speaker-0: Welcome everybody to another edition of Decline Invite, the only invite worth accepting. I'm your host, the extroverted IT leader, Ryan Drumheller. And today's episode is one I think a lot of leaders need to hear right now because we're diving into something that honestly gets overlooked in most AI conversations, the human side. But my guest today is Michael Solomon, a global support executive, transformation leader, and the host of the Human Protocol Podcast. Michael has spent more than 15 years leading global customer support and operational transformation teams across the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latum. What makes his perspective really unique is while a lot of the market is assessing over efficiency and automation, he's asking a much deeper question. What does it actually mean to stay human while building the future with AI? We're gonna get into some customer experience, some leadership, emotional intelligence. identity beyond titles, operational transformation, and why empathy may become one of the most important business skills moving forward. So Michael, my pleasure to welcome you to Decline Invite. I really appreciate you being here today.
speaker-1: you Ryan. It is my absolute pleasure to be with you and your audience today. I've been looking forward to to this conversation. I really love what you're doing with the podcast, the conversations that you're having, and you have a great name for the podcast. Really, really cool and fun.
speaker-0: ⁓ I I appreciate that. And ⁓ y you know, your venture and topics into AI and human are gonna go very perfect with a lot of content I pushed out. So I have a feeling we're gonna have some great conversations and like-mindedness here. So with that, we like to go right into some icebreaker questions. And you know, you've had a really global journey, you know, between ⁓ Cuba and Brazil and then leading organizations across multiple continents. How did that shape your leadership perspective?
speaker-1: ⁓ I think it's ⁓ it actually expanded in many different ways. I think experiencing other cultures, like in my case, I was born in Cuba, raised in Brazil. ⁓ the US has been home for the past, I believe, seventeen, eighteen eighteen years already. So experiencing different cultures and getting to know people and different perspectives, different learning, different languages, ⁓ and of course it helps you to appreciate what is different from you. And I believe this adds a lot to it, especially when you're trying to communicate and with work with different types of customers, leading different types of teams. That type of exposure, right? ⁓ learning to help and to understand ⁓ how different cultures may treat different types of issues based on what they have been used to. I think that's ⁓ that's a a a benefit. To everyone that had the opportunity to really experience in what it is to live a life that is different from what you know. Right? And and I think that's the key of everything like we do in life. Sometimes we make decisions based on what we know, our culture, what we have been exposed to. But there's usually a gap in t between what you we think is right and how we make decisions and what it could have been. And that what could have been. Is what others may bring to the table, right? To kind of add into your thought process based on their perspectives and the different cultures that they may be part of it. So so back to your question, Ryan. I think that's ⁓ that exposure ⁓ to different cultures, it makes you appreciate life ⁓ in a different way because it's coming from a place that ⁓ of understanding. of understanding of other people's difference. And that has shaped my leadership career for the most part because I that's the place that I put myself into. A place of understanding. And from that place everything is possible.
speaker-0: Absolutely love that and I cannot speak from a a place of you know living in different countries ⁓ but definitely visited a lot of countries at this point, worked for a lot of non-US ⁓ you know related jobs at this point and and got ⁓ a taste of different cultures and different ⁓ you know viewing you know viewpoints, different individuals from all across the globe. And for me at the times going through it, eye opening, ⁓ but I I completely agree. I can see how that makes a a lot of sense. Once you have more knowledge, it it kind of makes you more aware and and it makes you lead from a place of now, like you said, what you know. so now you can adapt to that and and put that into your thoughts every day.
speaker-1: And and you know, you always lead in from a place that you are allowing yourself to learn from others. You are allowing yourself to understand that what you know is not everything, and that you can always learn from others. And when you come to that place, you always leave a space to further understanding, to further learning, and in a way you improve yourself and you become more human in a way because you are always understanding what the other is going through, even though it you know, you may disagree or agree, whatever that may dec may be the case, but you are listening, you're paying attention and you are understanding others better.
speaker-0: Agree more. ⁓ absolutely always leave I mean you have music to my ears as soon as you said leave space for learning. Talking to the right person. So what originally pulled you into customer experience and support leadership?
speaker-1: ⁓ let me maybe take us both back in the day. It's ⁓ it's I started in you know what it used to be IT support, right? IT throughout the year it has changed name, it became tech, it became so many different things. But when we look at customer support, that's how I started my career. I started my career as an IT support specialist. Actually, very, you know. one of my f if if not my first job back in Brazil, it was as a data data entry analyst. Entering products ⁓ in the system, making sure prices were correct, updating, doing inventory. So that's what that was one of my my first jobs back in Brazil in in a library. ⁓ I recall those days. ⁓ it was a retail ⁓ store. And I was responsible for making sure all the merchandise, everything that was going through the POS, ⁓ the prices were correct, the inventory was in check. So that's how customer support came into my life. That's how I got started via this IT job, ⁓ supporting the business, in this case a retail location, and after that, it was one support job after the other. I always like ⁓ helping others. I always like the the possibility that we have in support to make people feel better. Usually when you reach out to support is because there is an issue. And if there is an issue if your customer is the business or it's a regular customer, at the end of the day that's those are your customers. And however you can make someone feel better because you help them fix an issue It's ⁓ it's something that makes you feel better. So that's how customer support came to my life. That's that's how I started lobbying it as a profession, and that's how I stayed on it. Throughout the year, I went through different IC related ⁓ customer support roles. I've been very technical. I've I've I've done software deployment, I've been on the very technical side of support. And at some point, like many of us, and probably in your audience as well. Make you have to make a decision. What is it for me next? Is it I see because I want to be very technical, or is it leadership because I want to get the best out of others? And that's where my passion towards leadership started like seven, seven, eight years ago. ⁓ when I make the decision, I want to be the best leader I can be for my people and my team. I want to be that leader that sits in the middle and can help our teams to be successful, right? while leveraging all my technical skills and knowledge that I had. So that's how I pivoted ⁓ seven, eight years ago towards leadership, Ryan. and that has been my case as far as leading global support organization. I've been lucky enough to work at ⁓ organizations where we had global teams, and that's how my passion about leading and and working with global teams comes into place. ⁓ and since then that has been my passion. Today I'm at the global support organization at a company I work for, leading global support teams across multiple time zones, and this is my passion. This is this is really who I am.
speaker-0: No, I I absolutely love that. And, you know, everything you described in the earlier questions, you're able to bundle that right into this role. It makes perfect sense. And it sounds like a nice glove fit and and a great segue of of how you landed there and you know how individuals can absolutely figure out along the way where they fit. All those decision choices led you to today. I love it. So At what point did you realize that the conversation around AI needed more humanity in it?
speaker-1: It was at some point ⁓ last year, Ryan. ⁓ AI is not something new. It's been decades. ⁓ even though ⁓ for a lot of people they may hear AI and they may think it's something new. It's not something new. And I've worked with automations in the past as part of process improvement in support. Of course, in support we are always improving processes. We are always trying to see what makes sense to automate. So automation And process improvement is something that we do in customer support. And if you are a leader, of course, you're always looking on efficiency, you're always looking to on how you can run better processes. And automation is a big part of what I've been involved in the past five, six, six years. However, with AI becoming more and more of a noise, and I say a noise because especially early 2025, we starting Seen a lot of news, a lot of things in the news about AI. AI product, AI disversion, chat GPT, cloud. This version is better than the previous one. These are the versions. ⁓ layoffs in tech companies. So a lot of the noise about AI, which I think it was is still a lot, was missing a fundamental aspect of this conversation, which is us human beings. That are gonna be the one transforming, evolving with the help of AI in the future. And there was not a lot of conversation around our humanity and how we're gonna transition into this new future, whatever that's gonna be. And that's how the idea of the human protocol, the podcast that that I that I have, as you said, ⁓ came into place. It it came out of a place of ⁓ understanding that there is a need to have conversations around AI and technology and the future, but keeping the humans in the middle of the conversation. And that's my mission. It's really to amplify voices that are working with AI that can ⁓ talk about what the future may be or may not be, but keeping us in the middle of the conversation at the end of the day. Technology should not dictate the future. The f we humans should dictate the future what's gonna happen next with the help of AI. It shouldn't be the other way around. And part a lot of the conversations that I'm having and that I'm seeing and I that I saw last year was the opposite was technology first, AI, human second or third. This is how this is what trigger ⁓ the beginning of this journey with the human protocol.
speaker-0: Absolutely love that because ⁓ as a person who's championing not to forget about the human side ⁓ along the way with AI and that a company's best assets are still their employees. And if you can give those best assets a tool like AI, imagine the creativeness, imagine them separating from their competitors. That's that's what's gonna get the really good companies, in my opinion. separated ⁓ you know in their fields, but those that are replacing the employees, you know, entire marketing teams, sales teams, whatever it is, we look back and we check in on those companies and they're not doing great like when they when they make those decisions. ⁓ I I I understand the need ⁓ for the podcast, which is great ⁓ segment because I'm going right into those questions for you on the podcast. So I mean, you you asked the question, you know, what does it mean to stay human while building the future with AI? You know, what does that actually mean to you?
speaker-1: That was a lot of soul searching last year from my side. Okay. ⁓ and when I was thinking this type of conversation needs to happen. But what I'm gonna focus the podcast and this conversation around, and that's where the guiding principle of the podcast is what does it mean to stay human while building the future? Because that's the question that I'm trying to answer in every single conversation. How are we gonna get there into this new future, whatever that's gonna be? But staying human and what does it mean to really be a human being, to really stay human? And and it was, Ryan, because you know, we need to remember that the technology should serve humanity. It should not be the other way around. And we're still seeing a lot of this conversation around the technology and the tool that it is AI, and not a lot about what is it for us human beings, right? And I'm not gonna lie to you. Efficiency matters, yes, and it will continue to matter. It should matter. Productivity matters, of course it matters, right? If you have a business, if you run a business, you want to be more productive. And innovation matters, yes, all that matters. But those should not be the highest human values. And that's where the human part of it should come into the conversation and should have a role into what happened next, right? And and I think part of the conversation on ⁓ companies implementing AI is just focus on the short term gains, right? It's focus on how to make Wall Street to be happier or to feel happier about our decisions based on the numbers and the efficiency that we're gonna get, but not focus a lot on what I'm need to do from the organization point of view to reskill our workforce. What is the planning behind that? No one is thinking about it. And that should not be a follow-up conversation. That should be part of your planning. When you're implementing AI, the human aspect of it should be part of your planning. It should not be left behind. And I feel and I think this is what's happening today. Companies are rushing to implement it for the sake of efficiency gains. And that is totally fine. A business is a business. But I'm trying to push more of a conversation is yes, look for efficiency, but look what is going to happen with your people as well. Plan about risk reskilling your workforce. What is going to be the role of the future and how your human workforce can also be part of it? Because if we just look at the news, Ryan, everybody thinks that it's the future is going to be an AI agent running the whole show. Really? Is it that way? What's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to the humans? It sounds good though. Sounds good to run linear organization, but we still need to find value, purpose and meaning on what we do. And if we don't design the future with the humans as part of it, then no one will do it. So those are the conversations that I'm pushing that I think we need to have more and more every single day.
speaker-0: Yeah, if somebody looks at my chat history right now, they're gonna be very scared of that future because I've watched AI throw up eighteen times trying to make something I asked it to do.
speaker-1: It's not it's not plug and play, right? It's not magic. That's what I told people as well.
speaker-0: The the stories that we're seeing out there, the really horrendous ones, those are a great example of where you don't ⁓ plug AI in and just let it do what it wants and and you know, forget about it. And every single one of those stories so far, I'm able to tailor it back to an actual human who who actually made this call. They're they're the ones who who put it in or like you said, rushed ⁓ you know, to do this without any kind of Governance, project planning, security, responsibility, like all of these commonality pieces we look at at a really good project plan, that's where the human part comes into play. And then along with that, you make these funnels for employee engagement to have conversations, responsibility, training. And when you don't do that, well, we see the things like, you know, five hundred million dollars spending credits or or you know, tokens. And ⁓ you know, all the other horror stories I could I could point out if if I wanted to do that right now.
speaker-1: Absolutely. There's a lot of good stories coming out of it, but for sure there is a lot of bad stories and things happening that are not also discussed as much because they or they don't make the news or people are not aware of it. But they exist because this is not a magic formula to fix and improve all your processes on day one. It's not. It takes a lot of work.
speaker-0: Yeah, you you I mean in my opinion, you don't wanna be a story right now on AI because it's horrific if it's a story. Or ⁓ you know, most of the places that are doing well aren't really major companies. They're they're the smaller, mid sized ones who are taking the proper time. They understand that they cannot risk that kind of, you know, return on their investment. They have to get it right. So getting it right for them is still gains for them, but we're not talking billions and millions of dollars at that point. We're talking about smaller numbers. So to the industry, you know, they're not getting out there. But I guarantee you they exist. I speak to them, we coach them, we make sure they're trying to do things properly, we make sure we educate them as much along the way. And those are gonna be the individuals that other businesses look at at some point in the future when they get it right.
speaker-1: Yeah, it's a it's a bet that most organizations are actually doing in a way because the return on investment, no one knows for sure what it's return on investment and how to calculate it. There are so many different formulas out there, but people are just focused on the easy way out to this challenge, which is you automate, you automate, you automate somehow, somewhere. We are gonna leverage the efficiencies to cut people out of this equation. But still, no one is talking about how much does it run? How much does it cost to run these AI workflows, AI powered workflows, which is a different conversation that I'm not hearing a lot, and I think we're gonna very soon hear a lot of the cost of being an AI first organization. And I and I'm very interested and curious also, Ryan, to to see how this is gonna play out. Okay, because pricing around AI is not crystal clear. There's so many different ways to price AI. And depending on your organization and then and the number of AI power workflows that you have, the cost may be that may come back to bite you. And that's what also organizations are not thinking about to contemplate how you're going to manage that budget. Because that's also a budget in a way. maybe managing the cost of people on your P and L, but the cost of AI will be there.
speaker-0: Yeah, the the cost of AI, I think, you know, like you said, right now everybody's rushing, so it's not as worrisome. It's not as focused. ⁓ in time, yeah, it's gonna be just like everything else where you have to manage that along with with everything. ⁓ the other scary thing ⁓ I I would throw in there is if you're not planning properly and you're going into bed with one tool, what happens when they change those prices? What happens when they have all of your data, right? Like there's there's a lot of questions around ⁓ you know, what to do.
speaker-1: It's you know, it's and that's why this is a technology, this is a tool, and this this should be managed as any technology that we manage today. There will be cost, there will be change in ownerships, who knows on pricing structure. This is like a this is like another product, ⁓ in a way, right? It's not only the service but also the product and and we are gonna be depending on how the pricing will be dictated. in the future and with more companies and more organizations and more people using AI, there's another part of it which is the ⁓ the computing cost associated to those, right? And how these companies need power and data centers to power their operations. And the more people, the more data centers. So it's like a race that we see today being played by countries, by companies, and no one wants to lose it. ⁓ around data centers because at the end of the day this is a computer and you need power. You need a lot of power to, you know, power up those data centers. So your computing and your oper operations keeps running. And that's where we see a lot of that conversation and focus on data centers because without power to to for those data centers, you you cannot run it. You cannot scale.
speaker-0: It very much agreed and you know, living in a state right now where we're very much arguing and and not wanting to do a lot a lot of those data center builds, ⁓ and we get into a situation where again we don't know what the true cost is because you know those communities inherit those costs of AI. Where do those costs go? ⁓ you know, in time is your business really saving money, you know, over time? Yeah.
speaker-1: Noise. The noise that I was I was ⁓ watching a documentary the other day or a news report, I think. And you could I mean if you live nearby those data centers, there's a lot of noise coming out of those huge data factories. I mean, these are computers, these are generators ⁓ running twenty four seven. So there's so many different angles to to all this conversation. ⁓ water, energy consumption, you know, everything aligned to that. So let's see where this is gonna take us in in the future. We'll see.
speaker-0: That very much agreed. It's is still so fast, still so unknown, and we're still watching day by day and we're all taking, you know, logical guesses of where we think it might go, but we we all truly don't know yet. We're all on for the ride. You wrote something recently that really stood out to me. Support is emotional labor. Can you explain ⁓ what that means to you?
speaker-1: Hmm, yes. So what happens with ⁓ support and and what we do and how we do things in support and it's part of the whole customer experience, right? It's ⁓ we really care for people, right? What we do it's a lot of working and and appreciating and understanding where our customers are coming from. And that's where the emotional part of it. and and and the empathy of of being in support comes into play. And I think that's what's gonna be the that's what's gonna be most important in the future, right? Our customers at some point will probably get tired to talking to a chatbot, not getting what they need, and that premium support, which is you talk to a human being, that will continue to be there. Because this is our ability to connect To each other. This is what we do as human beings, right? And the emotional part of it is really making sure that we continue to connect, we continue to understand and put on ourselves in our customer shoes in a way that we understand where they are and we do everything we can to really fix and help them, fix their issues and help them the best we can. So that's where the emotional part of it. comes into place, Ryan, and that will continue to be as important as it has ever been. Because that's how we that's who we are. We are human beings and by nature we connect to other humans. We understand feelings. We understand emotions, right? And we can appreciate each other in a way that AI I don't think will ever be. But never say never, but I don't see it like being able to replace and to put them into a place that ⁓ that they can connect in an emotional in an emotional level.
speaker-0: Yeah. I mean, until it has true human emotions, ⁓ I mean I think of it as again, maybe it's too logical, but when I have a problem, ⁓ and I'm the customer, right? I don't hope to get an AI chatbot, I hope to get a human and and unless that changes and flips the script, ⁓ you know, there there's a lot of times I don't mind, you know, getting an AI chat bot. If it's something basic or something I'm just trying to get some information on, like by all means, I'm glad that the company gave us both an easy way out and, you know, moved on with that. But when there's a complicated situation that I know like the AI like I'd be shocked that the AI chat I was able to solve and I'm going through all of that. I'm like, what is happening? Where's there a quick situation that I can kind of explain to, you know, a human what's happening and they can reassure me and we can walk away with good experience together.
speaker-1: Yeah, and and and you know, Ryan, at the end of the day is how you design the experience. That's where this conversation it's gonna it's it gets interesting and and it is important, especially on customer support, the experience matters because based on how you design the customer experience, that's where you should plug the type of solution that works best for your customer and your organization. You and if you if your experience And the way you design it, there is no value adding a chatbot. You should not add a chat bot because everybody's putting a chatbot ⁓ as level zero or level one. You need to focus for on how you design that experience. And based on what you want to achieve for your customers, that's what you should understand how the technology can help you. Where AI makes sense, you absolutely should Take a look at it on how to implement it. What it doesn't make sense, you should not implement it just because you don't want to be left behind because others are using AI. The experience should dictate what you use as a technology in part of that customer journey. I talk to the about this to everyone because for some support leaders and some CX leaders, they're focused on AI, AI, AI. But AI is not a magic bullet. AI may not work for your customers. ⁓ depending on how you have a structure your operations AI may be a liability for you instead of something that is going to help you with efficiency. So what is it that you want to achieve for your customers? That's the first question that you should ask yourself. And how are you going to put that journey and design that roadmap to make sure that you design the best ⁓ experience for your customer. And after that, after you know where you want to get That's where you can see how technology, AI, automation, whatever it is, and human beings can coexist. And where each one of them will add the more value to the goals that you want to achieve. That's my thought process, and that's what I recommend. Everyone looking at implementing AI, take a look at the experience, take a look at what you want to achieve and see how one and the other can work alongside. That would be the best.
speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it really does come down to you know your employees, you know your customers, you know your business better than anybody else is gonna know your business. So which of these things are going to work or enhance that experience? And if it's going to be controversial, well, I'm gonna take it a step further that I rarely hear about and it's scary is what's your measurements? What what is this what is the success criteria? What are you trying to get back? And then do you have somebody that's capturing, you know, what the responses are, what what are the feelings, like what are the kind of complaints or efficiency gains you're getting, like and be able to lay that out and be able to pivot with that. And if you're not doing any of that, well, maybe you'll become one of those individuals that we read about later. But if you're willing to do all of those things, then yeah, by all means, like find the areas that AI can help with and, you know, implement those things. But Be willing to pivot, be willing to change because a lot of feels out there right now, right?
speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah. And that's not gonna stop, right? It's all about how you continue to focus on what matters. And what matters is not the technology or the tool is where where do you want to go? Right? What are your goals? And then you plan everything around that. That's really should be the starting point, not the technology, but where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve?
speaker-0: What it should be, yes. ⁓ so what are you seeing with ⁓ you know how AI is reshaping customer support right now? ⁓ I'm sure there's some good, some bad, but what what kind of ⁓ what kind of things are you seeing in that space?
speaker-1: For example, in my world, ⁓ Ryan, depending on where the support organization is, there are support organizations that are more mature than others, of course. ⁓ that's where you may see different use cases for AI. There are some support organizations that they are leveraging chatbots as a level, zero level one support to answer ⁓ some queries basically. Queries or repetitive queries, there is a value there. Instead of having a human being repeating the same fix or the same answer over and over again, why don't we use their time to more valuable tasks or more valuable issues where they can really add value to our customers? So that's where you see some chatbots and initial automated workflows make sense in some organization and And that's where the automating the root root routine escalations comes into place, right? That is kind of the first step. It's automating what is routine, what is repetitive. And AI is good at that. It's like a script. You tell AI, this is what you're gonna do. These are the answers. This is your knowledge base. This is what you're gonna be making decisions based on. Again, it's not magic. I hope everyone listening understands that you still need humans in the loop. To make sure AI is doing what it's supposed to be doing. AI hallucinates, provide wrong answers. That's a continuous and ongoing improvement project. And that's how you should treat this. Okay? This is not plug and play and forget about it. This is plug it, fix it. Plug it, improve it, plug it, check. And you continue repeating, you continue repeating until it gets better, it gets better, it gets better. But you that's why humans in the loop is extremely important because we need to be part of this conversation. And this is how we also make sure that AI is delivering the solutions that you expect and the quality of the answers that you expect for your customers. And you know, the benefits of that, Ryan, it's being honest with you. AI or a chatbot or an automated workflows work 247. Okay. So for organizations, we are able to provide 24 7 support in some cases by leveraging AI. And our customers may be getting, should be getting faster responses because of this. ⁓ You don't have to wait for human beings to wake up. If I have a question at night, the chatbot may be able to help me. And the second part of it, and I think more kind of importantly. It's really giving organizations the visibility into patterns. And this is where the value and the next the conversation in support and customer experience should be taken next. Okay, now we're leveraging the technology, improving, being more efficient, providing faster response. Where is the actual value of AI? From my point of view, is in detecting patterns. In the past, all the way until now, most probably. On the support side at least, or customer experience, we have been very focused on improving metrics, looking at the data, being faster, improving where we can, being more efficient. To my opinion, the next level of this is really detecting patterns. We consume so much data throughout the day, and human beings, we have limitations, right? Maybe we cannot consume data as fast. Maybe no, we cannot consume data as fast as AI probably probably can. And for the most part, we're probably not going to be able to detect patterns that a more advanced mathematical logical ⁓ AI could and can. And this is where the value comes into. And that's what my focus is net. Is in what can ⁓ how can we use and leverage AI on to detect patterns. That we have never been able to detect in the past. And to do that at a scale. ⁓ Right? Because this is what the real opportunity is to really understand why our customers need support in the first place. Fixing a problem, it's good. Fixing a problem as quick as possible is great. Eradicating the need for our customer to come to support because we found the root cause and we eradicate it. That's what our customer wants. That's what they deserve. And that's why I think AI will be extremely helpful, especially in the support world, to really detect those patterns and we take action on those so we can continue to improve the ⁓ the overall customer experience because ⁓ 'Cause this is ⁓ this is an opportunity we have to really focus, Ryan, on something that is more valuable. And I'm very excited about this ⁓ because this is what supports should be doing, this is what we should be focusing our energy on.
speaker-0: mean the the pattern recognition, especially when we're talking about a support angle, I mean, we as a human might not, you know, put that together as quickly as a a machine at this point, AI at this point is able to say, hey, across to everybody, before you guys have had a chance to even talk to each other, we've identified this thing same issue seven times or whatever it is, that's so valuable at that point. Speed, you know, time, all of those things to ⁓ you know, solve that problem for your customer. And I can also say I was talking to a CEO recently who described a situation kinda like that where AI told them of a problem it had identified two separate times and they were baffled, ⁓ like happy, but then they were like th it's still early, like they they're still trying to figure out what they would do, how they're gonna adapt to it, and like that kinda told me that kind of where we're at with AI is like they were so happy, but at the same time they're like, okay, how do we move with this now and and you know, do something with it?
speaker-1: And and many organizations, that's where where they are, Ryan. Is ⁓ my God, I know I need to do something, I don't know how. The why for most organizations is there. The how is not so much. And that's where they need people to guide them, right? Organizations need people that understand how to implement this technology. To guide them on making the best and designing the best strategy possible for what they want to achieve. It all comes down to you, you know, understanding what is it that you want to achieve. But even for you to understand where you want to go, you need people to make it clear for you, right? To clarify things for you. And a strategy for a lot of organizations today is lacking that clarity. If you don't know where to where you want to go because you don't understand what the technology can do, then that's a problem. You start making ⁓ decisions ⁓ without really making sure that you put in in place medium and long term ⁓ strategies that will get you there. So leaders, they don't need to be technical, but I think C level, a lot of C level ⁓ suite ⁓ C suite leaders, I don't think they understand AI because they're not techie and they don't need to understand it, but they need at least to work with someone that helps them, making things clear for them. So they can put a roadmap on on how we they can leverage and how they should leverage AI in the organization.
speaker-0: I couldn't agree more. ⁓ I I spend most of my time in any business interaction, especially when they're asking me to help them with AI. I don't spend it on the tool. I spend it on actually helping them identify, make the plan, educate and teach them. And then that way when I'm when I'm gone and and I'm no longer part of this process, they're able to carry it on. They're able to be ⁓ much more equipped to handle this and and further that you know conversation as time goes on and AI evolves. And you're absolutely right. The speed of AI is fantastic on so many levels. We're talking about it from a speed of AI conversation from a business though. Not a lot of businesses were working at that kind of speed. And now having to to make those decisions at the speed of AI, it's interesting time. And it's It's like everything else, right? The one inevitable thing about ⁓ you know, humans and everything else, change. Businesses are gonna have to evolve and change with it and and they will or they won't, but the ones that will, you know, a lot of those things you're saying that they should do, they'll adopt those things and they'll come out ahead of this and they'll be the again, the barometer to which we want to, you know, achieve and get to in those spaces. At least that's my hope. But
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. It's still it's ⁓ this is not a technological challenge. The way I see it, this is a people's challenge. ⁓ this is not the type of project that should be led by IT or your tech department. This is a people's project. ⁓ and this is where some organization I believe they're misunderstanding this because This is a technology, yes, but this is a project that needs to be implemented by your people. And if you ask me, Ryan, what I would recommend people watching and listening is that if you're running a business and you don't know where to start, think about that the business should run this process because or this project, because at the end of the day, it's gonna be your people that are gonna be implementing this technology for them. Okay. So it's don't think this is a tech or an IT project because this is not. This is a people's project. It's a people's part of it, is extremely com important if you want this to succeed. And a lot of people that I've talked to, other organizations that I have implemented this and people that works implementing AI solution, the main part of it, what they tell me is for the most part when it fails. is because it's the organization is not ready to implement it because the people are not ready. And without the people being ready, it will fail. One day, one one way or another, it will.
speaker-0: Yeah, couldn't couldn't agree more. ⁓ I think it's a great segue into ⁓ you you know, this very question here, which is, you know, what human skills do you think organizations are underestimating right now, especially when we're talking about AI?
speaker-1: Yeah, so I think ⁓ empathy, right? Empathy it's it's one that I think ⁓ organizations are underestimating. ⁓ and the the reason why I think so is because I really think the future is human. ⁓ and what makes us human is our ability to connect, is our ability to understand each other, is our ability to feel for you. And for us, the problems that we're seeing. So patience, trust, community, relationships, those matter today and will continue to be as important as it as they have ever been. So I think that organizations they need to take a deep look, a lot of soul searching, and understand where is it that you want to go and And how you can bring your people along the right. How you can bring their experience, their empathy, their ability to connect to your customer, the ability to build long-lasting relationships, how you can put them as part of your long-term view. And then design your strategy around it. the human beings to the second place because our place should be the first one and technology second. And it takes us leaders to make that decision every single day. Because the minute we don't do it, then Wall Street of the board or someone else will do it. And I think it's our responsibility as leaders to have our people always in the first place. and to take the time to, you know, make them part of the of the strategy, not leave them out.
speaker-0: And all my audience has already heard my my screaming and my views on on leadership and and empathy and humans and putting yourselves in other people's shoes. So I'm really glad to hear ⁓ they get to see another individual echoing and and have similar views because these are the leaders that individuals when it's all said and done, I I always describe it as a fence and on one side you're gonna have the the individuals that were great to you and you're gonna remember all those things. You're gonna have the other side of the fence where those individuals helped you, they gave you opportunities, they opened doors, they you know, th they helped you in any way they can. ⁓ and that's what I like to say is I put my head on the pillow at night, knowing that I just try to do a little bit of good and if that gives someone an opportunity, then I feel amazing at the end of the day.
speaker-1: Yeah, and you know, for business owners, founders, leaders watching us today, it's like yes, we o we live in a very fast paced world. We move fast. But something I also learned in my life is like, you know, sometimes moving a little bit slower really allow us to build something that lasts longer. speed doesn't always translate to something that will last long longer time. So with all this conversation and w all this AI frenzy and everything that you hear in the news, sometimes it's good to take a step back. Sometimes going Faster won't take you where you want to get next ⁓ faster. So sometime is slowing things a little bit down and taking the time to understand things a little bit better will allow you to make better decisions that most probably should, you know, allow your business to thrive because of better decisions that you make. So we only need one run AI answer or AI executed process to take the customer out of your door. And once the customer is out, this is what I tell everyone they're never gonna get back. So everything that we can do to make sure that you are implementing these solutions in a way that it is important, it is ⁓ responsible and that you still keep p your people in the middle of this conversation, that should be the way to move things forward.
speaker-0: Didn't disagree. ⁓ you know, the customer's with you now, make sure they stay with you. ⁓ so we're getting towards the end here. ⁓ I wanna make sure that I'm obviously respectful of your time because we can keep having a conversation all day from my perspective.
speaker-1: We want today for sure.
speaker-0: Well th we won't do that, but what do you think is the most important lesson the support teams can teach businesses?
speaker-1: Care. Caring for your customer, understanding where they're coming from, where they want to go next. This is the very basic and one of the most important things that you can do for your customers. So if you are in support, if you are in customer experience, what you do should be always trying to achieve something that your customers think will add value to their journey with you. So if I can give a recommendation to anyone looking to implement AI or any technology or changing processes within support, is what you have in mind, make sure that you do it thinking on your teams and your customers. If you are able to bring them both and make sure that it's a win win for both, then you're probably gonna be delivering value in the very near future. So that would be my piece of advice.
speaker-0: Absolutely love it. I mean, you're the closest, you know, to to those actual customers outside of the sales, right? They're the you're part of the journey. So with that, what does success look like for you today?
speaker-1: Success, yeah, it's a very good question. I think it depends on and where we put the focus on. But success for me, if you ask me, Michael, the person, the human, the professional, success for me means helping others and having this opportunity to wake up every day and helping someone to be better. Helping someone to to have a better day. So helping someone to with clarity on how things may may move next. Success may be someone allowing me to be part of their lives. And and success for me is everything that I can find myself valuable and that really teaches me something. In every human interaction I learn. And that's what I take what I take as success in my life, right? I really like to be able to add something positive ⁓ to people's life. and and that makes me a better human being because in this exchange of energy, including this conversation that we're having today, Ryan, it's ⁓ I'm learning from you. And that's something that makes me feel successful in a way.
speaker-0: somebody who always says just try to put a little bit of good out in the world every single day and watch it add up. ⁓ you couldn't have walked a similar path and I absolutely love. ⁓ and I'm love I'm loving to finding more of those individuals 'cause the more we find, the more chances we have. We need more. Yeah. More chances we have to actually make the difference and change the world. Yeah.
speaker-1: More of those for sure. Especially if we want to keep this world as human as possible, right?
speaker-0: As human as possible. So, you know, Michael, that was one of the most important conversations I've had around AI because it focused, you know, really no focus on tools themselves and more on the human impact underneath all of it. So for everybody listening, where can they connect with you? Hear more anything you got going on.
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. And one more time, Ryan, thanks for allowing me to have this conversation with you and your audience today. It has been a real pleasure to be with you. And if people want to connect with me, they can look for Michael Solomon ⁓ on LinkedIn, and they can also go to the Human Protocol Group dot com and connect and find a way to connect with me over there as well. Thank you very much.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll make sure to include all of those links into the episode release. ⁓ and with that, ⁓ our meeting has adjourned and ⁓ I really appreciate you taking the time with me today, Michael. And for our
speaker-1: I did ac I did accept the invite though. I didn't decline, okay?
speaker-0: Well, I mean the tagline is it's the only invite worth exhausting, so
speaker-1: Exactly. So I accept it.
speaker-0: Appreciate that you accepted that. and ⁓ for everybody coming up here, there might be a little bit of news ⁓ between the two of us. So we'll keep you posted. But ⁓ until then, ⁓ we'll see everybody in the next one. Take care everybody.
speaker-1: Thank you, Ryan.
speaker-0: Mm-hmm.
speaker-1: you Ryan. It is my absolute pleasure to be with you and your audience today. I've been looking forward to to this conversation. I really love what you're doing with the podcast, the conversations that you're having, and you have a great name for the podcast. Really, really cool and fun.
speaker-0: ⁓ I I appreciate that. And ⁓ y you know, your venture and topics into AI and human are gonna go very perfect with a lot of content I pushed out. So I have a feeling we're gonna have some great conversations and like-mindedness here. So with that, we like to go right into some icebreaker questions. And you know, you've had a really global journey, you know, between ⁓ Cuba and Brazil and then leading organizations across multiple continents. How did that shape your leadership perspective?
speaker-1: ⁓ I think it's ⁓ it actually expanded in many different ways. I think experiencing other cultures, like in my case, I was born in Cuba, raised in Brazil. ⁓ the US has been home for the past, I believe, seventeen, eighteen eighteen years already. So experiencing different cultures and getting to know people and different perspectives, different learning, different languages, ⁓ and of course it helps you to appreciate what is different from you. And I believe this adds a lot to it, especially when you're trying to communicate and with work with different types of customers, leading different types of teams. That type of exposure, right? ⁓ learning to help and to understand ⁓ how different cultures may treat different types of issues based on what they have been used to. I think that's ⁓ that's a a a benefit. To everyone that had the opportunity to really experience in what it is to live a life that is different from what you know. Right? And and I think that's the key of everything like we do in life. Sometimes we make decisions based on what we know, our culture, what we have been exposed to. But there's usually a gap in t between what you we think is right and how we make decisions and what it could have been. And that what could have been. Is what others may bring to the table, right? To kind of add into your thought process based on their perspectives and the different cultures that they may be part of it. So so back to your question, Ryan. I think that's ⁓ that exposure ⁓ to different cultures, it makes you appreciate life ⁓ in a different way because it's coming from a place that ⁓ of understanding. of understanding of other people's difference. And that has shaped my leadership career for the most part because I that's the place that I put myself into. A place of understanding. And from that place everything is possible.
speaker-0: Absolutely love that and I cannot speak from a a place of you know living in different countries ⁓ but definitely visited a lot of countries at this point, worked for a lot of non-US ⁓ you know related jobs at this point and and got ⁓ a taste of different cultures and different ⁓ you know viewing you know viewpoints, different individuals from all across the globe. And for me at the times going through it, eye opening, ⁓ but I I completely agree. I can see how that makes a a lot of sense. Once you have more knowledge, it it kind of makes you more aware and and it makes you lead from a place of now, like you said, what you know. so now you can adapt to that and and put that into your thoughts every day.
speaker-1: And and you know, you always lead in from a place that you are allowing yourself to learn from others. You are allowing yourself to understand that what you know is not everything, and that you can always learn from others. And when you come to that place, you always leave a space to further understanding, to further learning, and in a way you improve yourself and you become more human in a way because you are always understanding what the other is going through, even though it you know, you may disagree or agree, whatever that may dec may be the case, but you are listening, you're paying attention and you are understanding others better.
speaker-0: Agree more. ⁓ absolutely always leave I mean you have music to my ears as soon as you said leave space for learning. Talking to the right person. So what originally pulled you into customer experience and support leadership?
speaker-1: ⁓ let me maybe take us both back in the day. It's ⁓ it's I started in you know what it used to be IT support, right? IT throughout the year it has changed name, it became tech, it became so many different things. But when we look at customer support, that's how I started my career. I started my career as an IT support specialist. Actually, very, you know. one of my f if if not my first job back in Brazil, it was as a data data entry analyst. Entering products ⁓ in the system, making sure prices were correct, updating, doing inventory. So that's what that was one of my my first jobs back in Brazil in in a library. ⁓ I recall those days. ⁓ it was a retail ⁓ store. And I was responsible for making sure all the merchandise, everything that was going through the POS, ⁓ the prices were correct, the inventory was in check. So that's how customer support came into my life. That's how I got started via this IT job, ⁓ supporting the business, in this case a retail location, and after that, it was one support job after the other. I always like ⁓ helping others. I always like the the possibility that we have in support to make people feel better. Usually when you reach out to support is because there is an issue. And if there is an issue if your customer is the business or it's a regular customer, at the end of the day that's those are your customers. And however you can make someone feel better because you help them fix an issue It's ⁓ it's something that makes you feel better. So that's how customer support came to my life. That's that's how I started lobbying it as a profession, and that's how I stayed on it. Throughout the year, I went through different IC related ⁓ customer support roles. I've been very technical. I've I've I've done software deployment, I've been on the very technical side of support. And at some point, like many of us, and probably in your audience as well. Make you have to make a decision. What is it for me next? Is it I see because I want to be very technical, or is it leadership because I want to get the best out of others? And that's where my passion towards leadership started like seven, seven, eight years ago. ⁓ when I make the decision, I want to be the best leader I can be for my people and my team. I want to be that leader that sits in the middle and can help our teams to be successful, right? while leveraging all my technical skills and knowledge that I had. So that's how I pivoted ⁓ seven, eight years ago towards leadership, Ryan. and that has been my case as far as leading global support organization. I've been lucky enough to work at ⁓ organizations where we had global teams, and that's how my passion about leading and and working with global teams comes into place. ⁓ and since then that has been my passion. Today I'm at the global support organization at a company I work for, leading global support teams across multiple time zones, and this is my passion. This is this is really who I am.
speaker-0: No, I I absolutely love that. And, you know, everything you described in the earlier questions, you're able to bundle that right into this role. It makes perfect sense. And it sounds like a nice glove fit and and a great segue of of how you landed there and you know how individuals can absolutely figure out along the way where they fit. All those decision choices led you to today. I love it. So At what point did you realize that the conversation around AI needed more humanity in it?
speaker-1: It was at some point ⁓ last year, Ryan. ⁓ AI is not something new. It's been decades. ⁓ even though ⁓ for a lot of people they may hear AI and they may think it's something new. It's not something new. And I've worked with automations in the past as part of process improvement in support. Of course, in support we are always improving processes. We are always trying to see what makes sense to automate. So automation And process improvement is something that we do in customer support. And if you are a leader, of course, you're always looking on efficiency, you're always looking to on how you can run better processes. And automation is a big part of what I've been involved in the past five, six, six years. However, with AI becoming more and more of a noise, and I say a noise because especially early 2025, we starting Seen a lot of news, a lot of things in the news about AI. AI product, AI disversion, chat GPT, cloud. This version is better than the previous one. These are the versions. ⁓ layoffs in tech companies. So a lot of the noise about AI, which I think it was is still a lot, was missing a fundamental aspect of this conversation, which is us human beings. That are gonna be the one transforming, evolving with the help of AI in the future. And there was not a lot of conversation around our humanity and how we're gonna transition into this new future, whatever that's gonna be. And that's how the idea of the human protocol, the podcast that that I that I have, as you said, ⁓ came into place. It it came out of a place of ⁓ understanding that there is a need to have conversations around AI and technology and the future, but keeping the humans in the middle of the conversation. And that's my mission. It's really to amplify voices that are working with AI that can ⁓ talk about what the future may be or may not be, but keeping us in the middle of the conversation at the end of the day. Technology should not dictate the future. The f we humans should dictate the future what's gonna happen next with the help of AI. It shouldn't be the other way around. And part a lot of the conversations that I'm having and that I'm seeing and I that I saw last year was the opposite was technology first, AI, human second or third. This is how this is what trigger ⁓ the beginning of this journey with the human protocol.
speaker-0: Absolutely love that because ⁓ as a person who's championing not to forget about the human side ⁓ along the way with AI and that a company's best assets are still their employees. And if you can give those best assets a tool like AI, imagine the creativeness, imagine them separating from their competitors. That's that's what's gonna get the really good companies, in my opinion. separated ⁓ you know in their fields, but those that are replacing the employees, you know, entire marketing teams, sales teams, whatever it is, we look back and we check in on those companies and they're not doing great like when they when they make those decisions. ⁓ I I I understand the need ⁓ for the podcast, which is great ⁓ segment because I'm going right into those questions for you on the podcast. So I mean, you you asked the question, you know, what does it mean to stay human while building the future with AI? You know, what does that actually mean to you?
speaker-1: That was a lot of soul searching last year from my side. Okay. ⁓ and when I was thinking this type of conversation needs to happen. But what I'm gonna focus the podcast and this conversation around, and that's where the guiding principle of the podcast is what does it mean to stay human while building the future? Because that's the question that I'm trying to answer in every single conversation. How are we gonna get there into this new future, whatever that's gonna be? But staying human and what does it mean to really be a human being, to really stay human? And and it was, Ryan, because you know, we need to remember that the technology should serve humanity. It should not be the other way around. And we're still seeing a lot of this conversation around the technology and the tool that it is AI, and not a lot about what is it for us human beings, right? And I'm not gonna lie to you. Efficiency matters, yes, and it will continue to matter. It should matter. Productivity matters, of course it matters, right? If you have a business, if you run a business, you want to be more productive. And innovation matters, yes, all that matters. But those should not be the highest human values. And that's where the human part of it should come into the conversation and should have a role into what happened next, right? And and I think part of the conversation on ⁓ companies implementing AI is just focus on the short term gains, right? It's focus on how to make Wall Street to be happier or to feel happier about our decisions based on the numbers and the efficiency that we're gonna get, but not focus a lot on what I'm need to do from the organization point of view to reskill our workforce. What is the planning behind that? No one is thinking about it. And that should not be a follow-up conversation. That should be part of your planning. When you're implementing AI, the human aspect of it should be part of your planning. It should not be left behind. And I feel and I think this is what's happening today. Companies are rushing to implement it for the sake of efficiency gains. And that is totally fine. A business is a business. But I'm trying to push more of a conversation is yes, look for efficiency, but look what is going to happen with your people as well. Plan about risk reskilling your workforce. What is going to be the role of the future and how your human workforce can also be part of it? Because if we just look at the news, Ryan, everybody thinks that it's the future is going to be an AI agent running the whole show. Really? Is it that way? What's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to the humans? It sounds good though. Sounds good to run linear organization, but we still need to find value, purpose and meaning on what we do. And if we don't design the future with the humans as part of it, then no one will do it. So those are the conversations that I'm pushing that I think we need to have more and more every single day.
speaker-0: Yeah, if somebody looks at my chat history right now, they're gonna be very scared of that future because I've watched AI throw up eighteen times trying to make something I asked it to do.
speaker-1: It's not it's not plug and play, right? It's not magic. That's what I told people as well.
speaker-0: The the stories that we're seeing out there, the really horrendous ones, those are a great example of where you don't ⁓ plug AI in and just let it do what it wants and and you know, forget about it. And every single one of those stories so far, I'm able to tailor it back to an actual human who who actually made this call. They're they're the ones who who put it in or like you said, rushed ⁓ you know, to do this without any kind of Governance, project planning, security, responsibility, like all of these commonality pieces we look at at a really good project plan, that's where the human part comes into play. And then along with that, you make these funnels for employee engagement to have conversations, responsibility, training. And when you don't do that, well, we see the things like, you know, five hundred million dollars spending credits or or you know, tokens. And ⁓ you know, all the other horror stories I could I could point out if if I wanted to do that right now.
speaker-1: Absolutely. There's a lot of good stories coming out of it, but for sure there is a lot of bad stories and things happening that are not also discussed as much because they or they don't make the news or people are not aware of it. But they exist because this is not a magic formula to fix and improve all your processes on day one. It's not. It takes a lot of work.
speaker-0: Yeah, you you I mean in my opinion, you don't wanna be a story right now on AI because it's horrific if it's a story. Or ⁓ you know, most of the places that are doing well aren't really major companies. They're they're the smaller, mid sized ones who are taking the proper time. They understand that they cannot risk that kind of, you know, return on their investment. They have to get it right. So getting it right for them is still gains for them, but we're not talking billions and millions of dollars at that point. We're talking about smaller numbers. So to the industry, you know, they're not getting out there. But I guarantee you they exist. I speak to them, we coach them, we make sure they're trying to do things properly, we make sure we educate them as much along the way. And those are gonna be the individuals that other businesses look at at some point in the future when they get it right.
speaker-1: Yeah, it's a it's a bet that most organizations are actually doing in a way because the return on investment, no one knows for sure what it's return on investment and how to calculate it. There are so many different formulas out there, but people are just focused on the easy way out to this challenge, which is you automate, you automate, you automate somehow, somewhere. We are gonna leverage the efficiencies to cut people out of this equation. But still, no one is talking about how much does it run? How much does it cost to run these AI workflows, AI powered workflows, which is a different conversation that I'm not hearing a lot, and I think we're gonna very soon hear a lot of the cost of being an AI first organization. And I and I'm very interested and curious also, Ryan, to to see how this is gonna play out. Okay, because pricing around AI is not crystal clear. There's so many different ways to price AI. And depending on your organization and then and the number of AI power workflows that you have, the cost may be that may come back to bite you. And that's what also organizations are not thinking about to contemplate how you're going to manage that budget. Because that's also a budget in a way. maybe managing the cost of people on your P and L, but the cost of AI will be there.
speaker-0: Yeah, the the cost of AI, I think, you know, like you said, right now everybody's rushing, so it's not as worrisome. It's not as focused. ⁓ in time, yeah, it's gonna be just like everything else where you have to manage that along with with everything. ⁓ the other scary thing ⁓ I I would throw in there is if you're not planning properly and you're going into bed with one tool, what happens when they change those prices? What happens when they have all of your data, right? Like there's there's a lot of questions around ⁓ you know, what to do.
speaker-1: It's you know, it's and that's why this is a technology, this is a tool, and this this should be managed as any technology that we manage today. There will be cost, there will be change in ownerships, who knows on pricing structure. This is like a this is like another product, ⁓ in a way, right? It's not only the service but also the product and and we are gonna be depending on how the pricing will be dictated. in the future and with more companies and more organizations and more people using AI, there's another part of it which is the ⁓ the computing cost associated to those, right? And how these companies need power and data centers to power their operations. And the more people, the more data centers. So it's like a race that we see today being played by countries, by companies, and no one wants to lose it. ⁓ around data centers because at the end of the day this is a computer and you need power. You need a lot of power to, you know, power up those data centers. So your computing and your oper operations keeps running. And that's where we see a lot of that conversation and focus on data centers because without power to to for those data centers, you you cannot run it. You cannot scale.
speaker-0: It very much agreed and you know, living in a state right now where we're very much arguing and and not wanting to do a lot a lot of those data center builds, ⁓ and we get into a situation where again we don't know what the true cost is because you know those communities inherit those costs of AI. Where do those costs go? ⁓ you know, in time is your business really saving money, you know, over time? Yeah.
speaker-1: Noise. The noise that I was I was ⁓ watching a documentary the other day or a news report, I think. And you could I mean if you live nearby those data centers, there's a lot of noise coming out of those huge data factories. I mean, these are computers, these are generators ⁓ running twenty four seven. So there's so many different angles to to all this conversation. ⁓ water, energy consumption, you know, everything aligned to that. So let's see where this is gonna take us in in the future. We'll see.
speaker-0: That very much agreed. It's is still so fast, still so unknown, and we're still watching day by day and we're all taking, you know, logical guesses of where we think it might go, but we we all truly don't know yet. We're all on for the ride. You wrote something recently that really stood out to me. Support is emotional labor. Can you explain ⁓ what that means to you?
speaker-1: Hmm, yes. So what happens with ⁓ support and and what we do and how we do things in support and it's part of the whole customer experience, right? It's ⁓ we really care for people, right? What we do it's a lot of working and and appreciating and understanding where our customers are coming from. And that's where the emotional part of it. and and and the empathy of of being in support comes into play. And I think that's what's gonna be the that's what's gonna be most important in the future, right? Our customers at some point will probably get tired to talking to a chatbot, not getting what they need, and that premium support, which is you talk to a human being, that will continue to be there. Because this is our ability to connect To each other. This is what we do as human beings, right? And the emotional part of it is really making sure that we continue to connect, we continue to understand and put on ourselves in our customer shoes in a way that we understand where they are and we do everything we can to really fix and help them, fix their issues and help them the best we can. So that's where the emotional part of it. comes into place, Ryan, and that will continue to be as important as it has ever been. Because that's how we that's who we are. We are human beings and by nature we connect to other humans. We understand feelings. We understand emotions, right? And we can appreciate each other in a way that AI I don't think will ever be. But never say never, but I don't see it like being able to replace and to put them into a place that ⁓ that they can connect in an emotional in an emotional level.
speaker-0: Yeah. I mean, until it has true human emotions, ⁓ I mean I think of it as again, maybe it's too logical, but when I have a problem, ⁓ and I'm the customer, right? I don't hope to get an AI chatbot, I hope to get a human and and unless that changes and flips the script, ⁓ you know, there there's a lot of times I don't mind, you know, getting an AI chat bot. If it's something basic or something I'm just trying to get some information on, like by all means, I'm glad that the company gave us both an easy way out and, you know, moved on with that. But when there's a complicated situation that I know like the AI like I'd be shocked that the AI chat I was able to solve and I'm going through all of that. I'm like, what is happening? Where's there a quick situation that I can kind of explain to, you know, a human what's happening and they can reassure me and we can walk away with good experience together.
speaker-1: Yeah, and and and you know, Ryan, at the end of the day is how you design the experience. That's where this conversation it's gonna it's it gets interesting and and it is important, especially on customer support, the experience matters because based on how you design the customer experience, that's where you should plug the type of solution that works best for your customer and your organization. You and if you if your experience And the way you design it, there is no value adding a chatbot. You should not add a chat bot because everybody's putting a chatbot ⁓ as level zero or level one. You need to focus for on how you design that experience. And based on what you want to achieve for your customers, that's what you should understand how the technology can help you. Where AI makes sense, you absolutely should Take a look at it on how to implement it. What it doesn't make sense, you should not implement it just because you don't want to be left behind because others are using AI. The experience should dictate what you use as a technology in part of that customer journey. I talk to the about this to everyone because for some support leaders and some CX leaders, they're focused on AI, AI, AI. But AI is not a magic bullet. AI may not work for your customers. ⁓ depending on how you have a structure your operations AI may be a liability for you instead of something that is going to help you with efficiency. So what is it that you want to achieve for your customers? That's the first question that you should ask yourself. And how are you going to put that journey and design that roadmap to make sure that you design the best ⁓ experience for your customer. And after that, after you know where you want to get That's where you can see how technology, AI, automation, whatever it is, and human beings can coexist. And where each one of them will add the more value to the goals that you want to achieve. That's my thought process, and that's what I recommend. Everyone looking at implementing AI, take a look at the experience, take a look at what you want to achieve and see how one and the other can work alongside. That would be the best.
speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it really does come down to you know your employees, you know your customers, you know your business better than anybody else is gonna know your business. So which of these things are going to work or enhance that experience? And if it's going to be controversial, well, I'm gonna take it a step further that I rarely hear about and it's scary is what's your measurements? What what is this what is the success criteria? What are you trying to get back? And then do you have somebody that's capturing, you know, what the responses are, what what are the feelings, like what are the kind of complaints or efficiency gains you're getting, like and be able to lay that out and be able to pivot with that. And if you're not doing any of that, well, maybe you'll become one of those individuals that we read about later. But if you're willing to do all of those things, then yeah, by all means, like find the areas that AI can help with and, you know, implement those things. But Be willing to pivot, be willing to change because a lot of feels out there right now, right?
speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah. And that's not gonna stop, right? It's all about how you continue to focus on what matters. And what matters is not the technology or the tool is where where do you want to go? Right? What are your goals? And then you plan everything around that. That's really should be the starting point, not the technology, but where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve?
speaker-0: What it should be, yes. ⁓ so what are you seeing with ⁓ you know how AI is reshaping customer support right now? ⁓ I'm sure there's some good, some bad, but what what kind of ⁓ what kind of things are you seeing in that space?
speaker-1: For example, in my world, ⁓ Ryan, depending on where the support organization is, there are support organizations that are more mature than others, of course. ⁓ that's where you may see different use cases for AI. There are some support organizations that they are leveraging chatbots as a level, zero level one support to answer ⁓ some queries basically. Queries or repetitive queries, there is a value there. Instead of having a human being repeating the same fix or the same answer over and over again, why don't we use their time to more valuable tasks or more valuable issues where they can really add value to our customers? So that's where you see some chatbots and initial automated workflows make sense in some organization and And that's where the automating the root root routine escalations comes into place, right? That is kind of the first step. It's automating what is routine, what is repetitive. And AI is good at that. It's like a script. You tell AI, this is what you're gonna do. These are the answers. This is your knowledge base. This is what you're gonna be making decisions based on. Again, it's not magic. I hope everyone listening understands that you still need humans in the loop. To make sure AI is doing what it's supposed to be doing. AI hallucinates, provide wrong answers. That's a continuous and ongoing improvement project. And that's how you should treat this. Okay? This is not plug and play and forget about it. This is plug it, fix it. Plug it, improve it, plug it, check. And you continue repeating, you continue repeating until it gets better, it gets better, it gets better. But you that's why humans in the loop is extremely important because we need to be part of this conversation. And this is how we also make sure that AI is delivering the solutions that you expect and the quality of the answers that you expect for your customers. And you know, the benefits of that, Ryan, it's being honest with you. AI or a chatbot or an automated workflows work 247. Okay. So for organizations, we are able to provide 24 7 support in some cases by leveraging AI. And our customers may be getting, should be getting faster responses because of this. ⁓ You don't have to wait for human beings to wake up. If I have a question at night, the chatbot may be able to help me. And the second part of it, and I think more kind of importantly. It's really giving organizations the visibility into patterns. And this is where the value and the next the conversation in support and customer experience should be taken next. Okay, now we're leveraging the technology, improving, being more efficient, providing faster response. Where is the actual value of AI? From my point of view, is in detecting patterns. In the past, all the way until now, most probably. On the support side at least, or customer experience, we have been very focused on improving metrics, looking at the data, being faster, improving where we can, being more efficient. To my opinion, the next level of this is really detecting patterns. We consume so much data throughout the day, and human beings, we have limitations, right? Maybe we cannot consume data as fast. Maybe no, we cannot consume data as fast as AI probably probably can. And for the most part, we're probably not going to be able to detect patterns that a more advanced mathematical logical ⁓ AI could and can. And this is where the value comes into. And that's what my focus is net. Is in what can ⁓ how can we use and leverage AI on to detect patterns. That we have never been able to detect in the past. And to do that at a scale. ⁓ Right? Because this is what the real opportunity is to really understand why our customers need support in the first place. Fixing a problem, it's good. Fixing a problem as quick as possible is great. Eradicating the need for our customer to come to support because we found the root cause and we eradicate it. That's what our customer wants. That's what they deserve. And that's why I think AI will be extremely helpful, especially in the support world, to really detect those patterns and we take action on those so we can continue to improve the ⁓ the overall customer experience because ⁓ 'Cause this is ⁓ this is an opportunity we have to really focus, Ryan, on something that is more valuable. And I'm very excited about this ⁓ because this is what supports should be doing, this is what we should be focusing our energy on.
speaker-0: mean the the pattern recognition, especially when we're talking about a support angle, I mean, we as a human might not, you know, put that together as quickly as a a machine at this point, AI at this point is able to say, hey, across to everybody, before you guys have had a chance to even talk to each other, we've identified this thing same issue seven times or whatever it is, that's so valuable at that point. Speed, you know, time, all of those things to ⁓ you know, solve that problem for your customer. And I can also say I was talking to a CEO recently who described a situation kinda like that where AI told them of a problem it had identified two separate times and they were baffled, ⁓ like happy, but then they were like th it's still early, like they they're still trying to figure out what they would do, how they're gonna adapt to it, and like that kinda told me that kind of where we're at with AI is like they were so happy, but at the same time they're like, okay, how do we move with this now and and you know, do something with it?
speaker-1: And and many organizations, that's where where they are, Ryan. Is ⁓ my God, I know I need to do something, I don't know how. The why for most organizations is there. The how is not so much. And that's where they need people to guide them, right? Organizations need people that understand how to implement this technology. To guide them on making the best and designing the best strategy possible for what they want to achieve. It all comes down to you, you know, understanding what is it that you want to achieve. But even for you to understand where you want to go, you need people to make it clear for you, right? To clarify things for you. And a strategy for a lot of organizations today is lacking that clarity. If you don't know where to where you want to go because you don't understand what the technology can do, then that's a problem. You start making ⁓ decisions ⁓ without really making sure that you put in in place medium and long term ⁓ strategies that will get you there. So leaders, they don't need to be technical, but I think C level, a lot of C level ⁓ suite ⁓ C suite leaders, I don't think they understand AI because they're not techie and they don't need to understand it, but they need at least to work with someone that helps them, making things clear for them. So they can put a roadmap on on how we they can leverage and how they should leverage AI in the organization.
speaker-0: I couldn't agree more. ⁓ I I spend most of my time in any business interaction, especially when they're asking me to help them with AI. I don't spend it on the tool. I spend it on actually helping them identify, make the plan, educate and teach them. And then that way when I'm when I'm gone and and I'm no longer part of this process, they're able to carry it on. They're able to be ⁓ much more equipped to handle this and and further that you know conversation as time goes on and AI evolves. And you're absolutely right. The speed of AI is fantastic on so many levels. We're talking about it from a speed of AI conversation from a business though. Not a lot of businesses were working at that kind of speed. And now having to to make those decisions at the speed of AI, it's interesting time. And it's It's like everything else, right? The one inevitable thing about ⁓ you know, humans and everything else, change. Businesses are gonna have to evolve and change with it and and they will or they won't, but the ones that will, you know, a lot of those things you're saying that they should do, they'll adopt those things and they'll come out ahead of this and they'll be the again, the barometer to which we want to, you know, achieve and get to in those spaces. At least that's my hope. But
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. It's still it's ⁓ this is not a technological challenge. The way I see it, this is a people's challenge. ⁓ this is not the type of project that should be led by IT or your tech department. This is a people's project. ⁓ and this is where some organization I believe they're misunderstanding this because This is a technology, yes, but this is a project that needs to be implemented by your people. And if you ask me, Ryan, what I would recommend people watching and listening is that if you're running a business and you don't know where to start, think about that the business should run this process because or this project, because at the end of the day, it's gonna be your people that are gonna be implementing this technology for them. Okay. So it's don't think this is a tech or an IT project because this is not. This is a people's project. It's a people's part of it, is extremely com important if you want this to succeed. And a lot of people that I've talked to, other organizations that I have implemented this and people that works implementing AI solution, the main part of it, what they tell me is for the most part when it fails. is because it's the organization is not ready to implement it because the people are not ready. And without the people being ready, it will fail. One day, one one way or another, it will.
speaker-0: Yeah, couldn't couldn't agree more. ⁓ I think it's a great segue into ⁓ you you know, this very question here, which is, you know, what human skills do you think organizations are underestimating right now, especially when we're talking about AI?
speaker-1: Yeah, so I think ⁓ empathy, right? Empathy it's it's one that I think ⁓ organizations are underestimating. ⁓ and the the reason why I think so is because I really think the future is human. ⁓ and what makes us human is our ability to connect, is our ability to understand each other, is our ability to feel for you. And for us, the problems that we're seeing. So patience, trust, community, relationships, those matter today and will continue to be as important as it as they have ever been. So I think that organizations they need to take a deep look, a lot of soul searching, and understand where is it that you want to go and And how you can bring your people along the right. How you can bring their experience, their empathy, their ability to connect to your customer, the ability to build long-lasting relationships, how you can put them as part of your long-term view. And then design your strategy around it. the human beings to the second place because our place should be the first one and technology second. And it takes us leaders to make that decision every single day. Because the minute we don't do it, then Wall Street of the board or someone else will do it. And I think it's our responsibility as leaders to have our people always in the first place. and to take the time to, you know, make them part of the of the strategy, not leave them out.
speaker-0: And all my audience has already heard my my screaming and my views on on leadership and and empathy and humans and putting yourselves in other people's shoes. So I'm really glad to hear ⁓ they get to see another individual echoing and and have similar views because these are the leaders that individuals when it's all said and done, I I always describe it as a fence and on one side you're gonna have the the individuals that were great to you and you're gonna remember all those things. You're gonna have the other side of the fence where those individuals helped you, they gave you opportunities, they opened doors, they you know, th they helped you in any way they can. ⁓ and that's what I like to say is I put my head on the pillow at night, knowing that I just try to do a little bit of good and if that gives someone an opportunity, then I feel amazing at the end of the day.
speaker-1: Yeah, and you know, for business owners, founders, leaders watching us today, it's like yes, we o we live in a very fast paced world. We move fast. But something I also learned in my life is like, you know, sometimes moving a little bit slower really allow us to build something that lasts longer. speed doesn't always translate to something that will last long longer time. So with all this conversation and w all this AI frenzy and everything that you hear in the news, sometimes it's good to take a step back. Sometimes going Faster won't take you where you want to get next ⁓ faster. So sometime is slowing things a little bit down and taking the time to understand things a little bit better will allow you to make better decisions that most probably should, you know, allow your business to thrive because of better decisions that you make. So we only need one run AI answer or AI executed process to take the customer out of your door. And once the customer is out, this is what I tell everyone they're never gonna get back. So everything that we can do to make sure that you are implementing these solutions in a way that it is important, it is ⁓ responsible and that you still keep p your people in the middle of this conversation, that should be the way to move things forward.
speaker-0: Didn't disagree. ⁓ you know, the customer's with you now, make sure they stay with you. ⁓ so we're getting towards the end here. ⁓ I wanna make sure that I'm obviously respectful of your time because we can keep having a conversation all day from my perspective.
speaker-1: We want today for sure.
speaker-0: Well th we won't do that, but what do you think is the most important lesson the support teams can teach businesses?
speaker-1: Care. Caring for your customer, understanding where they're coming from, where they want to go next. This is the very basic and one of the most important things that you can do for your customers. So if you are in support, if you are in customer experience, what you do should be always trying to achieve something that your customers think will add value to their journey with you. So if I can give a recommendation to anyone looking to implement AI or any technology or changing processes within support, is what you have in mind, make sure that you do it thinking on your teams and your customers. If you are able to bring them both and make sure that it's a win win for both, then you're probably gonna be delivering value in the very near future. So that would be my piece of advice.
speaker-0: Absolutely love it. I mean, you're the closest, you know, to to those actual customers outside of the sales, right? They're the you're part of the journey. So with that, what does success look like for you today?
speaker-1: Success, yeah, it's a very good question. I think it depends on and where we put the focus on. But success for me, if you ask me, Michael, the person, the human, the professional, success for me means helping others and having this opportunity to wake up every day and helping someone to be better. Helping someone to to have a better day. So helping someone to with clarity on how things may may move next. Success may be someone allowing me to be part of their lives. And and success for me is everything that I can find myself valuable and that really teaches me something. In every human interaction I learn. And that's what I take what I take as success in my life, right? I really like to be able to add something positive ⁓ to people's life. and and that makes me a better human being because in this exchange of energy, including this conversation that we're having today, Ryan, it's ⁓ I'm learning from you. And that's something that makes me feel successful in a way.
speaker-0: somebody who always says just try to put a little bit of good out in the world every single day and watch it add up. ⁓ you couldn't have walked a similar path and I absolutely love. ⁓ and I'm love I'm loving to finding more of those individuals 'cause the more we find, the more chances we have. We need more. Yeah. More chances we have to actually make the difference and change the world. Yeah.
speaker-1: More of those for sure. Especially if we want to keep this world as human as possible, right?
speaker-0: As human as possible. So, you know, Michael, that was one of the most important conversations I've had around AI because it focused, you know, really no focus on tools themselves and more on the human impact underneath all of it. So for everybody listening, where can they connect with you? Hear more anything you got going on.
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. And one more time, Ryan, thanks for allowing me to have this conversation with you and your audience today. It has been a real pleasure to be with you. And if people want to connect with me, they can look for Michael Solomon ⁓ on LinkedIn, and they can also go to the Human Protocol Group dot com and connect and find a way to connect with me over there as well. Thank you very much.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll make sure to include all of those links into the episode release. ⁓ and with that, ⁓ our meeting has adjourned and ⁓ I really appreciate you taking the time with me today, Michael. And for our
speaker-1: I did ac I did accept the invite though. I didn't decline, okay?
speaker-0: Well, I mean the tagline is it's the only invite worth exhausting, so
speaker-1: Exactly. So I accept it.
speaker-0: Appreciate that you accepted that. and ⁓ for everybody coming up here, there might be a little bit of news ⁓ between the two of us. So we'll keep you posted. But ⁓ until then, ⁓ we'll see everybody in the next one. Take care everybody.
speaker-1: Thank you, Ryan.
speaker-0: Mm-hmm.
