases that deliver measurable ROI
• The cultural shift required to embrace AI in the workplace, from reducing fear of automation to unlocking new opportunities for employees

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter
• Connect with Bhaskar on LinkedIn
• AI fun fact article
• On How to Help Companies Push Boldly Into The Future
• Past episodes with amazing guests from Workato:
  • Interview with Vijay Tella, CEO of Workato
  • Interview with Carter Busse, CIO at Workato