AI Can Solve Customer Support’s Hidden Problem [Newsletter #91]

Hello, AI enthusiasts from around the world.
Welcome to this week's newsletter for the AI and the Future of Work podcast.

Customer support isn't pretty. It never has been. It's a world where humans solve the unfulfilled needs of other humans, often under pressure, and rarely with enough time.

For decades, companies have treated customer service as an obligation rather than an opportunity. AI is beginning to change that.

Behind every conversation lies a chance to solve a real problem. The tools to do it faster and more efficiently are already here.

But there's resistance. Some worry about job replacement. Others are skeptical of handing conversations over to chatbots entirely.

This week's conversation is a reminder that no matter how much the process improves, a human is still at the other end. That matters more than ever.

Let's dive into this week's highlights! 🚀

🎙️ New Podcast Episode with Adrian McDermott, Zendesk CTO

Customer support was a place where only the toughest survived.

Companies treated it as a cost center. The priority was managing volume, not delivering exceptional experiences.

On the other side, customers dreaded the experience and hoped to finish the call with at least some kind of solution. In the middle, overworked agents armed with rigid scripts and manuals got through the day, and nothing more.

That's how customer support has operated for decades. But what if AI offers a chance to reimagine it entirely?

For many, that may sound unlikely. Dealing with unsatisfied customers is never simple. But for Adrian McDermott, AI isn't just a possibility. It's the clearest path forward.

Adrian is the Chief Technology Officer at Zendesk, one of the world's most widely used customer service platforms. He leads the company's product management and engineering teams. Since joining Zendesk in 2010, he has played a key role in shaping its product and platform strategy as customer experience continues to evolve in the age of AI.

His starting point is an uncomfortable reality: most customer support issues went unresolved because companies had limited staff and fragmented systems.

AI changes that. Copilots can analyze more data, around the clock, and generate far more context than any single agent working alone.

PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin sat down with Adrian to explore how AI copilots can fundamentally improve customer service, without depending entirely on chatbots. Because AI makes mistakes. That's precisely why humans remain essential. Support agents must become experts at knowing where guardrails are needed and when to step in.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How customer service evolved from rigid, low-intent operations into a strategic function where technology helps teams deliver better experiences.

• Why service leaders shouldn't fear automation. Every organization carries a "service debt," and AI is finally capable of helping pay it down.

• Why traditional contact centers will evolve into AI-enabled service platforms, allowing companies to respond faster while improving the experience for both employees and customers.

• What Adrian learned scaling Zendesk from a small product team into a global platform serving 100,000 customers, and how product-led growth shaped that journey.

• Why the next big leap in AI won't come from superintelligence. It will come from capturing the knowledge buried inside every customer interaction.

🎧 This week's episode of AI and the Future of Work, featuring Adrian McDermott, Zendesk CTO, is now available

Listen to the full episode to hear why great customer support starts with understanding who you are actually serving, from buyers to agents to end users, and why humans remain essential to getting that right.

📖 AI Fun Fact Article

Walmart runs on efficiency. Now, the retail giant is betting that AI will take that further than ever before.

The company has embedded AI across its operations, from demand forecasting to inventory and logistics management. In internal software development alone, AI writes or assists on 40% of all new code. 60% of its stores now receive freight from automated distribution centers. 50% of e-commerce fulfillment volume is automated.

But as AI becomes more central to how Walmart operates, its executives are also acknowledging what that means for the people who work there.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has stated that "every job we've got is going to change in some way." Even so, the company expects its global headcount to remain flat at around 2.1 million over the next three years.

That forecast arrives at a significant moment. U.S.-based employers announced 153,074 job cuts last month, a 175% increase from 55,597 the year prior, as Hugh Cameron reports in Newsweek.

PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin sees Walmart’s behavior as typical of most employers with large volumes of frontline workers. AI is improving efficiency and delaying future hiring growth, but not contributing to job elimination.

Demand increases from AI-related marketing and new product launches, meaning there's actually more work to do, which will eventually outstrip the productivity gains from AI.

The reality of delayed hiring means there are fewer jobs in traditional roles for new employees entering the workforce. That said, there's increasing demand for workers in fields such as AI supervision, AI training, data labeling, healthcare, and construction.

Throughout history, there's always been a need for workers whose skills match the current economy. AI is a particularly disruptive force, but now is no different.

👀 Worth a read

Until next time, stay curious! 🤔

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