Remote, the Amsterdam-based payroll service provider established seven years ago, recently announced significant financial milestones, surpassing $300 million in annual recurring revenue and achieving cash-flow positive status. However, the company emphasizes that the more compelling narrative lies in its internal transformation: a remarkable 50% surge in revenue per employee, attributed to the enterprise-wide integration of artificial intelligence.
Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote, shared with TechCrunch his personal and professional immersion in AI, stating, “As we are talking, on the second screen of my laptop, I have five different Claude instances running, building different things — and some of those are for me, but a lot of them are for Remote.” This comprehensive AI adoption includes tools like a Slack agent for discussion summaries and experiments with agentic AI, all contributing to Remote's ability to generate increased revenue without expanding its workforce.
Van der Voort credits these substantial efficiency gains to AI adoption that extends far beyond executive offices or engineering departments. Employees across all organizational functions are actively developing and deploying applications within Remote Labs, an internal marketplace built on the company’s proprietary technology. This internal innovation mirrors the advanced AI capabilities Remote is now extending to its clientele.
Leveraging its internal successes, Remote is now empowering clients to craft bespoke workflows. Van der Voort asserts, “We know that we’re ahead of most companies in that sense.” To facilitate this, Remote launched Remote Build, a service featuring what he describes as "forward-deployed engineers" who collaborate directly with customers and prospects to implement similar AI-driven solutions within their respective organizations.
These efficiency improvements, van der Voort contends, are poised for further growth. He highlights that Remote's core payroll business has seen an impressive year-over-year growth exceeding 300%, largely attributing this expansion to AI integration, though this figure lacks independent verification. Remote also reports serving tens of thousands of companies navigating complex global employment compliance, a metric, like its ARR, provided solely by the company.
While Remote specializes in managing the inherent complexities of global payroll, its employees have also experienced considerable relief from the repetitive and bureaucratic tasks involved in paying workers across nearly every country. Van der Voort noted, “Obviously we’ve been automating a lot of that; that’s what we do. But with AI that became easier, and arguably more fun than ever before.”
Despite the inherently functional nature of payroll, van der Voort expresses enthusiasm for the significant market opportunity it presents. He clarified that, contrary to its name, Remote targets all business types, with the majority of its clients employing staff in traditional office settings. He firmly stated, “We do payroll for everybody, period.”
In contrast to many competitors who have gravitated towards an "all-in-one" HR platform model, Remote views the current wave of AI innovation and the subsequent commoditization of software as vindication for its strategic decision to remain laser-focused on solving the intricate challenges of payroll.
This focused approach also underpins Remote's partnership strategy, where it facilitates partners in leveraging AI. The recently introduced Remote MCP (Model Context Protocol) provides a standardized interface for AI agents to securely interact with external software. This allows AI agents and platforms, such as BambooHR and Workday, to directly access Remote's payroll and compliance data, effectively utilizing Remote as an underlying engine.
This initiative aligns with the ascendance of agentic AI, a trend that could lead to many companies "virtually disappearing — in a good way." Van der Voort envisions a future where, “if you use ChatGPT or Claude, you can control all of Remote; if you really wanted to, you don’t have to interact with our platform anymore. I think that’s where the future goes.”
The next evolutionary step, according to van der Voort, involves AI agents directly interacting with Remote, adhering to stringent security protocols essential for handling sensitive financial and personal payroll data. His personal open-source AI agent, named Jim (an OpenClaw assistant), has served as a pioneering example. He explained, “Jim can interact with Remote, and we build it in such a way that it is secure, so I don’t have to worry about my agent doing crazy stuff and messing things up. He has access to what he needs, but he cannot do destructive things. Those are the kinds of things that we’re really excited about, and it gives you a little bit of a taste of the future.”
Internally, Remote’s adoption of AI-powered coding mirrors practices at other tech giants like Spotify. The company has witnessed a more than 60% increase in engineering contributions over the past year, a trend that is accelerating. Van der Voort revealed, “if you look over the last month, more than 85% of all of our code is written by AI.”
While this shift has led to a reduction in Remote's hiring projections, it has not resulted in any job displacements. Van der Voort clarified that the company hadn't initially planned a large-scale recruitment drive. However, he noted, “But certainly in some departments our plans were to hire more people than we did. [… ] What we’re doing now very actively is evaluating: ‘Do we actually need more people, or do we want to spend more time on upskilling the people that we have to use AI tools, and directly spending more money on AI?’”
Regarding AI expenses, van der Voort, whose role is to ensure the company's financial stability and rapid growth, remains unconcerned. He stated, “Our spend on AI is increasing, but we keep track of it, so it’s something that we’re happy with; and because we become more efficient as a company, we have some space to spend that on AI and those initiatives.”
Remote's journey provides one of the clearest illustrations to date of AI's tangible business impact. The company is not merely accelerating operations with AI; it is fundamentally reshaping its scaling model. Achieving higher revenue per employee, deferring hiring, and expanding its product offerings without a proportional increase in headcount represents an aspirational operating model for many organizations.
Furthermore, van der Voort finds personal satisfaction in AI's influence, noting that it has enhanced his own role. “This adds a whole new fun angle, I would say,” he concluded.
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