Flip CEO: AI will transform how we work today, and especially the frontline

Benedikt Brand (né Ilg) co-founded Flip in 2018 with the mission of “connecting the disconnected”.

While the frontline makes up 80% of the global total workforce, only 1% of tech spend goes on deskless workers.

“The cost of ignoring the people who work in the value chain…is too high”, shared Brand during his keynote at Flip Forward. UNLEASH was in attendance at the frontline worker app’s first customer event in Berlin in mid-May.

Traditional technology platforms struggled to reach the frontline – so Brand and the Flip team decided to focus on the end user, and making their experience as simple as possible.

“Tech can have an impact, but if it’s not being used, it’s useless,” Brand tells UNLEASH at Flip Forward. “We [focus] from the employee up, not from the admin [down].”

Luke Talbot, Flip’s CPTO, adds in the UNLEASH interview: “I think it’s relatively easy to build tools for managers and CHROs – we understand them, we’ve built technology for them for decades.”

“We need to have an intimate understanding of our customers: frontline workers,” continues Talbot. There’s a need to go and “shake hands with them” and ask them “what’s the biggest problem you want us to solve?”

Right now, there are few challenges for the frontline – demographics, talent and skills shortages, burnout, to name a few.

Luke Talbot, CPTO at Flip, on stage.

Also, top of mind for the frontline (and actually all workers) is AI – is it going to steal people’s jobs?

As Roman Zitzelsberger, Founder & CEO, Petronas Group, stated in his Flip Forward keynote, skepticism about innovation and technology has always existed.

Just think back to the industrial revolution, and the Luddite movement – but, “there is no change without resistance”.

“It’s been proven through experience that every technological development in the last 100 years that has changed, or replaced human labor has led to more jobs, has [increased] economic prosperity and the success of companies”.

Flip CEO: ‘Companies that do not adopt AI in 2025 will fail’

Amid this AI revolution, Flip is leaning fully into AI, with the aim of supporting its 500 customers across 100 countries (and their employees).

During his keynote, Brand stated: “We believe that AI will play a transformative role into the whole organization and how we work today, and especially in frontline work, leaders must prepare today.”

He believes that “companies that do not adopt AI in 2025 will fail” – not taking action now is much more risky than doing something.

Zitzelsberger agreed: “Companies and their employees who haven’t kept up with changes…have missed out on opportunities” – they were left behind.

There’s only one answer on the question of AI, we should move forward full speed,” continued  Zitzelsberger.

“We need to design a future for frontline workers where everyone is involved”, so Flip Forward “marks a new era for us” where the company becomes truly AI-first.

In fact, Flip even announced a $28 million Series A extension that will allow it “double down” on AI; UNLEASH has exclusive reporting on this investment round.

“AI will be in every part of our company, it also will be a part in every feature that we deliver in the future,” shared Brand.

Benedikt Brand, CEO & Co-Founder of Flip, on stage at Flip Forward in Berlin.

Flip, agentic AI and the future of the frontline

Flip Forward was the opportunity for the HR tech company to share its vision for the future of AI for the frontline, as well as some specific innovations, products and demos.

Speaking on stage, CPTO Talbot stated that the AI hype may be in full swing, but, as Talbot tells UNLEASH, it is key that “we’re able to deploy something super practical to frontline workers today”.

Talbot is of the view that “just having generative AI is not really enough”, “it must actually be able to do things, save people time, and automate as well”.

Because Flip bought The Bot Platform last year, the HR tech company is able to build an agentic layer that underpins its work in this space.

For Brand, The Bot Platform’s infrastructure is a real differentiator for Flip, Talbot agrees that it helps Flip stay ahead of the curve.

“AI is a huge stake for us – it’s absolutely the right one” – “not only can we deliver something right now… but actually we’re ready for what will happen” in the near future.

“Value stacking” is what Talbot calls Flip’s approach to AI – it means stacking different AI products and layers on top of one another.

Each layer adds value, but, ultimately, “the sum of [the stacks] is far more valuable than the individual parts”, stated Talbot.

The key, for Brand, is that for frontline workers, it all sits as one, simple-to-use Flip interface.

“What is happening behind the scenes, and all that complexity, we totally take that away,” Brand tells UNLEASH. “our goal is to combine the whole employee life cycle”, and unite HR, comms, operations all into one, simple, AI-powered platform.

“You don’t need a five-year transformation for a huge HCM suite” –“companies can get out in front again through this AI layer”.

“We are the value realization engine – if you deploy Flip, you can get everybody spending a lot less thinking about how to do something, and just doing it,” adds Talbot.

Flip invited some customers to the stage at Flip Forward to discuss their success with Flip products, and “value stacking”.

EUROPART Group CEO Olaf Giesen shared how his commercial vehicle spare parts business is leveraging Flip’s onboarding AI products and the Knowledge Base to help improve the experience of new hires.

For Giesen, there’s “no second change to make a good first impression”, so that’s why this use case is so noteworthy for EUROPART, which employs 2,000 people across 28 countries.

The real “game changer” with Flip’s AI at EUROPART is that it can answer questions and engage with employees in their language of choice.

Giesen was clear that EUROPART’s relationship with Flip has a bright future – he wants to see Flip become the German company’s single source of truth.