Metric Sherpa

AI is finally taking the easy work off the floor. The risk is your organization still designing frontline jobs like nothing has changed. Luke Jamieson, Operata, talks about what changes when you can actually see how humans and AI are sharing the same journey: CX observability surfaces the upstream friction, hidden failure points, and burnout signals that should be driving how you redesign roles, handoffs, and “white glove” work, not just how you tune a bot. As AI takes on more of the easy volume, what are you doing to intentionally redesign frontline jobs—so agents are not just the escalation layer, but the experts steering when and how AI steps in?

When work quietly turns against your people, you feel it long before you can measure it. The endless workarounds. The “that’s just how it is” shrug. The heroes we celebrate for muscling through systems that should have had their back in the first place. In his latest piece for Metric Sherpa, Justin Robbins' shares the same story he told on a recent TEDx stage: how friction gets normalized, how it drains your best people, and how leaders with real scope can start treating it as a design problem—not a character flaw. If you lead a team and suspect your systems are quietly fighting your values, this is for you. 👉 Read the full article: When Work Quietly Turns Against Your People https://lnkd.in/eQcGssm9 What’s one friction your team is living with right now that you’re no longer willing to carry forward into next week?

The promise of AI is speed. The price is usually architecture. If you lead service or operations, that is the real story behind Atlassian’s announcement. Not shiny features. Structural choices about workflows, governance, talent, and accountability. Justin Robbins’ latest blog digs into the four moves executives should be thinking about now. Read the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/e5-HMkSW

CX leaders: which would you rather say in your next operating review, “we saved a few seconds” or “we removed work no one should have been doing in the first place”? David Singer, Verint, talks about how automation can reduce after-call work and improve efficiency at scale. But the bigger story is what happens when agents stop spending their day buried in admin they hate and start focusing on the conversation in front of them. The leaders who get the most from AI will be the ones who ask a better question ➡️ What friction are we removing for the business and for the people doing the work? Justin Robbins' unpacks that in the full blog post, including why the most meaningful AI wins are not just financial. They show up in the day-to-day reality of the workforce too. Read the full post here: https://lnkd.in/e9csD_Wd  

Could AI erase many of the reasons customers call you in the first place? At #EC2026, Joel Bauer, Rime, describes a future where voice AI sits on the front line: handling natural‑language scheduling, routing, and simple service in any language, while human teams focus on more complex, high‑value conversations. He also warns that treating AI as a side experiment—or never teaching frontline staff how to actually prompt and partner with it—may be the decision leaders look back on in two years as “too slow, too siloed.” Watch the full interview ➡️

“How do we build the capacity for curiosity inside our teams?” Miranda Collard opened with that at TP Immersive, and it resontated with me because most leaders already feel the gap. Curiosity sounds simple. It gets harder when it runs into how the work actually operates. What came through in the opening conversation is how much this ties back to the way teams are set up to run. Most organizations still rely on clear roles, defined workflows, and metrics that keep everyone moving. That creates consistency, but it also leaves very little space to step back, question the work, or try a different approach. When curiosity is asked for on top of that, it often stays theoretical. Gina Fratarcangeli helped bring some clarity to where this is headed. The shift is about more than just adopting AI. It requires change to how work moves across the business, and how often teams are expected to test, learn, and adjust along the way. That kind of environment does not happen by accident. The problem is momentum. Most teams are working off reflex, moving from task to task without much space to pause or reset. The rhythm of the business keeps everyone in motion, and over time that becomes the default. There is no real moment built in to step back and reconsider how the work is running or whether it should change. If this is something leaders want to strengthen, it is worth looking at the basics. Is there time for teams to test and share what they are learning? Do managers spend time on how the work is improving? Does the pace of the week allow for any adjustment, or just execution? Curiosity usually is not the problem. The way the work is structured is. Strong opening session. More to come from TP Immersive. #customerexperience #AIinCX #leadership #contactcenter #metricsherpa

Messy routing, unclear ownership, weak feedback loops, and workflows that were never built for automation in the first place. That’s where trust in Voice AI breaks fast. Tomorrow, Justin Robbins joins Sam Danby and the team at boost.ai for a live conversation on the operational reality of Voice AI: why deployments break down, what leaders keep missing, and what actually needs to change to make this work in the real world. Hosted by Kristian Anders Wilhelmsen. Register here to join Justin at 9 AM ET: https://lnkd.in/dSqjCWKT

Is complexity okay? That’s the question Justin Robbins brought back from Atlassian’s Team ’26, where he was in the room watching Atlassian make its AI‑native service pitch to a very real, very complex world. Justin takes a look at what Teamwork Graph, Rovo, Dia, and Incident Command Center could actually change for service leaders today—what’s real, what’s still aspirational, and who in your org is likely to carry the complexity: your people or your systems. Read the full breakdown: https://lnkd.in/e5-HMkSW

We’re hearing a lot about AI adoption stalling in CX, and most of the time, it’s not really about the model. It’s about what happens when the tool hits the real operation. Justin Robbins is working on a breakdown of why AI tools sit on the shelf while leaders are under pressure to show progress. Quick pulse check: where does AI adoption actually get stuck in your world right now? Vote in the poll, and if you’re seeing something different, tell us in the comments.

If your organization is excited about Voice AI but still stuck in pilot mode, you are not alone. The market has no shortage of demos, but real-world deployment is where things start to fall apart. On May 13 at 9 AM ET, Justin Robbins is sitting down with boost.ai to talk about what is actually sabotaging Voice AI efforts and what leaders need to do differently to get value out of the technology. Join us live and bring the hard questions: https://lnkd.in/dSqjCWKT