In this episode of the Earley AI Podcast, host Seth Earley sits down with Forrest Zeisler, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Jobber. With years of experience building technology for service professionals, Forrest Zeisler has played a pivotal role in empowering small businesses—from landscapers and plumbers to cleaners and contractors—to harness AI and automation for streamlined operations and growth.

Discover how Forrest Zeisler and his team scaled Jobber from three customers to over 300,000, delivering more than $100 billion in services, and learn how their journey demonstrates the transformative impact AI can have on businesses of all sizes.

Key Takeaways:

• Small businesses can benefit enormously from AI, especially for reducing administrative tasks and boosting productivity.
• Adopting new technology isn't just about features—it's about building trust and reliability for the end user.
• Jobber’s growth began with direct customer conversations, leading to a highly configurable platform supporting over 55 industry verticals.
• The journey from manual onboarding and white-glove service to sophisticated self-serve and AI-driven automations took years of iteration and customer feedback.
• Integrating AI isn’t just about chatbots or flashy features; the real impact comes from making technology disappear in the background, allowing users to focus on their craft.
• Reliable automation, rooted in real customer behavior and best practices, is key to driving widespread adoption of AI across industries.
• Building trust with AI systems should mirror how you onboard new employees: review, supervise, and gradually increase autonomy as reliability is proven.
• Orchestrating multiple AI models and agents allows platforms like Jobber to deliver context-aware, intelligent assistance that feels human and personalized.

Insightful Quotes:

"AI is beginning to simplify that work and reduce administrative overhead and reduce those efforts and help small companies provide more consistent and more efficient and more reliable results." - Seth Earley

“Our goal is not to stick a lot of chatbots in front of our customers. It's to make Jobber just magically always seem like it knows what you need when you need it. We want to measure our success by how little we're sticking in front of our customers.”- Forrest Zeisler

Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at building scalable, reliable AI for small business—and the lessons you can apply whether you're an entrepreneur or driving digital transformation in a larger enterprise.

Links

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forrestzeisler/

Website: https://www.getjobber.com

Thanks to our sponsors:

• VKTR
• Earley Information Science
• AI Powered Enterprise Book

Join us for a compelling episode of the Earley AI Podcast as host Seth Earley sits down with George Swetlitz, CEO and Co-Founder of RightResponse AI. George brings decades of expertise in natural language technologies, enterprise AI adoption, and building advanced models to solve real business challenges—especially in the realm of customer engagement, feedback, and competitive analysis.

Tune in as George shares how AI-powered systems are changing the way organizations capture, understand, and act on customer feedback to deliver more relevant, personalized, and valuable experiences. He discusses why sounding “human” isn’t enough, the importance of contextual relevance, and how to transform the review response process at scale for both efficiency and revenue growth.

Key Takeaways:

• Relevance Over Sounding Human: The real power of AI in customer experience lies in delivering contextually relevant responses, not just in mimicking human conversation.
• Granular Sentiment Analysis: Advanced AI systems can break down reviews into meaningful phrases, better identify true intent and sentiment (even with sarcasm), and map feedback to business KPIs.
• Building Fact Repositories: Onboarding AI involves creating a dynamic library of facts drawn from reviews, responses, and website content, enabling responses that are tailored to specific, high-value customer concerns.
• Operational Impact at Scale: Large organizations can redeploy significant resources by automating repetitive review responses, freeing up staff to focus on complex, high-touch customer problems.
• Personalized Review Requests: AI can personalize review requests by incorporating context from customer interactions, dramatically improving conversion rates and generating more insightful customer feedback.
• Competitive Insights: AI-driven analysis of both your reviews and your competitors’ can highlight where you’re outperforming or falling short—especially at the hyperlocal level.
• Future of AI in CX: As AI models become more advanced, onboarding and implementation will become smoother, and the quality of customer engagement will only improve.

Insightful Quote:

“What you’re trying to do with AI is get the best of both worlds. You’re trying to be relevant to somebody in the space or in the place that they’re in… The best customer service rep would do that. And now, at scale, AI can help organizations truly meet customers where they are.” George Swetlitz

Listen now and discover how leveraging AI in customer feedback can transform both experience and outcomes!

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-swetlitz-7b43812/

Website: https://www.rightresponseai.com

Thanks to our sponsors:

• VKTR
• Earley Information Science
• AI Powered Enterprise Book

This episode of the Earley AI Podcast features Betsy Mello, a seasoned retail executive whose career includes leadership roles at Dorel Home, Levi’s, Old Navy, Sears, and several retail startups. With deep expertise in merchandising, inventory management, and eCommerce strategy, Betsy brings a pragmatic perspective shaped by years of leading digital transformation and managing major marketplace relationships with Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, and others.

Host Seth Earley talks with Betsy about how retail leaders can navigate the ongoing shift from traditional operations to AI-driven business models. Their discussion explores how structured data, process discipline, and organizational alignment form the foundation of successful digital and AI initiatives—and why the fundamentals still matter, even in the age of automation.

Key Takeaways:

• How the move from brick-and-mortar to digital commerce has transformed consumer expectations and the pace of retail innovation.
• Why marketplaces are data supply chains—and how brands must adapt content, taxonomy, and product positioning across diverse channels.
• The importance of clean data, standardized terminology, and clear use cases before adopting AI solutions.
• Strategies for breaking down silos, aligning KPIs, and ensuring cross-functional collaboration around data and insights.
• Leading through change: the value of transparency, experimentation, and learning from failure during AI-driven transformation.
• What leaders often overlook when preparing for AI—and how to make foundational data work visible and measurable.
• The building blocks for sustainable AI success: information architecture, governance, and accountable data ownership.

Show Quotes:

"You need to have everything standard. You need to have clean data and very clear workflows and accountabilities... The key is having the team set in place and very clear defined processes and roles and responsibilities. It’s incredibly critical to make sure your foundation is correct. You need to be always starting at the basics." – Betsy Mello

"Supply chain is an information supply chain. And every time you have a new way of distributing your product, you have to think about, how do I distribute the data with that product?" - Seth Earley

Tune in to hear how retail and eCommerce leaders can turn complexity into clarity—and build the cultural and data foundations that make AI work.

Links

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsymello/

Website: https://www.dorelhome.com

Thanks to our sponsors:

• VKTR
• Earley Information Science
• AI Powered Enterprise Book