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(Video length: 42:27) Dan Sodergren on how AI is transforming work, leadership, and life as we know it. In this episode of the AI News Show , hosts Rob Scott and Kevin Kieller dive into one of the most transformative topics of our time: the Fifth Industrial Revolution. Joined by Dan Sodergren, a leading technology futurist, TEDx speaker, and author , the trio unpacks how AI is reshaping the workplace, revolutionizing productivity, and reimagining our work-life balance. With insights from Microsoft’s Ignite 2024 conference and real-world examples, this episode is a must-watch for anyone navigating the intersection of AI, technology, and the future of work. In this episode, we explore: The Rise of AI in the Workplace: How tools like Microsoft Copilot are being adopted across Fortune 500 companies and the challenges organizations face in implementing AI effectively. The Importance of Emotional Intelligence: Dan explains why EQ is crucial for leaders and employees to harness AI’s full potential. AI Agents and the Workforce Revolution: What the “agents of the future” mean for jobs, productivity, and the employee contract. Work-Life Balance Reimagined: Dan’s hopeful vision of how AI can free us from mundane tasks, creating more time for what truly matters. Dan emphasizes that AI isn’t just another tool —it’s a revolution that will redefine business, technology, and society. Next Steps: Follow Dan Sodergren on LinkedIn or visit DanSodergren.com for more insights. You can also read more here.

(Video length: 23:17) In this episode of The AI Chefs, David and Kevin serve up two hearty recipes to help you take your AI usage to the next level, whether for learning or leveraging custom data! Kevin’s Tip – “AI Potluck”: Bring the right ingredients to the table! Kevin demonstrates how to use tools like Gemini NotebookLM to feed AI a custom set of data, shaping its output to meet your specific needs. Just like at a potluck, what you bring determines the meal, and with AI, your results improve when you provide the right inputs. David’s Tip – “Learning Lasagna”: AI as your personal instructor? Yes, please! David shares how he’s using ChatGPT to tailor guitar and music theory lessons to his current skill level. Unlike one-size-fits-all tutorials on YouTube, this approach builds a layered learning experience that’s perfectly suited to his abilities and goals. Whether you’re customizing data for better insights or creating a tailored learning experience, these AI recipes will inspire you to cook up something amazing!

(Video length: 21:36) In this episode of The AI Chefs, we’re serving up two fresh AI-powered recipes to level up your workflow and problem-solving skills! Red Flag Velvet Cake – David’s tip helps you spot potential issues in your writing before they become problems. Just ask AI if there are any “red flags” in your document, this lets you catch weak spots, refine your work, and gain confidence that it’s solid. Data Donut Hole – Kevin’s tip is perfect for those “I can’t quite remember” moments. If you have random bits of information but are missing the core detail, feed those stray facts to AI, and let it fill in the gaps, whether it’s identifying a movie, a song, or important business data. Watch now to see these AI tricks in action!

(Video length: 29:54) In this special episode of The AI Chefs, we’re putting aside the recipes to focus on one big topic: DeepSeek. This AI model has been making waves, and we spent 30 minutes breaking down what it is, why it matters, and how it compares to other AI tools. What makes DeepSeek unique? How does it stack up against ChatGPT, Gemini, and others? What are the key takeaways for AI users and creators? If you’re curious about the latest in AI advancements, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

(Video length: 31:43) Welcome back to The AI Chefs! In this episode, we’re serving up a feast of AI insights, from must-have kitchen gadgets to the best way to get AI-powered content ideas. Kevin’s Course: He starts with some fun and useful kitchen tools before diving into a breakdown of different AI tools, their pricing models, and how they stack up. If you’ve ever wondered which AI platform is worth your investment, this is the segment for you. David’s Dish: Instead of asking AI for a single answer, why not get a variety of options, just like a Rodizio-style restaurant brings a selection of meats to your table? David explains how this approach improves AI results, using YouTube’s new Inspiration tab as an example. Instead of just asking for a video idea, let AI present multiple choices and refine them with you! If you enjoyed this episode, hit like, subscribe, and let us know, how do you use AI in your creative process? ️

Zendesk's Relate user conference last week marked an important milestone for the company. Two years into its second act as a private company, it has sharpened its focus on two key markets: customer experience (CX) and employee service. Let’s dive into the announcements and key takeaways from the event. Zendesk has historically served employee support more by default than by design—customers adopting its intuitive help desk software for internal use. Now, with the formal introduction of the Zendesk Employee Service Suite, the company is making a deliberate push. With 17,000 companies already using Zendesk for employee-facing operations, this move feels not just logical but overdue. The newly introduced suite brings purpose-built capabilities, most notably a Service Catalog that extends beyond help desks to deliver a seamless employee experience from onboarding to ongoing support. The highlight of the event was the launch of the Zendesk Resolution Platform, with AI Agents at its core. Zendesk has made it clear—it wants to be your AI provider, and its newly released agentic platform is definitely worth your consideration. The company shared that it already has 10,000 customers using its AI products. Customer support automation is one of AI's most promising use cases. Support operations are highly digitized, with vast datasets concentrated in help centers and ticketing systems—capturing both interaction transcripts and resolutions. With over 13 million resolutions processed daily, Zendesk has transformed its data goldmine into a powerful knowledge graph. Zendesk's agentic platform nicely exposes the chain of thought of its agents, giving you both visibility and control over processes and actions. It leverages Zendesk QA to oversee not only human agents but also automations—an ingredient the company highlights as part of its secret sauce. Its architecture is built for a swarm of highly specialized agents—Zendesk's approach to achieving accuracy at scale. Zendesk has centered its AI vision on driving resolutions, setting an ambitious target to automate 80% of support inquiries within the next few years. While the "driving outcomes" messaging pervades vendor marketing, Zendesk backs this positioning by aligning both its value and pricing with the key result you can expect—resolution. This is already reflected in its pricing at $1.50 per automated resolution. And as we shift toward a world where resolution is predominantly automated, the company plans to evolve its seat-based pricing model into an outcome-based structure, offering the flexibility to convert pricing between human and automated support. I commend Zendesk for tackling the challenges of knowledge management—an essential yet notoriously difficult domain. Its new Knowledge Builder introduces GenAI-powered tools to enrich, refine, and repurpose content, taking the tedious out of the job. Eventually, Zendesk’s Resolution Platform brings together its recent acquisitions, bolstering its contact center capabilities. While the Local Measure acquisition is still awaiting regulatory approval, the path forward is clear. Zendesk also aims to be your contact center provider for two key reasons. First, as automation takes hold, it sees voice becoming a more strategic escalation channel for complex issues, with research already showing that voice is used in 52% of resolution journeys. Second, as markets converge, Zendesk seeks to prevent CCaaS vendors from encroaching on its territory. It plans to leverage Local Measure technology and expertise to package Amazon Connect for the mid-market, a segment where its offering particularly excels. Combined with its WFM and QA modules, as well as PolyAI’s Voice Agents, Zendesk will be well-positioned to provide a comprehensive contact center solution. Relate 2025 represents a significant turning point for Zendesk with the launch of its agentic platform, a key step in realizing its aspiration to become your AI provider. The event also highlights the company's strategic focus on two key market opportunities: employee services and customer service with an expanded scope to include contact centers. By aligning its value proposition and pricing model around resolutions, Zendesk cleverly differentiates itself amid the growing number of vendors positioning themselves as broad CX providers.

(Podcast length: 33:03) BCStrategies Experts David Maldow and Kevin Kieller discuss WebexOne 2024 while Experts Blair Pleasant and Jon Arnold discuss their adventures in Zambia at the NICE Analysts Summit 2024.

(Podcast length: 34:38) Lawyers and BCStrategies Experts Martha Buyers and David Maldow discuss some of the legal implications and issues related to artificial intelligence (AI).

(Podcast length: 38:58) A collection of the BCStrategies Experts including Blair Pleasant, Martha Buyer, Charles Vondra, Kevin Kieller, Steve Leaden, Dave Michels and Nicolas de Kouchkovsky talk with co-founder Joe Eisner, CEO, and co-founder Jay Yeras, CTO, about how blissAI helps organizations turn their existing call recordings into "gold" that can help power AI initiatives.

(Podcast length: 23:45) Experts Blair Pleasant, Nicolas De Kouchkovsky, Evan Kirstel, David Maldow, Dave Michels, and Kevin Kieller discuss what we expect to see more of and less of in 2025 related to UCaaS, CCaaS, AI, and other communication and collaboration technologies. As always an informed and opinionated discussion!

(Podcast length: 21:16) Experts Joseph Williams, Kevin Kieller, Chuck Vondra, Blair Pleasant, Marta Buyers, Dave Michels, and Jon Arnold recap the year that was 2024. What were the highs and lows related to UCaaS, CCaaS, AI, and related technologies. As always, there is no lack of opinions and a wide-variety of perspectives combined with deep industry insights.

(Podcast length: 34:52) Can AI agents demonstrate empathy equal to or better than human agents? Are human agents really demonstrating empathy or simply trying to keep you as a customer? The BCStrategies Experts discuss this interesting topic and offer different points of views and opinions.