Leading enterprise-wide AI transformation at TTEC Digital: Insights from CEO Dave Seybold

Artificial intelligence is no longer a question of “if” or “when.” It’s “what.” What is your organization accomplishing with AI today?

AI is here, and it’s reshaping how businesses operate and deliver customer experiences. While nearly every organization is pursuing AI initiatives, most aren’t seeing meaningful returns on the investment of time and resources.

The challenge is not the technology.

Successful transformation requires inspiration, communication, recognition, collaboration, conviction, and ultimately results. These are the secret ingredients in LaunchAI, TTEC Digital’s company-wide initiative to make AI transformation intentional, scalable, and impactful for both our business and the clients we serve.

What is LaunchAI?

LaunchAI is how we integrate AI into the way we work, collaborate, and deliver value. When we established this initiative more than a year ago, we envisioned it as much more than a technology upgrade. LaunchAI is a structured transformation program that improves productivity, fosters collaboration, and supports measurable business growth.

At its core, LaunchAI:

• Empowers every employee to become AI-native, confidently using AI tools to work smarter and deliver greater value to our clients.
• Embeds AI into daily workflows, from designing solutions to managing projects, for both external and internal audiences.
• Fosters a culture of innovation and cooperation, making AI adoption inspiring and accessible rather than intimidating.
• Gives our clients faster time to value, so they can start benefiting from the transformations that will drive their business forward as soon as possible

Empowering AI-enabled customer experience

Customer experience (CX) is the number one driver of shareholder value. It’s how companies increase revenue, manage costs, and drive profitability. And today, AI is at the center of customer experience transformation.

Our clients face enormous pressure to turn AI into real business outcomes, yet many struggle with challenges like data readiness, siloed technologies, underutilized platform capabilities, and uncertainty about where to begin.

By integrating AI into every part of our organization, we have firsthand experience with the same questions and roadblocks our clients encounter. It allows us to show, not just tell, what effective adoption looks like.

To guide this progression, we built a framework focused on literacy, measurable value, and expanding what works. LaunchAI is organized into three core workstreams:

• AI communications and literacy. Upskilling employees through role-based training and enablement programs that demystify AI and empower adoption.
• AI development and deployment. Building custom role-specific agents tailored to how teams work.
• AI adoption. Embedding change management into rollout, ensuring accountability for adoption and governance for responsible scaling.

This isn’t a short-term initiative, and I don’t see an end in sight in terms of the value we can create with AI for our clients and for ourselves.

Driving enterprise-wide transformation with culture, execution, and leadership

Implementing AI effectively begins with culture. From the start, we wanted to ensure this initiative never felt punitive. We wanted people to see AI as a path to advancing their skills and careers. That intention shaped how we designed LaunchAI from day one.

Real transformation happens when ideas come from the people closest to the work. Many of our solution architects were already experimenting with AI on their own, so we didn’t dictate what to build. Instead, we asked: “What do you think we should do?” That shift unlocked a wave of creativity.

Right away, we saw individual wins. One employee started using AI to automate call log analysis and improved productivity by more than 70%. Another employee used AI to design an automated process that reduced data migration timelines from weeks to mere hours.  

Individual wins became departmental wins. Departments built on each other’s progress, which led to repeatable processes that scaled across the enterprise. This is where many organizations fail to unlock value — turning a promising proof of concept into a real, durable solution.

Recognition played a key role in this momentum. We highlighted the account executives, project managers, and developers who were pushing boundaries and sharing their techniques with others. When teammates saw peers achieving breakthrough outcomes and openly sharing how they did it, adoption accelerated organically.

Practical advice for CEOs on closing the AI execution gap

If I could leave other CEOs with one piece of advice, it’s this: lead by example. In my own calendar, I created something called an “AI workout.” Every day, I dedicate a little time to reading something new, experimenting with a tool, or practicing prompting. It doesn’t have to be complicated; consistency is what matters.

Make adoption approachable and even a little fun. Our CTO tells people to put a sticky note on their computer screen that says, “Did you ask AI?” As simple as that sounds, it helped people build the habit. Sometimes the smallest cues make the biggest difference in a transformation of this size.

And finally, be open. Be curious. Ask questions in public. I do it often, not to make a point, but because I genuinely want to learn. When your team sees you raising your hand and saying, “I don’t fully understand this, can you walk me through it?” it completely disarms the anxiety that often comes with new technology. Suddenly, learning becomes normalized. Experimentation becomes expected. Progress becomes possible.

Remember, using AI is not cheating. It’s career development. It’s value creation. It enables higher quality work at every turn. That mindset shift is the difference between organizations that merely experiment with AI and those that win with it.

TTEC Digital’s AI transformation was not driven by tools alone. It was driven by a globally integrated team of 1,500 customer experience and technology experts who are committed to learning, leading, and delivering results. By inspiring our people and focusing our strengths, we built a foundation for AI that continues to create value for our clients and our business.

‍Editor’s note: This article marks the beginning of our LaunchAI thought leadership series, where we’ll share insights and practical strategies to help organizations move from AI ambition to real outcomes. Stay tuned for more.

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