The Human Side of Innovation

Originally published on LinkedIn on July 30, 2026.

Last week, we hosted clients at the Ford Experience Center for Percepta's first Innovation Day. Throughout the day, we shared perspectives on AI, customer experience, and the operational challenges that come with adopting new technology. Just as valuable were the conversations between sessions, where clients and our teams compared experiences and discussed what they're seeing in their own organizations.

We opened the day with a discussion about where customer experience is headed. James Goldberg, James Bednar , Vice President of Product and Innovation at TTEC , and I talked about changing customer expectations, the rapid pace of AI adoption, and the challenges organizations face as they move from experimenting with AI to integrating it into their operations. From there, we invited clients to spend time with our teams at eight tabletop sessions covering topics including AI strategy, data analytics, proactive and predictive customer engagement, revenue generation, technical support, and digital consulting. The goal was to move beyond discussing where the industry is headed and have practical conversations about how organizations are applying these ideas today.

At the end of the day, James Goldberg and I had dinner. Like a lot of conversations between people who have spent years in this industry, we eventually started talking about where we both began.

We both started as contact center agents. Over the years, we've taken customer calls, coached agents, helped launch sites, managed operations, and eventually found ourselves leading organizations. We weren't talking about career progression. We were talking about the experiences that shaped how we think about serving customers and leading teams today.

That conversation brought me back to something James Bednar had said earlier in the day about automation.

James challenged the assumption that success should be measured by how much work we can automate. Instead, he talked about finding the right balance between AI and people, applying technology where it creates value while recognizing that some interactions still require human judgment, empathy, and experience. The goal isn't deploying AI simply because it can be deployed. It's designing a better customer experience.

And James asked, if we automate away every Tier 1 role, where do tomorrow's Tier 2 and Tier 3 specialists come from? Where do future technical experts learn the business? Where do the next generation of leaders gain the judgment that only comes from working directly with customers?

Those questions also put the tabletop discussions in a different light. Clients weren't hearing theory. They were talking with leaders who have spent years building the operational experience behind the ideas we were discussing.

George Baraket shared perspectives on revenue generation after building his career through sales operations and contact center leadership. Scott Burnette discussed technical support from the perspective of someone who began as an automotive technician before moving into program leadership. Pete Rodriguez talked about helping organizations move from reactive to proactive operations after years leading large customer service organizations.

What clients saw throughout the day wasn't just new technology. They saw how years of operational experience shape where technology fits, how it should be implemented, and how it creates value once it's part of the operation.

That has always been important to us at Percepta.

Our technical support organization includes more than 160 certified mechanics with an average tenure of four years and a 27% internal promotion rate. Those aren't just workforce statistics. They reflect years of investing in people who continue building technical expertise while helping customers solve increasingly complex problems. That investment has prepared us for an industry where vehicles are becoming increasingly software-defined. Supporting over-the-air updates, vehicle health alerts, and software-enabled recalls requires deep technical knowledge, and that's built over time through experience. As that technology continues to evolve, our responsibility is to make sure our people evolve with it.

The same principle applies to AI. Rajitha Rupani , who leads our AI Enablement work, spends as much time focused on operational readiness, adoption, and continuous improvement as she does on the technology itself. That's intentional. The challenge isn't selecting AI. It's integrating it into the operation in a way that consistently improves the customer and associate experience.

Innovation Day reinforced something I've believed for a long time. Technology creates value when it's introduced with a clear purpose, not simply because it can automate another task. Sometimes the right answer is automation. Sometimes it's giving an associate better information, reducing customer effort, or helping the right expert become involved at the right moment. The customer experience should determine how technology is applied, not the other way around. The organizations that create the most value won't necessarily be the ones that deploy the most AI. They'll be the ones with the operational discipline and experience to apply it where it makes the greatest difference.

Thank you to everyone who helped make Innovation Day such a valuable experience for our clients, especially George Baraket, Scott Burnette, Hershel Eason , Rajitha Rupani, Pete Rodriguez, Alfredo Rizzo , Lizann Gøhring , Katherine Kress , and James Bednar for sharing their knowledge and experience.