100,000 Zendesk brand customers
Zendesk serves around 100,000 brands including Airbnb and Shopify, handling billions of customer interactions per year.
Snapshot · The MongoDB Podcast
Don't Build Your Own AI (Unless You Have To)
Explore episode
Mar 6, 2026
Where this was said
What AI Transformation Means in Practice at Zendesk
At 7:47 · chapter starts 5:35
Far from being a visionary role with a loose mandate, Akshaya describes AI transformation as a rigorous exercise in working backwards from business outcomes. The starting point is always the goal — improve employee experience, improve customer experience, make operations best in class — and AI is the means, not the end. He breaks the role into two complementary tracks: identifying tangible, high-return opportunities where AI can genuinely move the needle on KPIs like productivity lift, CSAT, revenue, and EBITDA; and advocating internally for adoption, because technology alone doesn't drive behaviour change. Credibility is earned incrementally, he argues, by promising specific outcomes and then delivering them — a discipline that separates real transformation from AI hype.
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