Cloud Tech Gurus

06/18/2026

New episode of the Contact Center Gurus Podcast is out now.

And this one is going to hit different.

Most contact centers have one. An AI graveyard.

Chatbots that got shut down after 90 days. Pilots that looked great in a demo and disappeared on the floor. And the root problem is almost always the same — the AI was built to respond, not to resolve.

Darren Prine sits down with Mike Schulman, VP of Channel Sales at Yellowai - someone who's been in the room for over 1,100 enterprise AI deployments — to break down exactly why most AI projects fail and what it actually takes to escape the graveyard.

They get into what agentic AI actually means, how Waste Connections saved $4M and Feral Gas unlocked $14.5M in net new revenue, and why AI resolution rates went from 5% to 80% in just three years.

🎙️ Out now - Watch here: https://bit.ly/4w1crOA

🎧 Listen on Simplecast: https://bit.ly/4gsBIfN

Subscribe so you don't miss the next one: https://bit.ly/4ePvCVA

Every contact center has one. An AI graveyard.Chatbots that got s...

06/18/2026

CCW Las Vegas is one week away.

Cloud Tech Gurus is bringing back the most talked-about event of the conference. Our VIP CX Cabana Pool Party is back for another year, and if you've been before, you already know.

No presentations. No vendor floors. Nothing to sit through. Just the top CX executives at CCW, good food, great cocktails, and real conversations poolside.

We cap it at 100 guests. Spots are almost gone.

Registration link is in the comments. See you poolside.

06/04/2026

New episode of Contact Center Journeys is live. 🎙️

Justin Robbins of Metric Sherpa joins Fred Stacey on Contact Center Journeys.
Trust. Disengagement. Why the contact center is the most strategic seat in your org.

Watch here 👇
https://bit.ly/4e1bMVR

Most leaders think disengagement is a people problem. Justin Robbin...

06/03/2026

Attention BPO Executive Leaders.

Your clients are spending millions every year on CX technology. CCaaS. AI. Workforce management. Quality assurance. Analytics.

And they're asking your team for recommendations.

They trust you. They see you as an advisor. But when they buy, the vendor gets paid and you get nothing.

The video explains exactly how we fix that.

Watch it, then DM me if you want to talk about what it looks like for your organization.

06/02/2026

At 12 years old, Justin Robbins figured out something most CX leaders take decades to learn.

Honor the preference. Every time. Even when it takes extra time.

One block. One neighbor who wanted their paper folded instead of rolled. Word spread. The whole block changed their preference.

That's the clip. Full episode drops this Thursday.
Subscribe so you're there 👉 https://bit.ly/3REHBMR

05/28/2026

He started with a paper route at 12. Then outbound calls. Hotels. Nashville's music industry. Then Hershey.

Justin Robbins never planned a contact center career, he just kept showing up where serving people mattered.

In the full episode, he gets into why disengagement is spreading, what leaders are missing when it comes to trust, and why the contact center might actually be the best launchpad in any organization.

Drops next Thursday on The Contact Center Journeys Podcast with Fred Stacey.

Subscribe on YouTube so you're there from the start 👉 https://bit.ly/4uG6ZAm

05/27/2026

Most contact centers are built for average. Average volume. Average demand. Average days.

GigCX is built for reality.

Our CEO Fred Stacey sat down with Jon Brown, SVP of Client Results at Liveops, to break down what on-demand CX staffing actually looks like when it's working - not the concept, the real thing running inside Fortune 100 and 500 brands today.

A few things that hit different in this conversation:
→ Traditional BPOs staff around a watermark. GigCX matches 30-minute demand windows, no excess, no gaps.
→ One client hit 400–500% over forecast. The gig model tripled coverage in under 45 minutes.
→ The talent pool is no longer 20 miles from a building. It's national, global, and already trained.
→ AI isn't replacing agents, it's making the agents you have significantly better.

We've spent years helping enterprise contact centers find the right outsourcing model. GigCX is the one that keeps coming up when the real pain is attrition, unpredictable volume, and the cost of overstaffing to stay ready.

We didn't study contact centers. We ran them. And this model is the real deal.

🎥 Watch the full webinar → https://bit.ly/4wUK9Gu
📖 Read the recap → https://bit.ly/49JTZkX
🔗 Explore GigCX sourcing → https://bit.ly/4dBxhOg
Discuss what model fits your operation → https://bit.ly/4nTgfyx

05/21/2026

𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞. 🎙️

"BPOs still competing on cost-per-agent-hour are building on a foundation that's actively dissolving underneath them."
That's Siddharth Victor, SVP & Head of Support Services at Movate, 23 years in this industry, and he didn't hold back.

This episode covers:
→ Why your BPO contract is structurally working against you
→ How a global gaming company went from 6% to 86% autonomous resolution
→ What outcome-based accountability actually looks like when both parties have skin in the game
→ The one thing that kills most outsourcing engagements

If you lead a BPO, run a contact center, or buy outsourcing services — this one is worth your full attention.

▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://bit.ly/4tTi2VN
🎙️ Listen on all platforms: https://bit.ly/4tNsUnO

The BPO industry is splitting in two — commodity providers heading toward irrelevance, and transformation partners capturing all the growth.In this episode, ...

05/19/2026

𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐏𝐎𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧'𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞.

That's the problem.

Clients are already demanding AI. They want outcomes, not headcount. And the BPOs still selling seats are running out of time to figure that out.

Darren Prine, host of The Contact Center Gurus Podcast, and Siddharth Victor, SVP & Head of Support Services at Movate, break down exactly what's at stake, and what the choice looks like.

Full episode drops tomorrow on The Contact Center Gurus Podcast.
→ Why the traditional BPO model is structurally broken
→ How a global gaming company went from 6% to 86% autonomous resolution
→ What outcome-based contracts actually look like in practice
→ What kills most outsourcing engagements

Subscribe so you catch it the moment it drops 👇
🎙️ https://bit.ly/4eWMiLC

05/15/2026

Every AI vendor is telling you to move faster.

Five governments just told you to slow down.

On May 1st, CISA and intelligence agencies from the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand issued the first coordinated global guidance on agentic AI.

Their finding: AI agents are already running inside organizations with more access than the teams deploying them can see, audit, or control.

Here is the number that should stop you cold.

88 percent of organizations have already experienced a confirmed or suspected AI agent security incident. 82 percent of executives still believe their existing policies are sufficient.

Same organizations. Completely opposite realities.

That gap is where the damage happens.

Vendors won't tell you this. Their job is to close the deal.

CTG is a network of 120+ former contact center VPs and SVPs. We don't sell platforms. We help organizations assess what they actually need, whether they're operationally ready, and what governance has to exist before anything deploys at scale.

The pressure to move fast on AI is real. So is the cost of moving fast without a foundation.
How is your team currently thinking about AI governance before deployment?