Ramp CEO Eric Glyman on AI and Self-Driving Money

TL;DR

Ramp builds a command-and-control system for company finances, letting businesses issue cards, manage approvals, make payments, and automate closing their books from one place. The average company using Ramp saves about 5% per year on expenses. Eric Glyman argues zero-touch automation working invisibly in the background is more valuable than chatbots for most finance tasks.

Transcript

look I think the most important thing um Beyond is empathy if you're trying to make great products you need to have great taste um you need people who are making to so deeply understand um really the experience of a building the pain that people are going through um you know what they're actually you know the customer at the end is actually doing o... Read More

Key Insights

• Zero-touch automation that works invisibly in the background is more valuable than chatbots for many finance tasks, because few people actually want to chat with their bank account or expense report, and the interaction adds friction rather than removing it.
• The average company using Ramp saves about 5% per year on its expenses, which over five years in business has added up to billions of dollars of savings and the equivalent of thousands of years of saved labor.
• Ramp is a command-and-control system for company finances where, from one place, businesses can issue cards, manage approvals, make payments of all kinds, and even automate closing their books.
• Great products require empathy and deep understanding of the customer's pain, in some cases better than the customer understands it themselves, which is why Ramp engineers join customer calls and are accountable for metrics when shipping.
• Agentic AI is not new: in 2015 at Paribus, Glyman built an email-integrated agent that scanned inboxes for receipts, tracked prices, and auto-generated emails to stores to claim price-drop refunds, used by millions.
• Ramp applies large language models to transaction data and the general ledger to autocomplete expenses faster and, for most customers, more accurately, effectively letting a company's books do themselves.
• Zero-touch expenses replace two apps with one: instead of using American Express plus Concur, tapping a Ramp card pulls the receipt from the merchant or email so the expense report is done for you.
• Ramp considers itself more a productivity company than a money company, so almost anything that raises the productivity of capital or saves finance teams time or money is in scope for its self-driving money vision.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is Ramp and what does it do for companies?

Ramp is dedicated to making companies more profitable and operate more smoothly. It is a command-and-control system for company finances where, from one place, you can issue cards, manage approvals, make payments of all kinds, and even automate closing your books. For finance teams, operations are simpler and many business processes are automated. The average company using Ramp saves about 5% per year on its expenses, which is pretty material and has added up to billions in savings.

Q: Why does Eric Glyman think chatbots are not the right form factor for finance?

Glyman says after ChatGPT came out, suddenly there was a chatbot slapped on everything, with people claiming you could finally talk to your app. But he has never met anyone who wishes they could chat with their bank account or expense report. He argues the interaction adds friction rather than removing it. Instead, he favors zero-touch automation that works invisibly in the background, using the analogy of self-driving cars, or in this case self-driving money, as far more valuable in many cases.

Q: How much money does the average company save using Ramp?

The average company using Ramp is able to save about 5% per year on its expenses, which Glyman describes as pretty material. Over the past five years the company has been in business, this has added up to billions of dollars of savings and the equivalent of thousands of years of labor saved. Customers range from large publicly traded companies like Shopify and Virgin Voyages to the Boys and Girls Clubs in America and 25,000 other businesses benefiting today.

Q: What AI agent did Eric Glyman build back in 2015?

At Paribus, Glyman built a simple tool he considers fair to call an agent. A decade ago, stores like Amazon and Best Buy offered price adjustment policies where if an item you bought dropped in price the next day, you could claim the difference back. The Paribus app integrated with your email, scanned your inbox for receipts, tracked prices, and if there was a price drop, generated an email that sounded like you sent it to the store. You would wake up to money back the next day. Millions of people used it.

Q: What is self-driving money and how does Ramp's vision work?

Self-driving money is Ramp's vision of a finance department that improves itself by automating tedious and monotonous tasks. Instead of finance teams auditing expense reports by hand, downloading spreadsheets to tag and classify vendors, or rerunning analyses repeatedly, Ramp automates these through better design and integrated tools. Over time it aims to point businesses toward operating more efficiently, finding the same vendors at better prices, higher yields, more efficient collections, and more efficient recordkeeping, all done automatically on your behalf.

Q: How does Ramp use large language models to automate expenses?

Ramp applies large language models to the transaction data itself as well as your general ledger, so it can autocomplete expenses for you. For the vast majority of customers this is done certainly faster and more accurately, so your books are effectively doing themselves. This is part of zero-touch expenses, where instead of using two apps to buy one thing, you tap your Ramp card and the system pulls the receipt from the merchant or your email, so the expense report is done for you rather than by you.

Q: What does Ramp consider in scope versus out of scope for its product?

Glyman says the guiding question is whether Ramp can create a product that saves time or money for its customers; if so, it is in scope. Today Ramp is largely used for payments out of a business, including card expenses, bill payment expenses, and business processes on top of that. Over time, building toward self-driving money, they are thinking about higher yields, more efficient collections, and more efficient recordkeeping. Because Ramp views itself as a productivity company, there is very little out of scope.

Q: Why does Eric Glyman emphasize empathy in building great products?

Glyman says the most important thing beyond building is empathy. To make great products you need great taste and people who deeply understand the customer's experience and the pain they are going through, in some cases better than the customer understands it themselves. Only then can you build products well-designed enough to actually automate tasks and do them more efficiently. This is why Ramp engineers join customer calls when products ship, are accountable for metrics and performance, and rarely go without recent customer contact.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Ramp is dedicated to making companies more profitable and operate more smoothly through a command-and-control system for company finances. From one place, businesses issue cards, manage approvals, make payments, and automate closing their books. The average customer saves about 5% per year, totaling billions in savings across 25,000 businesses including Shopify and Virgin Voyages.

• Eric Glyman built an early AI agent in 2015 at Paribus that lived in your inbox, scanned for receipts, tracked prices, and auto-generated emails to stores claiming price-drop refunds. Millions used it, proving agentic AI existed a decade ago, though it was a narrow use case compared to today's more generalized reasoning capabilities.

• Ramp's vision is self-driving money: taking tedious, monotonous finance tasks like auditing expense reports by hand or tagging vendors and automating them. Glyman rejects the post-ChatGPT rush to add chatbots everywhere, favoring zero-touch AI that works invisibly. He views Ramp as a productivity company, so almost anything saving time or money is in scope.