CEO MONTHLY / DECEMBER 2025 22 ess a traditional software company and more a digital employment agency, Freeday goes beyond the complex software provided by its competitors and instead delivers fully trained digital employees ready to seamlessly integrate into their teams straight out of the box. They handle the repetitive tasks mentioned above effortlessly, providing 24/7 support across email and chat functions alike. This frees up the human members of a team to work on those complex, meaningful tasks that require a human touch. Built around the core values of radical transparency, integrity in execution, and relentless innovation, what sets Freeday apart in this space is that, whilst most players fall into one of two categories: massive and powerful platforms with a complex toolkit or basic chatbot builders that are fast but limited, it has created a category of its own. Offering a ‘digital workforce as a service’, Freeday does not provide just one tool or even the entire toolkit, it delivers a trained master builder who shows up on time and with their own tools. “You don’t manage the complexity; we do. You don’t train the system; we do. You don’t have to worry about whether it will work, because we guarantee it through our outcome-based pricing model.” Exploring this further, Marcus told us: “The front-end uses generative AI to understand messy human communication, adapting to context and handling typos or slang. The back-end consists of deterministic, lockeddown workflows that execute with robotic precision. This combination offers something rare: interactions that feel conversational and intelligent but operate with the reliability and auditability enterprises demand.” Insights like this reflect Marcus’ role as Freeday’s CEO, a position he sees as standing more for ‘Chief Energy Officer’ than anything else. From setting a clear destination to ensuring it is moved towards with the necessary focus and intensity, Marcus sets the tone for the entire organisation. Around 60 to 70% of the average week for this CEO is spent with customers, stepping into their shoes and understanding the real problems they are facing. This fuels a problemdemand-build process that ensures market needs are met. Enterprise AI Automation Done Differently Every day, talented individuals waste countless hours on repetitive, soulcrushing tasks – tasks that make them lose ambition and which in the near future will be deemed inhumane. Be it processing invoices or answering the same questions hundreds of times, there are countless tasks that require no creativity, empathy, or judgement. Just robotic consistency. This is why Freeday, anchored by Artificial Intelligence CEO of the Year 2025 – the Netherlands, Marcus Groeneveld, built robots to do exactly that. We caught up with Marcus for more on this pioneering operation. Such an approach is nothing new for Marcus, who followed the same philosophy at Ciphix, his previous company. Interestingly, even though he has spearheaded the creation of both of these businesses over the last eight years, entrepreneurship was never really on the cards for Marcus growing up, as he neither intended to be one nor believed he was destined for such great responsibility. However, the signs were always there, it simply took meeting Mathijs Gast – Marcus’ long-term business partner – to bring this side out. The duo founded Ciphix in the basement of a student apartment, with nothing but conviction, pace, and obsession guiding them. As this business scaled, it became clear the direction the world of business was going in: towards adaptive, conversational interfaces designed to handle the realities of everyday work. It is here where the recognition that digital employees – not more chatbots – were needed first came about, with this building the foundation of what would soon become Freeday, marking the realisation of a shared vision. Defined by its high-performance culture, ongoing feedback loops, and an emphasis on clarity, discipline, and ownership, Freeday works with a simple rhythm and according to a future shaped by both its customers and the world around it. With the AI industry currently at a crossroads, balancing unprecedented potential with a wave of hype, confusion, and mistrust, Marcus knows the future for Freeday must be about translating the principles of this tech into durable, real-world workflows – which is exactly where it operates. By the time 2026 is over, the aim for Freeday is for its digital employees to be able to answer phone calls, conduct conversations, and resolve issues using real-time voiceover. Beyond this, the vision is clear: to become the defining company in digital workforce solutions. As for Marcus specifically, he remains at the cutting edge of this environment, keen to become the kind of CEO who can guide a company through new realities. Named the Artificial Intelligence CEO of the Year 2025 – the Netherlands for his work in enterprise AI automation, Marcus Groeneveld’s work in providing automated AI agents to companies looking to streamline their services and maximise their human employees’ operation makes him more than fitting of inclusion in this feature. L Contact: Marcus Groeneveld Company: Freeday Web Address: www.freeday.ai
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