The Bright Side of Life featuring Matt Kendall

Transcript

Rob Dwyer (00:02.31)
Matt Kendall is Next in Queue today. Welcome, Matt. How are you?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (00:07.851)
Great Rob, thanks for having me on the podcast. Good to be here.

Rob Dwyer (00:11.014)
Yeah, absolutely. I know you've been a little bit under the weather, but you're recovering. And so I just want to express my appreciation for you making this happen. I hope we can make you feel better today. And by we, I mean me and the audience that you can't see, but just know that they're behind me clapping and very excited that you're here. Yeah.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (00:35.275)
I'll imagine that throughout the whole episode. You've already made me feel better by inviting me here, so thanks again.

Rob Dwyer (00:41.766)
Good. My first question for you is, did you know when you got into the businesses that you are currently in that they were going to be destroyed by AI?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (01:01.803)
did I know, I started to realize it quite soon after I tried chat GPT for the first time. I had a feeling it would happen before that. I was convinced that I was going to do this as my career for the rest of my life, that writing for BPO companies, for tech companies, that would be my source of income for life. Yeah. It was like,

I love writing. I've always loved storytelling and, you know, cutting my teeth in a bit of business journalism and then moving more into the, the realm. I don't want to say realm. That's a very AI generated word. but moving into that. Yeah. So moving into that kind of the area of, of more marketing and thought leadership and ghost writing. I thought that was going to be my long -term career. And then.

Rob Dwyer (01:44.806)
which we're gonna talk about.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (01:57.931)
I heard about this little tool that just popped up all over the internet called ChatGPT and I tried it out. Immediately realized that this was going to change everything about what I was doing. I didn't quite go into panic mode immediately. It became more of a, I think I found this secret tool that is actually going to help me be more productive, be more efficient, help me come up with some ideas, help me.

provide better services for my clients. And, you know, for a long time it did. And then everyone else started using it. And now all of a sudden it's become, you can't escape it. AI writing is everywhere.

Rob Dwyer (02:42.246)
Yes, it is everywhere, much to the dismay of those of us who actually like to read. So let's back up a little bit and let's first learn a little bit more about you. And then we're going to talk about AI. We're going to talk about writing. We're going to talk about curation. But you've had a very interesting journey.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (02:50.283)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (03:11.558)
I think most people would pick up on your accent and think, hmm, you must live in the UK. At one time you did, but I gather you just got sick of the weather. Is that the case?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (03:28.971)
That's almost entirely the case. Yeah, I was born and raised in the south of England. Weather has always been a problem, as you know. But yeah, I was working in a software company in the UK about 11, 12, 11 years ago. I was doing some technical writing and implementation and training. It was a small company.

family -run business, it was a nice job, but having to drive to and from work to a dark office in the dark and the rain and the traffic every day for many years, eventually it just got on top of me and I decided to just sell everything I owned and then move off to Mexico. I had a contact in Mexico who was already living there and teaching English as a foreign language. And I thought I could do that. So...

I, and when I say sell everything I owned, I mean, you know, that wasn't much. I didn't own very much. It was enough for a ticket and a couple of months rent. That was about it. so I took that risk and it's possibly the best decision of my life. I quickly found work at a publishing company in Mexico city and they were looking for transcript, transcript writers and transcribers, to listen to interviews with executives and then write down everything they said.

I found myself just editing that as I was going. And so they noticed that and decided, well, you'd be better off from the editing team. So I went to join them. And then the, you know, the managing editor took me under his wing. He trained me in, in journalism, took me out to a few interviews with, a lot of executives in the automotive space. a lot of government officials as well in Mexico.

And it was great. I really, really enjoyed it. So to go from more of a technical writing to this more journalistic career was really just thrilling for me. And then I was lucky enough to be headhunted by Mr. Kirk Loughlin, who you may or may not know. I'm sure some of your listeners know who he is. He's the owner and founder of Nearshore Americas, which is the...

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (05:50.219)
Well, I consider and many consider them the number one outsourcing news outlet for, for nearshoring in Latin America and the Caribbean. and you know, Kirk took a risk on me. he, he brought me in under his wing. He mentored me. He allowed me to go out and talk to even more people in, in government and, executives around the BPO and CX industry. And that's how I first entered the industry really. And that's how I met everyone. And.

and kind of formed my network and connections. A few years after that, I decided to go alone and just start writing directly for the industry. So that's when I formed Cognitive Copy and that became my brand name for the BPO ghost writing and blog writing for leadership stuff. So that's in short, that was the whole story. Yeah, exactly.

Rob Dwyer (06:42.598)
Yeah, it's been quite the journey. Quite the journey. But you don't live in Mexico today. You've continued the journey.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (06:53.451)
No, no, I did. there was a, I don't know if you remember this, but there was an event in England. So they, they nicknamed it Brexit. I'm sure you know, and I'm very familiar with that. Just a tiny bit of news that came out of the country. so that kind of triggered me to think more seriously about where I want to live long -term.

Rob Dwyer (07:07.59)
I'm well aware.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (07:22.347)
And I'd always enjoyed the freedom and the accessibility of the EU and being able to live and work anywhere on the continent was, although I hadn't used it by that time, it was, it was a privilege and a benefit that I really wanted to maintain. So the decision became, you know, I need to be self -employed. I need to go and live in Spain. I need to get my residency in Spain. And that's why I'm still here. I'm working towards that citizenship.

is a 10 year journey so I'm almost six years into it now.

Rob Dwyer (07:57.798)
So it's definitely a long journey. You talked about something that I think particularly for the countries that often do the outsourcing. Maybe we don't think a lot about this, right? But you end up talking with a lot of government officials when you are writing about outsourcing near -shoring.

Can you talk to me just a little bit about the level of involvement governments have in encouraging that type of business? Because I don't think in the US there's, you know, I think the government just really doesn't care about contact centers all that much. But that's not true when you talk about some of these other countries like Mexico and as you get into Central and South America.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (08:54.315)
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, it varies, honestly. It depends in my experience, it depends on how much impact the industry is having on the economy. And that goes both ways. If it has a lot of impacts, you'll see a lot of government support, but if it has less impacts, then the industry is always trying to push for more government support. I mean, I was just in a...

in an event in Guatemala, the BPO Innovation Summit. And what struck me about Guatemala, and this is a bit of an anecdote and I feel a bit stupid, but it was quite funny at the time. So I was speaking, introducing the concept of BPO at the BPO Innovation Summit. So my goal was to show kind of a global representation of how the industry is looking. And I had a slide that said,

"What is BPO?" and explaining what it was, right? So one of my audience participation questions was, is there anyone in the room learning about BPO for the first time today? And not one person put their hand up.

I looked around the room, I thought, and I said, not even the sound guys? Okay. So BPO is a big deal in Guatemala. It seems. and I managed to. Plod through that bit quite quickly. but it stuck with me. It's stuck with me as an experience because it showed me and I opened my eyes to just how important BPO can be in emerging markets.

You know, you land in Guatemala and you see huge buildings for, for gen packs and other BPOs just there, like next to the strip. It's one of the first logos you see. so I think in that sense, when, when it's so public and so well known, the government really is more pressured to step up and do something and help the industry. Yeah. In the same.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (11:04.235)
instance, it doesn't always happen. A lot of the time, the companies will have to get together, the BPO's will have to get together and collaborate and try and lobby and pressure the government to give them. Usually it comes down to language. Like they need to have better education for language skills so that they can better serve the global market. Obviously in the shore regions, Central America, Latin America, that has to be English primarily to serve the U S market.

so I mean, yeah, to come back to your question, I'd say it varies and really, really depends on how important the industry is to the economy, but from a government perspective.

Rob Dwyer (11:51.046)
Yeah, it fascinates me because I think we just don't think about it in the States. The importance that education and language has on these economies and how big of a deal BPO can be for that economy. Cause we're just typically not exposed to it other than maybe we're a customer and we get someone on the phone and we.

struggling. That struggle is in part possibly due to, hey, the government's not providing enough education opportunities or support for language education. And it just seems like we often forget how important those jobs are to that local economy. We may also want more jobs in the U .S. but

those jobs make a huge difference around the globe, no matter where they are.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (12:54.219)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It can completely change a community as well. Again, another story I heard in Guatemala was of some young people who were working in the BPO industry and they were earning double than their parents were earning. So they were able to bring home so much income for the family household that they would then invest that money into the home, to renovate the home for the family.

Then they would start to invest in their siblings education. Then they would finally invest in their own education. And then after that, they'd go out and buy the iPhones and the laptops and whatever. But their priorities are when in a lot of emerging markets, priorities of a lot of contact agents, contact center staff is to support their household first. And then, you know, and eventually that drives back into the economy. It's only a matter of time, really. So yeah.

But I think that that kind of situation could be better communicated to the US market and to Europe as well, to understand just how important these jobs are abroad.

Rob Dwyer (14:06.886)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so you got into this whole copywriting thing and we touched on that a little bit, but you're also doing something else new. So you were the editor at Nearshore Americas and that is a newsletter. It's one I subscribe to. But in the past few months, I've recently subscribed to another newsletter called BPO Bullhorn.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (14:10.827)
So, we'll see you next time.

Rob Dwyer (14:37.83)
First of all, can you tell me how this came about? And second of all, I'm going to talk a little bit soon with you about AI fluency, but can you just talk about the impact that all this AI content had on you creating BPO Bullhorn?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (15:01.963)
Yeah, of course. Well, firstly, thanks for subscribing. It means a lot. Like really, really means a lot. I really appreciate the support. Well, thanks. So yeah, I mean, the idea came from... So let's put it in a story framework, right? That's what I like to do. So the start of it was I'd seen the AI content was taking over the internet.

Rob Dwyer (15:10.182)
good stuff.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (15:31.307)
A lot of the work that I was doing in the year prior to this year, 2023, was starting to see AI content kind of bleeding into some companies' marketing strategies. And so my work was starting to dip off a little bit. And it's the first time I noticed it was the start of this year. So I had a lot more time on my hands, let's put it that way.

So I would scroll through LinkedIn, you know, just looking for interesting stories, interesting resources, news, tidbits of information about the industry. And I recognize that 90 % of what I was reading was AI generated. And it was, it was only occasionally that I would find a story that was just like, this is absolutely human generated, human written.

And it's telling a good story, it's sharing good information. There's some good stats in here, good numbers. And so I would just bookmark it and save it for later and see, you know, when I was ready to read the whole thing, I would come back later. And I found myself bookmarking things, just every day on LinkedIn. And then I thought like, well, why not just share this with everyone else? Why not give everyone else these bookmarks and valuable links so that, you know, that

No one has to, no one has to do what I do and scroll through LinkedIn all day. so that's how the idea came about really. And then, and then it was just a case of, you know, firing out to some, some, some people in my network already asking them to sign up and take a look. And, and then, yeah, just iterating every week. I try to provide value and like, at least you're going to get some value out of it every week. It's going to be.

Maybe a resource or a book you haven't heard of or a podcast episode that you haven't seen, or some, some news from some other corner of the world that you might not have otherwise considered. and it's not always directly related to BPO, you know, sometimes I'll find things that are, you know, parallel to the industry, but not quite part of the industry. And I think the idea behind that is just to kind of broaden people's perspectives and.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (17:52.907)
maybe inspire them to think about their industry a little bit differently. So yeah, I mean, that's the story behind it. And I'm trying to improve it every week. And I just, I enjoy doing it to be honest. It's a lot of fun.

Rob Dwyer (18:09.414)
So I love this so much for many reasons. Number one, I write. And as someone who engages in that creative work, it's nice when it can be highlighted. And there's so much AI created drivel out there that it can be hard to sift through all of this. Also,

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (18:16.747)
Hmm.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (18:35.883)
Hmm.

Rob Dwyer (18:36.23)
This podcast, an example of exactly what you're trying to do, which is get outside of just a very specific lane and occasionally swerve into other lanes. And I think that that brings a wealth of knowledge that you might not otherwise get. It's one of the things I love about doing the show. And it's something that's very apparent in your newsletter. Let's talk about the...

AI fluency piece because you talked about how you're scrolling through LinkedIn. You're like AI, AI, AI. How does one recognize that as someone who has made, I don't want to say a career out of this, but someone who has definitely made it part of their business to recognize human content and AI content. What are some of the tells?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (19:27.211)
space.

There are so many, it's hard to say. It's like learning a new language, honestly. That's why I like to coin the phrase AI fluency, because you become fluent in AI generated content just by exposing yourself to it and trying these tools out, testing them, seeing what kind of production you get out of it, what kind of results. But I mean, there are...

definitely some words, the instant tells. So if, for anyone listening, if your article starts with the words in the landscape or in an era or in a digital realm, then I skip past it immediately that I won't read any, anything else past that line. that is a huge tell. it's, it's, it's just an overused, overplayed way to introduce an article. There are so many great ways to introduce.

articles and tell stories and none of them start with in an era. I'm sorry. and the other one that really gets to me is, is when it's, I like to use it as a kind of, like, what's the word? I can't think of the word, but if you think of, so one thing is not just another thing, it's also another thing.

Rob Dwyer (20:36.486)
No.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (20:59.691)
So like this analysis is not merely academic, it's practical and helpful. Like it's not just X, it's also Y. Like this kind of phrasing happens everywhere. Or it's not about this, it's about this. Again, if the introduction has that in it, that phrasal structure, it's out, I'm sorry. And honestly, you'll see a lot of metaphorical...

A lot of metaphors related to nautical topics like navigating the tumultuous seas of digital transformation or sailing into the storms of something else. It's all this flowery language that is unnecessary. I think a lot of companies are using it too much as a bit of a crutch. They're leaning on AI tools to create content.

that is just not engaging and it doesn't sound human. And I think that that could change with the next LLMs when the next large language models come out. Maybe that will change. I don't think it will change that much, but you can, you never know. Like these things that develop so quickly and they, they're evolving so fast that that could be one of the ways that they advance in that they, you're able to just say, look, don't ever say that again. And it won't do it.

Right now you can tell it's never say it, but it will just keep doing it anyway. So, yeah, I guess the point is that there's a bit of a, from my perspective, that feels like it's a bit of a bubble. A lot of companies who are using this, this, this text, this generated text to tell their stories and write their social media posts and write all kinds of things, even emails. I've seen a lot of emails being sent that AI generated and that.

me just removes all personal connection with whoever you're talking to, destroys the communication and it becomes like a third party in between you and whoever you're trying to communicate with. And I think it's the bubble is that companies will realize that they may have damaged their brand voice, their individuality, their human element, you know.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (23:23.819)
A lot of the BPO industry talks about it's human element, but if it's communicating everything through AI, then where's that human element gone? Is it going to remain human? That's the next question. I would actually like to ask you that. What are your thoughts on the future of the BPO and CX industry? Is it human or what do you think?

Rob Dwyer (23:47.238)
Well, before I answer that, I have a theory about these nautical references. And that theory is AI as a pirate. So obviously, it's out there plundering all of our works. And so it makes sense that it would think about being on the high seas. As far as the future goes, I think this is a really intriguing question.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (24:02.219)
out there.

Rob Dwyer (24:16.646)
and a difficult one to answer. But I think ultimately we're going to see a mixture. I see AI in a lot of ways being able to make, for instance, BPO's that are offshore more useful and relevant through tools like accent neutralization. That can...

relieve some of the stress and conflict between agents and customers because I don't have this.

communication challenge that is based off of an accent or cadence that I'm not used to.

At the same time, I also think there are lots of companies that are looking at how can I just get rid of contact centers altogether and fully automate them with virtual agents, with chat bots. We've seen some, some pretty high profile examples of companies attempting to do that. Varying degrees of success. We, we hear a lot about some of the public mishaps.

where it's gone very poorly. And I think a lot of people are probably getting the too early adoption. They're going out there for that. But I do think all of these tools can serve a role. They can serve a role in solving some of the easy, low -hanging fruit type of requests that I don't necessarily need to talk to a person for.

Rob Dwyer (26:09.094)
And it may be a better experience. And I think they can absolutely help agents and help contact center operations. So there are a lot of different ways that you can leverage AI that isn't necessarily customer facing. That could be in the agent enablement. It could be in quality management. It can be in workforce management. There are all these different applications.

knowledge management, all of these things can be enhanced with AI. I think the challenge is going to be.

Rob Dwyer (26:50.214)
How much will customers push back against AI and their experience with AI and demand that companies have a human to talk to? And what leverage do the customers have over those companies? Some of the larger companies, I don't think they're going to have a lot of leverage. And so it's not going to matter if I call my cell phone provider and

talking to a virtual agent because my options are rather limited to vote with my wallet. So I think we'll see more adoption in those larger enterprises. I think your smaller businesses, your mom and pops and your medium businesses will probably continue to use humans in the loop. And I think we'll continue to see BPO's.

near shore and offshore be utilized as well as, you know, onshore wherever your shore is.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (27:55.883)
Yeah, it's an interesting point, especially about the large companies versus the small ones. I think that, you know, that will become a unique selling point in the future and saying like, we can offer you human service, you know, and customers will have that choice. They want to deal with the big guys and go down the robot route, or do they want to talk to someone with a smaller company? They might have slightly higher prices, but that service is going to be.

someone they're willing to pay for. So yeah, it's really interesting. And there's something else you said about accent neutralization, which I find fascinating because there was a recent story from Japan with, with Softbank who was thinking or trying to implement some AI to soften voices of angry customers. So the agents would be less stressed.

Rob Dwyer (28:45.222)
Hmm.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (28:49.195)
so on the other side of the coin, you know, you've got, you've got that. And I was wondering, you know, thinking about the ethical side of that, like, and if we're softening customers' voices, how are we able to accurately determine how they're feeling and respond appropriately, you know?

Rob Dwyer (29:08.614)
I think that is a fascinating question. I saw the same story about that and I had a very similar reaction that you had. How do I, and I haven't experienced this technology, so maybe there's something that still tells you that they're angry, but how do I respond appropriately to de -escalate a customer?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (29:09.675)
Here we go.

Rob Dwyer (29:34.982)
which should be part of what I want to do. But then there is also the part of me and I don't know how it is in Japan, but I definitely know how U S customers are. And it's different now. They are much more in some instances angry and willing to just take that out on agents. I don't know where we went wrong as just

customers talking to other people, but I really hope that more of us will remember that we're talking to a human being on the other end. And this is also, I think, where AI is potentially dangerous. Like, does it desensitize our interactions? Maybe we're already too desensitized and we're too easy to get upset with someone. But do we...

start to behave differently if we think we're always talking to AI? I don't know the answer to that.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (30:39.339)
I think we're going to find that out in the next, at least, well, at most the next year. Cause when open AI releases its Omni voice capabilities, which aren't out yet, they've released the Omni model. and it's not much different from four, if I'm honest. but the, the voice capabilities that they demoed in the recent video show just how you can have real time conversations with, with an AI.

And I'm itching to try that out. I think that that's going to be a bit of an aha moment for a lot of companies once they've seen it and, you know, they've given it a go because, and also from a customer perspective, there's that wow factor of, man, I'm talking to a robot and it's talking back to me like a human would. And we, I don't think a lot of people have really accounted for that. I think it's going to be quite exciting. Like imagine being able to talk to an AI and say,

I have this problem and it's saying, -huh, -huh. Yep. Okay. I can help you with that. In fact, I've just canceled your insurance that you asked to, I know you wanted to cancel your insurance because that's why you called, right? Well, I've done that for you. great. Well, if you're, if your problem is solved in that amount of time by a robot that understands you and can actually pick up on your emotions, because there are tools that can do that already. I, I,

published one in the newsletter recently, I think it was called Hume. H -U -E. It's the first, not ethical, but emotionally intelligent AI. And you talk to it and you can, it will detect exactly how you're feeling. So I can say, hi Rob. Yeah. No, I'm really happy to be here today. It's great. I'm really enjoying myself. And it will say, are you sure about that? You don't sound too happy. In fact, you sound quite sarcastic.

Rob Dwyer (32:33.542)
hahahaha

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (32:37.739)
and it's pretty wild when you try it out. so when you combine that kind of technology with real time conversational robotics that can, you know, an agent, a gentle AI that can then solve your problems that has access to your data or information, and it can, it can enact actions. When all that, all of that comes together, I think personally, I mean, I'm a, I'm a millennial basically. I'm the.

last possible moment that I could have been a millennial, 1982. But if that was the case, if I could call my bank and it knew that I was calling to cancel my insurance and it would just talk me through it and it would be done in two minutes, then great. I don't need to talk to a human, just get it done. But then there are so many other factors. The fact that all the demographics of the world are shifting and the

the people who actually want that human connection more than younger people are not going to be around for as long as the rest of us. So how does that impact the AI revolution? I could talk about this for hours. It just makes me like, I really just like thinking about it and trying to figure it out, but I don't think anyone is going to be able to figure out. It's just a wave that we all have to ride and make sure that we adapt as we go.

Rob Dwyer (34:04.166)
Yeah, I'd like to get your thoughts as someone who is a writer on recently OpenAI entered into an agreement with I think both Vox and the Atlantic to use their articles as training data. They're going to pay for it. I have a feeling they probably already used it. At least now they're paying for it. But they certainly have license to continue to use.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (34:05.899)
and your thoughts as...

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (34:11.179)
Mm -hmm.

Rob Dwyer (34:32.742)
those articles as training data going forward. I've seen some reactions from some of the writers, but I'm curious from your perspective as someone who's also been a writer for their career, how you feel about licensing or AI just scraping your work with or without your permission to create

other things being published. Like where does that sit with you?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (35:08.939)
That's a good question. Something I haven't really thought about that much myself. I mean, my instinct is to say that as long as it's not just spewing that exact information back out, then I don't really have an issue with it. If it's using that information to train itself and learn, then sure, learn from my work. Like I would want anyone who reads my work to learn from it in the same way.

but if you're going to plagiarize and copy what I've written, then I am going to have a problem with that. so, and I think the same applies to, to AI really as, as these models develop and then become more, you know, the, the self -improvement aspect comes in and they're able to really reason a lot better than they are today. Then as long as it's been built in a way that it's not plagiarizing.

And it's actually is reasoning and using information that it's gaining to, to, re communicate it in a way that makes sense for whoever it's talking to. Then I honestly don't have a problem with it, but I can understand entirely why people have put their life's work into creative writing or, or journalism and would, would have a problem. You know, it's, it's an issue, but I like to look at it. I like to look at the future AI models as.

as another entity, another brain, another not life form, but kind of life form that we have to learn to coexist with eventually. It sounds crazy that these words are even coming out of my mouth. But the more I look into this technology and the more I try to understand it, the more it seems to be going down that route in which all of us could end up with our own personalized AI.

assistant, you know, and whatever device that looks like might be our phone eventually, but it could be some other device we haven't even invented yet. And that it knows, it knows us, it can, it can talk to us. We can, we can communicate with it in real time. We can learn anything we want about the world based on all of human knowledge. that's, it feels like that's where we're headed eventually. And it's, it's, it, I don't know. I get excited, but.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (37:33.867)
I hope it's going that way in a way, but at the same time, it's a little bit scary. Like, what does that mean for humanity if all of our knowledge and all of our work is just distilled into one small device that we can access 24 seven in real time? How does that change us as human beings? do we need to even study anymore? Do we need to go to college? Do we, what does education look like? You know, it's this huge, huge impacts on society when you look at it that way.

so that was a bit of a long answer to your question, but yeah. What do you think? What do you, how do you think the, if you're, if your podcasts were used for training data, for instance.

Rob Dwyer (38:11.366)
I mean, you touched on some.

Rob Dwyer (38:18.79)
it probably already is, and I'm sure it's poisoning the algorithm, but you touched on something that I think is intriguing. And I think we kind of both were thinking of it at the same time and that is education. And what does education really look like when I have all that knowledge kind of right there?

But I will say, right, the internet, while it changed education, and all of this knowledge is available, it didn't change education so drastically. What it changed was my ability to use micro learning and my ability to get just -in -time knowledge, whether that's on the job or in my personal life, right?

Just to give some examples I For the first time changed the oil in my wife's car this weekend I had done it once with my son and he kind of led the way Because he has done that for a living me not so much he wasn't around and so I Hopped on a quick YouTube video just to verify a couple of things to make sure that I didn't screw things up as I'm going

this process because I hadn't done it by myself. That's something that 20 years ago I could not have done. That would not be a resource that would be available to me. I think AI potentially accelerates that and provides those kind of just -in -time learning opportunities for us maybe even easier. Something that can walk me through it step by step as opposed to me having to

And I've searched for the moments that I'm looking through. I can have an AI kind of help me through, be my assistant through that process, if you will. so I think that's intriguing, but I don't know that it fundamentally changes what education should be, which is to teach us how to critically think, how to manage a project, how to interact with other people.

Rob Dwyer (40:47.43)
around us, how to be creative. Those things, I hope, are still part of our education system going forward. And I think AI can supplement those. I just don't know if that changes the way that we do things significantly. But it could be completely wrong.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (41:12.171)
Well, we'll, I'm sure we'll find out in a few years. We'll see how it goes. But I personally, I love the idea of having an AI assistant talking through complicated tasks. And you can only imagine what that will do for customer experience. If, you know, if a company is able to provide an app with an AI assistant that can utilize models like GPT -4 Omni and

Rob Dwyer (41:15.506)
Yeah.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (41:38.763)
sit behind you with a video on and talk you through tasks as you're doing them, then that's better than having a human on the phone that you're trying to explain everything to. So if companies can leverage that technology and be the first to go to market, then everyone's going to start to expect that level of interaction with their tech support, specifically. But yeah, so it's a brave new world. We'll see how it goes.

Rob Dwyer (41:48.998)
Mm -hmm.

Rob Dwyer (42:10.694)
sure I like labeling it a brave new world because I read that book. But...

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (42:10.923)
Not sure.

Rob Dwyer (42:19.494)
Matt, if someone wants to subscribe to BPO Bullhorn, how would they go about doing that?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (42:29.803)
so it's currently hosted at cognitive copy .com slash BPO, slash newsletter. Get that right. the reason it's complicated, I'm going to say it again in a minute, but the reason it's slightly complicated is because I started it as an experiment. I didn't think I would need its own domain. So I'm working on getting the new website, which is going to be BPOBohan .com. It's not ready yet. Don't go there yet. It's a parked domain.

So right now, if you want to subscribe, it's cognitivecopy .com slash newsletter. You can also find that information on the LinkedIn, BPO Bullhorn. You can find it on my LinkedIn as well, or over on Twitter as well.

Rob Dwyer (43:15.462)
And if I've been using a Chad GPT to write articles on my website that all start with in an era of so -and -so, and I'm recognizing that that's crap and people are not interested in it, can you help them with that?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (43:40.363)
Great lead. Yes, I can. Yeah. If, if anyone who's listening or interested in the BPO industry or works within BPO or ITO, if you're looking for someone to help tell stories and help write content that actually converts and actually engages people instead of driving them away in the first sentence, then sure. I can help with that.

Rob Dwyer (43:43.174)
Hahaha!

Rob Dwyer (44:09.286)
Can you give me some ideas about the type of content that, I mean, obviously, right, BPO's are gonna be the first to gravitate toward you given your background, but when we think about the kind of content that's on a website, are there things that you really excel at or love getting an opportunity to work with companies on?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (44:34.507)
Yeah, again, I love storytelling and I think that storytelling is the key to differentiating yourself in the market right now. The thing is with the BPO industry is that like it or not, every company sells essentially the same products, the same solutions, the same services. It's kind of packaged differently around the industry, but everyone's selling the same thing, they're outsourcing.

they're providing outsourced services to their clients, right? So it's difficult to differentiate in this market without sounding like everyone else. By using AI generated text, you're heightening that risk that you're just going to sound like everyone else like you really, really are right now. Maybe the next model is not a problem, but right now, I highly recommend not using AI generated content to write about anything because you're...

You're going to damage your brand voice. You're going to damage your individuality and it's no one wants that. So I think that the alternative really is, is effective storytelling. We need to talk about a lot, you know, a lot of case studies and success stories exist. they can be effective, but they can also be quite dry. if you can find a way to tell that story that creates an emotional connection with your reader, then you're going to be onto a better.

Rob Dwyer (45:49.734)
Hmm.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (45:59.595)
better eventual piece of content. it all starts with the protagonist and you're, you are not the protagonist. The BPO is not the protagonist, not the hero. You're there to kind of help the protagonist on their journey. So the protagonist is your client. It's the community in which you operate. It's your employees. It's people who start in a situation that is challenging and then you talk through.

that how your solutions are helping them get out of that challenge. It's storytelling 101 really. There are tons of resources out there that can help you tell better stories. And I recommend just leaning heavily on that approach because it's the only way to connect with people emotionally nowadays.

Rob Dwyer (46:48.358)
Are you seeing the BPO as the Robin to the customer's Batman? Is that what I'm hearing?

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (46:54.027)
You could put it that way, I guess. I think the BPO is more the, the commission of Gordon there to support the adventure to support them on their journey.

Rob Dwyer (47:07.75)
Even better, even better. I love it. Well, Matt, thanks for joining Next In Que today. I really appreciate it.

Matt K. (BPO Bullhorn) (47:14.827)
Thanks for having me, Rob. It's been a massive pleasure and it's great to finally meet you and talk to you. So thanks for having me.