The event where CX leaders tackle AI's hardest questions

AI doesn't arrive fully trained—but many teams still treat it like plug-and-play software. The result: stalled pilots, inconsistent experiences, and AI that underperforms. In this fireside chat, CX leaders from Condé Nast and Smith Optics share how they approached AI like a team member, not a tool. You'll hear how they operationalized onboarding through knowledge base optimization, designed conversations that preserve brand voice, built QA loops to catch issues early, and continuously trained AI to improve accuracy over time. They'll share what it really takes to move from pilot to production, including timelines, resourcing, and how they measured progress—so you can build AI that actually improves with use.

Julie McGinnis

Customer Care Supervisor at Smith Optics

Mike Beaubrun

Director, Global Head of Customer Experience at Condé Nast

Every customer conversation is a potential revenue moment—but most CX teams leave money on the table. Benjamin Devey, Sr. Director of Customer Experience at Ollie, shares how he transformed his team from cost center to growth driver, lowering CAC and increasing customer lifetime value. You'll hear how Ollie built a CX sales function that uses proactive chat to convert visitors, deployed SMS to retain at-risk customers, and gave team members the tools to turn cancellations into save opportunities. He'll cover how to align CX and eCommerce goals, coach teams for consultative revenue conversations, and use AI to free people for high-value moments. Leave with a practical framework to turn CX interactions into revenue.

Ben Devey

Sr. Director of Customer Experience at Ollie

Only 17% of customers fully trust organizations with their data, and Forrester predicts one-third of brands will erode trust through poorly implemented AI by 2026. Trust is the limiting factor for AI adoption in customer experience. We'll tackle what some vendors avoid: the transparency dilemma, preventing hallucinations and errors, building ethical AI governance, and creating human escalation paths that actually work. Walk away with Gladly's framework for responsible AI deployment, including monitoring and quality controls, and a new perspective on transparency as competitive advantage, not liability.

Christian Eberle

Head of AI Solutions at Gladly

When AI automates the routine, your team's role fundamentally transforms—from handling high-volume conversations to solving complex problems and building relationships. This session explores how to redesign roles for the AI era: what skills to hire for, how training programs need to evolve, setting fair performance goals when case complexity rises, and emerging specialist roles like AI Trainers and Conversation Designers. Learn how Crate&Barrel is rethinking job descriptions, interview scorecards, and career pathing to retain and motivate their team. Learn change management strategies that help people embrace AI—and the more interesting work that comes with it.

Melissa Fye

Manager, Innovation and Improvement at Crate&Barrel

The difference between AI customers love and AI they abandon comes down to conversation design. Efficiency and resolution rates matter—but the best AI delivers those and clarity, empathy, and context. This masterclass breaks down how to design AI-powered conversations that feel thoughtful, not transactional. You'll learn when to use structured versus open-ended responses, how to preserve brand voice at scale, how to design seamless handoffs that maintain context, and how to create AI personalities aligned to your brand. Through live demos and real Gladly customer examples, you'll leave with practical frameworks you can apply immediately to improve both customer experience and automation performance.

Lauren Giosa

Manager, AI Strategy and Solutions at Gladly

AI hallucinations aren't edge cases—they're a daily production risk. Left unchecked, they create brand damage, misinformation, compliance exposure, and eroded customer trust. Preventing AI failure takes operational quality assurance—not just model accuracy. In this session, Matt Baker shares Gladly's practical framework for governing AI in production—including how QA catches and corrects errors before they reach customers. You'll learn how to identify high-risk use cases, implement guardrails and monitoring workflows, and set accuracy thresholds that make sense for customer service—not demos. You'll leave with a clear framework for keeping AI reliable at scale and measuring its impact on customer trust.

Matt Baker

VP Engineering at Gladly

What does efficient scaling actually look like? Not 1:1—where doubling volume means doubling costs—but compounding efficiency, where each improvement enables the next. In this fireside chat, Thomas Harden, Sr. Director of Customer Care at The Black Tux, shares how his team built an operating model for sustainable growth. You'll hear how they achieved 58% AI resolution while maintaining industry high CSAT, reduced tool spend, and shifted team members from order-takers to consultants who handle high-value moments. Come away with practical ideas for automation sequencing, workforce planning, and operating models that scale.

Thomas Harden

Sr. Director Customer Care at The Black Tux

Customer experience is being reshaped by AI—but for executive leaders, the real challenge is proving that investments deliver business impact. Lauren made the same CX AI investment twice. In this session, she shares why. Drawing on her experience evaluating, purchasing, and scaling AI-powered platforms across enterprise and SMB environments, Lauren unpacks how she assessed AI readiness, built executive-aligned success metrics, and tied CX investments to efficiency, growth, and retention. You'll hear what separates AI initiatives that build momentum from those that stall—and the leadership frameworks that gave her confidence to invest again.

Lauren Inman-Semerau

VP Customer Experience at Pact

Your metrics were designed for a pre-AI world—and they're not telling the full story. When AI handles simple, high-volume conversations and humans inherit complex edge cases, traditional KPIs become misleading. Lower handle time might mean you're rushing conversations that need more attention. Higher FCR might just reflect that AI already captured the easy wins. It's time to rebuild your measurement framework for the AI era. You'll learn how to adjust CSAT by case complexity, redefine productivity when volume and effort decouple, evaluate escalation quality, and measure resolution path efficiency—not just whether it resolved, but how many turns it took. Expect to leave equipped with metrics that improve both efficiency and customer outcomes.

Andy Lisk

Vice President, Global Head of Customer Service at StockX

Voice is AI's toughest channel—the most complex, but also the most personal. Today, 67% of customers still have to repeat themselves when they call. That's fixable. Sasha Borog, Senior Product Manager at Gladly, separates what's ready from what's still maturing. You'll learn which use cases work well today—routine inquiries that represent 30-50% of call volume—and where voice AI still struggles with nuance and complexity. She'll share Gladly's four-lens evaluation framework, realistic resolution targets, cost savings benchmarks, and what's on the roadmap. Leave with a clear approach to assess readiness and design pilots that prove value without overpromising.

Sasha Borog

Senior Product Manager at Gladly

Every CX organization faces the same decision: build your own AI, buy a platform, or modernize your existing system. But it's a business decision—the wrong choice can drain resources across technology, finance, and customer experience for years. This discussion provides a leadership framework for making that decision. You'll explore why modernization matters more than features, how architectural design impacts AI and CX metrics, and how to quantify total cost of ownership for each stakeholder. Leave with a path to cross-functional consensus on AI that actually engages customers.

Jim Rodden

Chief People Officer at MaryRuth's

Kimberly Spence

Manager, CX Tools & Enablement at Metropolis