Why This Payments CEO Decided to Become Chief AI Officer Instead

For most executives, the CEO title represents the pinnacle of corporate leadership. But for one payments and spend management industry leader, the future of business demands a different title: Chief Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer.

David Khuat-Duy, founder at Ivalua, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster that he’s making what might be his most transformative decision yet: stepping down as CEO to take on the newly minted role of Chief AI Officer.

The rationale behind the change? AI is no longer a tool to be implemented. It’s a paradigm shift that will redefine every aspect of business operations.

Khuat-Duy explained that he is placing a bet that the future of enterprise software — and business itself — will be rewritten by generative AI.

“The disruption that is going to happen is so huge that there is nothing more strategic for the company, or even for humanity, than what is happening with AI,” he said. “I feel that focusing 100% of my time and driving investment energy of the company on this topic is very critical.”

This isn’t a purely theoretical exercise, either. Ivalua has already been integrating AI into its platform for years, with early use cases such as invoice data capture and contract analysis. But the acceleration of generative AI has opened entirely new possibilities, and Khuat-Duy sees no choice but to dive in fully.

“We’ve decided to really go full on that and invest a lot of the R&D energy we have on incorporating this technology at the platform level,” he said.

That means breaking down barriers to AI adoption internally, ensuring teams understand how to integrate AI into their workflows, and ultimately proving that AI can drive efficiency and innovation at scale.

“We need to understand how to make AI real within complex organizations,” Khuat-Duy added. “It’s not just automating the way we work. It’s changing and reinventing the way we work.”

A Disruption Too Big to Ignore

Traditionally, spend management has been a mix of finance, procurement and operational controls aimed at ensuring companies optimize their expenditures. AI has already played a role in automation, from invoice reconciliation to fraud detection. But Khuat-Duy believes this is just the beginning.

“The big change is this agentic approach,” he explained. “Rather than delegating a task, you have AI agents that function almost like employees — understanding how the company operates, accessing critical data and making real decisions.”

It could represent a seismic shift in how work gets done.

“I almost have the feeling that the most efficient processes will be decided by the AI themselves,” Khuat-Duy said. “They are starting to reason at a level that is already very high.”

Despite the excitement, AI-driven transformation isn’t without challenges — especially when it comes to change management.

“Inside our company, I see a lot of people being very excited, but some are a bit frightened,” Khuat-Duy acknowledged. “Especially about the unknown.”

That’s why he emphasized transparency, training and hands-on experimentation. “It’s a lot about talking about it, communicating about it and testing it,” he said. “Just give people tools to start using it. That makes it more concrete. Doesn’t mean they’re not scared anymore, but they’re more comfortable with what’s happening.”

A Blueprint for AI-Led Organizations

For organizations looking to adopt AI at scale, Khuat-Duy stressed that change management must be intentional and inclusive. “My approach is not to say, ‘Let’s use AI to become a more efficient company with fewer people.’ That’s not the goal,” he said. “I really think that if we do it right, we can help everyone adapt to this new paradigm and unlock new opportunities for growth.”

At Ivalua, some of the early focus areas include enhancing R&D processes, improving customer support through AI-powered agents and revolutionizing software implementation by reducing friction in client onboarding.

One particularly promising application is using AI to automate and accelerate testing scenarios during enterprise software deployments, which has historically been a slow, expensive and labor-intensive process.

“If we’re able to disrupt that part and have AI agents orchestrate testing in a very efficient way, the ROI is huge,” Khuat-Duy said. “It’s a game-changer for every customer.”

We have the advantage of really knowing how to serve our customers and what their business needs are,” he added. “That’s a big differentiator compared to young startups that will have to discover all of that, which takes time.”

Ultimately, trust will be the key to widespread AI adoption. “It’s like self-driving cars,” Khuat-Duy said. “People will trust AI when they see the results.”