Alright, let's cut the noise.
We start with why everyone is suddenly clutching their pearls over AI "hallucinations," move quickly to why you can’t fix churn with a spreadsheet (and why your dashboards are lying to you), and finish with a list of AI tools that actually deliver.
Let's get into it.
No, But Seriously…
AI Mistakes Are Normal Like Your Intern
Funny how nobody complained about “hallucinations” when humans were the ones making the mistakes.
Seriously, people talk about AI hallucinations like the model just committed a felony. Relax. It’s an AI agent, not a prophet.
You already double-check everything your team touches… the intern’s word salad, the freelancer’s ChatGPT remix, the rep’s “updated” numbers that magically round up every quarter. Nobody on payroll is batting a thousand.
The only difference is the AI screws up faster, costs a fraction, and doesn't ask for PTO.
You gotta stop waiting for perfection. You’ve never hired perfection. Treat it like a cheap, terrifyingly fast junior. Review it. Fix it. Ship it.
Same game, lower cost. It’s not complicated, unless you’re trying to make it complicated.
The Drop
Retention Lives or Dies in CX
This week on Talk AI Live, I brought on Fran Brzyski, CEO of Hark, and he dropped a line that pretty much cracked the whole conversation open:
“People want to feel heard. They want to engage and they’re just sick of being like a plain-text, multiple-choice or a checkbox.”
And he’s right. Because here’s the real problem nobody talks about: Most teams don’t lack data. They lack clarity. NPS, CSAT, sentiment dashboards, it’s all noise without narrative.
You can’t fix churn with a spreadsheet. You can’t retain customers with a number.
Fran and I dug into the messy middle: where CX breaks down long before a ticket ever shows up.
And the truth is simple: Teams aren’t failing at CX because they’re bad at support. They’re failing because they’re blind to what their customers are actually telling them.
Here’s what we unpacked:
Your customers give you signal constantly, but most teams only see tickets, not themes.
AI should make CX proactive, not reactive
Retention isn’t built in the help desk, it’s built in how fast you surface and solve patterns.
If all CX does is answer questions, the best outcome you’ll ever get is… fewer questions. (Which is not a growth strategy.)
And that was Fran’s biggest point: CX becomes a cost center when it’s trapped in support. It becomes a revenue engine when it’s feeding product, informing retention, and reducing friction before the customer feels it.
What to actually do with this:
Stop obsessing over scores. Start obsessing over themes.
Automate the bottom 80% so humans can work on the 20% that changes retention.
Instrument every customer touchpoint, not for dashboards, but for insight.
Treat CX as a source of truth for product, ops, and growth, not just a help desk.
Most teams aren’t behind on AI. They’re behind on listening.
This week’s session made that painfully obvious. If you’re serious about getting your team moving on AI, Fran and 40+ leaders are showing exactly how at the AICX Summit.
The Shortcut
The No-BS List AI Tools That Work vs. The Frauds
Some of these AI tools are complete frauds and I’m thinking, seriously, who’s funding this stuff? Others are stone cold killers.
I’m not talking about the 100-year-old legacy platforms with an “AI-powered” sticker slapped on top. (I don’t want those.)
I’m looking for the new-age, AI-first tools.
The ones that cut costs, kill busywork, and actually let you focus on what matters. (Those are the ones I want.)
Frauds = n8n spaghetti, a prompt engineer on speed dial, and 47 back-and-forths with Chad from Customer Success.
Game Changers = You set it up, go to bed, and wake up to booked meetings, clean data, and one less person you need to hire.
Here are the ones people keep mentioning:
Loveable – surprisingly polished, genuinely useful, delivers more than the hype.
Vidoso – repurposes webinars, videos, PDFs into clips and campaigns; massive leverage for marketing + sales.
Momentum.io – AI GTM automation for pipeline, deal flow, and buyer journeys.
Chatbase – one of the strongest, easiest AI chatbot builders out there.
UnifiedCRM – CRM with agentic workflows baked in to boost sales productivity.
AskElephant – AI note taker that logs data and takes actions directly inside HubSpot/Salesforce.
Perplexity – insanely fast research + reasoning; replaces all the tab-hopping.
Magical – lightweight task + data automation with zero friction
ChatGPT + Superhuman – elite combo for anyone drowning in email or writing.
Granola – clean call transcripts and instant summaries.
Dante AI – AI agents that connect to 700+ apps, book meetings, process orders, and automate ops.
Claude Code (with MCPs) – serious power tool for developers building connected AI apps.
Synapsa – multichannel AI that books qualified meetings 24/7 through chat, text, and email.
Gamma – AI-native presentation creator; decks that look good with zero effort.
News
Weekly Wire
The End of Manual Labor: A laser-weeding robot in Phoenix just proved that when AI enters the workforce, we don’t optimize the job—we delete the labor entirely.
Wall Street Picks Infrastructure: Investors are punishing Salesforce for "AI features" while rewarding Google and Oracle for owning the physical AI factory.
The Model Wars Are Over: OpenAI’s "code red" isn't about Google; it's about the realization that enterprises need operational workflows, not just smarter chatbots.
China Is Winning on Speed: US startups are quietly building on Chinese open-source models because the American stack is becoming too expensive and regulated.
GPA Farming is Dead: AI didn't break education, it revealed that universities were testing for output rather than the one thing AI can't fake: human judgment.
That’s it for today. Connect with me on Linkedin if you actually want to understand what an Autonomous Organization looks like in the real world.
