Becoming AI-First: How We’re Building the Future of Work at Centrical
Transforming a company into an AI-first organization is hard work. Here’s how we’re doing it at Centrical, and what leaders navigating this transition can learn from our experience.
This article was originally published as part of Centrical CEO and founder Gal Rimon’s “The Future of Work” newsletter. For more insights on CX, EX, and industry thought leadership, subscribe today and follow Gal on LinkedIn.
Last week, I stood in front of our team at Centrical and talked about something that keeps me, and many other leaders, up at night: how to become an AI-first company.
I don’t mean just building AI features into our product (which we are doing, too). I mean fundamentally rewiring how we think, operate, and solve problems as an organization.
Leading this kind of change in a mature company is hard work. But it’s also necessary.
Before we dive in: Want a bulletproof method to communicate change to your people? Check out this amazing framework Sally Earnshaw shared at our Big Game event in London last month:
Three Lenses on AI Transformation: Internal, Product, and the Bigger Picture
When I think about AI at Centrical, I look at it through three distinct lenses: internal ops, our product, and AI’s wider impact on the future of work. Each one matters.
Internal Adoption: What’s Working for Us to Get People on Board
How do we as employees, as departments, utilize AI to work smarter and faster? How do we bring individuals, departments, and the entire company to the next stage of AI adoption?
At Centrical, we’re figuring that out in real time as we promote a culture of experimentation and testing.
Here’s what we’re doing:
Hackathons where R&D teams compete to build the most innovative AI solutions within our platform to solve real business problems.
Department-vs-department competitions to unlock new use cases for internal adoption of AI across the organization.
AI Moments: AI challenges and learning missions delivered through our own platform to share know-how, spotlight individuals using AI in new ways, and gamify the learning process.
Build-and-share sessions where employees demo their AI agents and workflows.
AI use case library documenting successful implementations others can replicate.
To do this, we’ve formed an “AI Builders Team,” a group of employees tasked with building the infrastructure to support the transformation company-wide, and guide and coordinate AI initiatives for less tech-enabled peers.
Our teams have built AI agents for all sorts of use cases. Here are just a few highlights:
Optimizing the Customer Journey
Automating Customer Onboarding Tasks
Platform Asset Generation (branded images, training content)
Self-Service Customer Enablement
Streamlining Product & R&D Processes
Monitoring Agents
Automated QA
Faster Dev Cycles
Product Usage and Customer Feedback Intelligence for feature prioritization
Driving Sales & Marketing Efficiencies
AI Sales Guide
RFP Response Generator
Automated Competitive Intel
Customer Story Creator and Finder
Outbound Intelligence
Scaling HR Initiatives
HR Policy and Knowledge Assistant
Quick Win for Your Organization: Start small. Launch a 30-day AI challenge where teams document one way they’ve used AI to save time, streamline a process, or improve quality. Share winners company-wide. Build momentum from there.
Product Strategy: Reimagine Your Solution
We don’t have an AI strategy. We have a product strategy.This means that AI is embedded in everything we do.
We’ve woven AI into almost every aspect of what we build within our platform, and we keep pushing further to personalize growth and development.
Our AI Assistant for team leaders is a perfect example:
Driving 88% more coaching conversations at a global financial services organization.
70% reduction in administrative work for managers at a global BPO, freeing them for high-impact performance development.
1.5 hours saved per week for managers at Capita using our AI insights and coaching recommendations.
Quick Win for Product Leaders: Don’t bolt AI on as a feature. Ask: “Where do our users waste the most time?” and “What insights exist in our data that we’re not surfacing?” Start there.
The Bigger Picture: AI’s Impact on the Future of Work
The strongest current in the market right now is a headwind for human workers, particularly frontline employees and contact center agents. Hardly a week passes without a headline about layoffs.
Here’s the reality:
Fewer jobs requiring lower levels of proficiency
New roles emerging, but requiring skills many workers don’t have yet
The prevailing force is reduction
So,the question isn’t really whether automation will replace certain roles. It will. The question is: what happens to the people?
Move People Up, Not Out
Here’s my answer: automation is eating employee roles from the bottom up, which means employees need to move up. Workers at every level, myself included, need to gain new skills. This requires a fundamental shift in how we support and enable the workforce of today and the future.
On the upside, this is exactly what Centrical was designed to do. We help people grow, and we help organizations lead and navigate change.
Let’s take a large bank as an example. In the next three to five years:
Shrinking roles: Customer service positions will likely decrease
Growing roles: Fraud prevention, for example, will expand due to the rise in phishing attacks and deepfake scams
The solution: Internal mobility, not mass layoffs
We’re already seeing results with companies using our platform to facilitate these transitions. It’s essentially reboarding: reskilling and upskilling on the job.
What makes this work:
Employees stay in their current role while learning the new one
They gradually take on more tasks and responsibilities
Organizations maintain productivity during the transition
It’s a bridge, not a cliff.
Quick Win for Workforce Planning: Map your roles on a 2×2 grid: Growing vs. Shrinking, and High Skill vs. Low Skill. Identify the bridges between shrinking roles and growing ones. Start with one pilot program.
The Mindset Shift: Encourage Your Teams to Think Like Engineers
To make this work, we need to build AI-first organizations where people start thinking like engineers: constantly building, testing, and iterating.
This new reality requires a willingness to continuously learn and adapt, and genuine investments in employee development and internal mobility. Adam Grant’s Think Again comes to mind.
AI tools work best when humans can experiment, customize, and refine their use. Engineers and scientists seek new solutions, run experiments, and iterate constantly. That’s the mindset we need across our entire organizations, not just in our product or engineering teams.
My Advice for Leaders Navigating Change
The landscape is shifting fast, and we need to evolve just as quickly.
But that’s where the real challenge lies: driving change in a mature company is hard because you already have momentum, existing customers, and established ways of working. You can’t just tear it all down and start over. You have to adapt while keeping the engine running.
For leaders facing similar challenges, here’s my advice:
Start now. We began our transformation before it was a board agenda. When the landscape moves this fast, speed to market is everything.
Embed AI everywhere, not just in one product or department. Make it part of your DNA.
Focus on your people. Technology changes fast, but people change slowly. Invest in helping your team develop the skills and mindsets they need to adapt and thrive.
Embrace the discomfort. Becoming AI-first means admitting you don’t have all the answers. It means experimenting, failing, and learning.
Find the opportunities in the disruption. Yes, there are risks. But there are also massive opportunities for companies bold enough to reinvent themselves and the industries they serve.
The Bottom Line
We’re living through a fundamental restructuring of work. The companies that will thrive are the ones that help their people grow faster than their roles are changing.
At Centrical, we’re building that future, for ourselves and for our customers. It’s hard, but it’s also the most important work we’ve ever done.
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Madeleine Freind
VP, Customer Success
Madeleine Freind is a senior Customer Success leader with deep experience building and scaling SaaS and managed services businesses. At Centrical, she leads the Customer Success teams across North and South America, partnering with clients to drive measurable business impact through the platform.
Before joining Centrical, Madeleine was Head of Customer Success at Quantifind, an AI-powered analytics company, where she led strategic relationships with brands like Hershey’s, KFC, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Dunkin’ Brands. Her ability to translate complex data into clear, actionable solutions consistently helped customers achieve their goals.
Earlier in her career, Madeleine spent over a decade on the agency side, managing CRM and digital marketing programs for Fortune 500 companies through smart, data-driven strategies.
Michael Ciancio
CMO
Michael Ciancio serves as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Centrical, bringing decades of experience in marketing and go-to-market strategy. In this role, he leads the company’s global marketing efforts to drive brand growth and market expansion.
Prior to joining Centrical, Michael held marketing leadership positions at notable technology companies, including IntelePeer, Infor, and Vonage. Throughout his career, he has successfully guided teams in scaling products, strengthening brands, and significantly expanding market presence.
Michael’s expertise lies in scaling high-growth software companies, particularly in AI, performance management, and employee engagement solutions for customer experience teams. His strategic vision and leadership continue to be instrumental in advancing Centrical’s mission to transform how organizations engage and motivate their frontline teams.
Michael holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Gettysburg College and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing from Montclair State University.
Natalie Roth VP, Corporate Marketing
Natalie Roth brings over 15 years of experience in brand and product marketing for SaaS solutions. Before joining Centrical, she was Senior Product Marketing Manager at Frontline Education, where she led go-to-market strategies for enterprise K-12 solutions and played a key role in integrating and positioning products following multiple acquisitions.
Previously, Natalie served as Director of Marketing at Accelify Solutions, where she drove marketing strategy, new product launches, and customer communications. She played a pivotal role in business growth, expanding market presence, and deepening client engagement, contributing to the company’s success and eventual acquisition by Frontline Education.
Natalie holds a BA in Creative Writing and Digital Media from New York University, graduating magna cum laude.
Linat Mart
VP, Product Management
Linat Polak Mart has more than 15 years of expertise in managing product strategy and operations in high-volume organizations.Previously, she held the role of Head of Product Experience and Communications for LivePerson, a leading Conversational AI platform, where she played crucial part in delivering significant product innovation and customer growth. Prior to her time at LivePerson, she held multiple senior product roles at NICE, a leading enterprise customer experience (CX) software provider, including Director of Product Portfolio and Director of Product Management.
Linat holds an MBA from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Computer Science from Reichman University (IDC Herzliya). She graduated magna cum laude from both institutions.
“CX leaders should stop isolating contact centers from other departments. Customer experience is increasingly cross-functional. In 2025, integrating CX insights across the organization will be critical to delivering seamless and cohesive experiences.”
Tompkins comes to Centrical with more than 25 years of experience in software and hardware sales. Prior to joining his role as Chief Revenue Officer at Centrical, he was CEO at Workspot. He held the position of Chief Revenue Officer at IGEL as well as senior sales leadership positions with Red Hat, Hewlett Packard (now Hewlett Packard Enterprise), and Citrix.
Tompkins holds an MBA in Business Administration and Management from the University of Virginia, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and served in the US Navy as a Nuclear Propulsion Technician.
“To start, give customers a choice: digital or live support. And if they go digital first and can’t get what they want, make it super-easy for them to connect to a live agent.”
“Knowledge Management: It is not exactly underrated but it will be bigger than what it is in 2025. Vendors are likely to boost R&D investment in knowledge management for contact centers in 2025.”
“Human-centered AI, where AI is used not just to automate and drop money to the bottom line, but used to service up insights to support team members and delight customers. I see generative AI with conversational context and tonal analysis as pretty critical here.”
“The future? Goodness, there’s so much, but I really believe 2025 is the year of community. We’re not just taking tickets anymore—folks we’re drawing people in, getting proactive, and co-creating with customers. Community will become a normal service channel, with customer service workers facilitating and adding value.”
“The myth that technology/AI is a quickly implemented CX superpower. Companies will realize that we can’t harness a lot of these gains without quality data that is clean and well-organized.”
“By 2025 the buzzword omnichannel may be on its’ last leg. Customers want their issues resolved quickly and accurately and they would prefer not to need to contact us in multiple channels that we can see at one time.”
“For 2025, the main trend I’m watching is ‘AI agents’—bots powered by AI that are becoming more autonomous. Unlike basic responses, these AI agents can handle end-to-end customer interactions, reducing the need for human intervention. Expect significant developments from vendors.”
“Stop talking about AI. It’s like talking about the internet being a thing. It’s here. The better focus is start thinking about how AI enhances the lives of your team. So stop talking about AI and start doing something about it.”
“AI and CX will drive hyper-personalization, using consumer data to segment customers, deliver key messages, and provide fast, accurate responses. Technologies like chatbots and predictive analytics will close the gap between brands and consumers.”
“The blending of CX and EX will accelerate. The days of reducing friction for customers at the expense of employees are over. Indeed, because AI-enabled customer experiences often require AI usage by customer-facing employees, leaders will have to ensure a frictionless work experience to drive AI adoption and deliver value.”
One myth that will be debunked in 2025?: “Customers are on the edge of their seat waiting to hear what you have to say. We need to learn about what’s important to customers by asking more questions.”
Doron is a seasoned R&D professional with a a deep expertise in SaaS and enterprise software. He leads product development at Centrical. Prior to joining the company, he was Director of R&D at Tipalti, where he was part of the team that designed and developed the Tiplati product and the infrastructure it uses. Prior to that he was Director of R&D Sensor Management, which joined from Orsus, which was acquired by Nice Systems. Prior to that he held various R&D positions at Orsus. Doron holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from the Tel Aviv Yafo Academic College and a MBA degree from the University of Tel Aviv.
Gal Rimon
Founder and CEO
Gal founded Centrical (previously GamEffective) in 2013, with the vision of helping companies empower their employees’ performance, making them the center of business success.Prior to that he was CEO of Gilon-Synergy Business Insight, a national leader in Business Intelligence. In 2010, Gilon-Synergy was acquired by Ness Technologies (NASDAQ:NSTC) and Gal went on to serve as Senior VP at Ness, and was member of its executive management.
Prior to that he was VP customer relations and operations at Deloitte Consulting. He also worked at EDS and Bashan. He holds a MBA degree in Marketing and Information Technologies from the Tel Aviv University.
Daphne Saragosti
Chief Customer Officer
Daphne has over 15 years of experience in Customer Relations and Retention in both B2B and B2C environments. Her area of expertise is leading customer success, consulting and global professional services teams within public and private sector companies. She is focused on leading teams to grow the partnership with our clients.
Prior to Centrical, Daphne worked software and service companies in the online marketing and gaming industry.
Daphne holds MA in Statistics – Specialization in Operations Research and a MBA degree, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ella Davidson
VP Global HR
Ella Davidson is responsible for managing Centrical’s employee relations worldwide, including organizational development, talent management, benefits and recruitment. Ella has more than 18 years of human resources management experience. Prior to joining Centrical she was vice president of human resources at myThings and OpTier – leading SW companies, and consulted numerous entrepreneurs and startups in the Israeli hi-tech industry and Israel and in the US.Ella holds a B.A in Psychology from the Hebrew University and MSc in Organizational Behavior from Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.
Ariel Herman
VP Research and Development
Ariel has over 16 years’ experience in a wide variety of R&D leadership roles. He is highly experienced at building R&D teams from the ground up, driving high levels of accountability and ownership and setting up automation infrastructures. For the past 10 years Ariel has managed both in-house and offshore development teams at companies ranging from startups to enterprise organizations.
Prior to joining Centrical, Ariel served as VP of R&D at Worthy.com where his team dramatically improved product stability, quality and execution. Before that, he was VP R&D at Applicaster where he led infrastructure changes from project to product. Ariel has also held various R&D positions at Retalix (later acquired by NCR).
Ariel holds B.sc in Computer science & Math, and MBA degree in Information Technologies, both from Bar Ilan University
Ronen Botzer
CFO
Ronen is a Finance and Business Development executive with 20+ years of leadership experience in startups and global companies across all aspects of management. He has direct experience with companies in the areas of software, services and capital equipment, including fund raising as well as M&As across different continents. Ronen is a CPA and holds an LLM degree from Bar Ilan university and B.A in business administration from the College of Business Management.
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Madeleine Freind
Natalie Roth
Linat Mart
Doron Neumann
Gal Rimon
Daphne Saragosti
Ella Davidson
Ariel Herman
Ronen Botzer