Shawn Cordner:
Welcome back to The Amplitude of Tech, where we unpack the real‑world impact of emerging technology on business outcomes. I’m your host, Shawn Cordner, Chief Marketing Officer at Amplix. Today I’m joined by Amir Hameed, Senior Vice President of Global Technical Solutions and Innovation at RingCentral. From Sydney to Silicon Valley, Amir spends his days inside the world’s largest contact centers, helping enterprises turn customer conversations into competitive advantage.

In this episode, we explore how AI‑powered conversation intelligence is changing the game—reducing churn, driving revenue, and tightening compliance—while keeping the human squarely in the customer experience. If you’re wrestling with legacy platforms, skeptical boards, or thorny regulation, Amir’s global perspective and practical playbook will give you a roadmap. Let’s get into it.

Shawn Cordner:
Amir, thanks for joining us today. I appreciate it.

Amir Hameed:
Pleasure to be here—thank you.

Shawn Cordner:
Appreciate you taking the time. We’re hitting record here and realizing we both have some background noise—landscapers on my side, contractors on yours. So apologies to listeners, but we’ll press on. To start, what’s your exact title again?

Amir Hameed:
It’s a bit lengthy: Senior Vice President of Global Technical Solutions and Innovation at RingCentral.

Shawn Cordner:
What does that role entail?

Amir Hameed:
I get the fun job of traveling the globe, talking to customers and partners to understand where they are in their journey—digital transformation, AI adoption, productivity, revenue growth, competitiveness—and then recommending solutions to help them get where they need to be.

Shawn Cordner:
Where does the work take you—mostly in front of clients?

Amir Hameed:
Yes. It’s a global role with teams around the world. I’ll be in Europe in a couple of weeks, Australia in the fall. I live in Canada but spend a lot of time in the U.S. since RingCentral is Silicon Valley‑based.

Shawn Cordner:
Since you’re in front of so many customers globally, what big trends are you seeing in contact center technology?

Amir Hameed:
Many customers now realize that, depending on macro conditions, flat is the new growth. Acquiring new customers remains important, but keeping existing customers from churning—and growing wallet share—has become critical. Ultimately, we all work for the end customer: delight them and everything else follows.

Shawn Cordner:
Customer trust plays into both acquisition and retention. A lot of that trust is earned (or lost) in service interactions—phone, chat, email, SMS, social. The trend is “meet customers where they are,” but it’s still one brand experience. Thoughts?

Amir Hameed:
Agreed. We have to look through the customer’s lens. Offer omnichannel access—message, video, phone, web chat, social—without silos. Chat has gotten dramatically better with NLP; I’m fine knowing it’s a bot if it solves my issue quickly. But there must be an easy path to a human. Avoid “IVR jail.” AI should recognize when it’s exhausted its value—by context or sentiment—and hand off. Empathy is best left to humans.

Shawn Cordner:
What are some traditional ways to measure trust?

Amir Hameed:
Churn is key, alongside NPS and other KPIs. But it’s not enough to know what is happening—you need the why. Interactions across all channels are a treasure trove, but if data is siloed, you can’t act. AI lets you aggregate and analyze at scale.

Shawn Cordner:
Surveys, reviews, and focus groups can have selection bias—the loudest voices. How are companies using AI in the contact center to mine richer signals?

Amir Hameed:
Pre‑AI, you sampled a subset. Today you can analyze 100% of interactions—voice, chat, transcripts—quickly and go beyond surface sentiment to nuance. Use it two ways: (1) Conversational intelligence after the fact for coaching and process fixes; (2) Real‑time guidance during calls/chats—e.g., “customer is frustrated; stop upselling; listen and resolve.”

Shawn Cordner:
How does AI surface insights you didn’t know to ask about?

Amir Hameed:
Trend analysis across millions of data points. It translates patterns into action on product roadmaps, service design, and processes. One client discovered churn was driven by a single workflow: too many clicks to export reports. Surveys missed it; full‑interaction analysis found it.

Shawn Cordner:
Can AI reduce “noise” (bias) in how enterprises interpret data?

Amir Hameed:
Data fuels AI, but it must be rich and representative. Voice is especially human—tone, inflection, context. If your data is narrow or biased, you’ll get noise. Remove bias intentionally and broaden inputs.

Shawn Cordner:
Once they have the data, what then?

Amir Hameed:
Unify channels on one platform and analyze holistically. Modern tools are programmable to track what matters and turn insights into outcomes. This simply wasn’t feasible pre‑AI without armies of people.

Shawn Cordner:
Operationally, how do teams put these insights to work?

Amir Hameed:
Transcription is table stakes. Real value comes from real‑time guidance and post‑interaction analytics across a single, end‑to‑end platform (e.g., RingSense within RingCentral). Tools detect sarcasm, negative sentiment, escalation risk, etc., and help course‑correct in the moment.

Shawn Cordner:
Beyond individual calls, can it help architect a better overall customer experience?

Amir Hameed:
Yes—through journey mapping and pilots. Include cross‑functional power users (sales, marketing, support) to tune for each persona. Adoption and change management are crucial.

Shawn Cordner:
Sales use cases?

Amir Hameed:
Sales was an early adopter. With permissioned recordings, AI pinpoints what “great” looks like, provides scorecards, and highlights coaching opportunities. It also knows when bots should defer to humans.

Shawn Cordner:
Marketing and product development applications?

Amir Hameed:
We bring aggregated interaction insights to product and marketing—often course‑correcting roadmaps. This avoids making decisions based on the loudest voices by showing scale and recurrence of issues.

Shawn Cordner:
Can it sync with CRM and improve forecast accuracy?

Amir Hameed:
Yes. Example: if a CFO’s illness postpones a board decision, AI can detect that in the conversation and update the CRM automatically—improving pipeline accuracy.

Shawn Cordner:
Big picture: will AI replace firms like Amplix? My view—AI is a tool; complex, consequential decisions still need humans.

Amir Hameed:
Agreed. AI will handle routine, low‑value tasks (e.g., AI receptionist for FAQs and scheduling) but must always have a human‑escalation path. For complex, high‑value conversations and trusted advisory work, humans remain essential.

Shawn Cordner:
Ethics and safety?

Amir Hameed:
AI can be misused. Human oversight and emerging regulation are critical to prevent harm and ensure beneficial use.

Shawn Cordner:
Can these tools enforce compliance in regulated industries?

Amir Hameed:
Yes—both by meeting standards (HIPAA, FINRA, etc.) and by enforcing rules in‑flow: halting recordings for PHI/PCI, blocking prohibited disclosures, or flagging risky language—at 100% interaction coverage.

Shawn Cordner:
Ever a bad idea to implement AI in the contact center?

Amir Hameed:
It can be—if you skip planning, controls, and escalation. Pilot first, try to break it, set limits. Cautionary tale: Air Canada’s chatbot hallucinated a bereavement policy; the court held the company responsible. Guardrails matter.

Shawn Cordner:
Implementation options: embedded platform (e.g., RingCentral + RingSense) vs. bolt‑ons. Pros/cons?

Amir Hameed:
Embedded platforms provide unified workflows, shared data structures, and a single pane of glass—capturing every interaction end‑to‑end. Bolt‑ons often re‑introduce silos and integration gaps.

Shawn Cordner:
Is there a high barrier to entry?

Amir Hameed:
Not with the right partners. Implementation can be fast with proper upfront planning, POCs, and ongoing tuning. Partners like Amplix and RingCentral stay engaged through changes.

Shawn Cordner:
In uncertain markets, how should leaders make the business case now?

Amir Hameed:
Start with a clear baseline (costs, churn, CX metrics). Model phased moves from legacy to cloud and aim for self‑funded roadmaps: early savings from consolidation and AI‑assisted efficiency fund subsequent phases. Consolidate redundant tools, reduce shadow IT, and tie AI outcomes to churn reduction and revenue growth.

Shawn Cordner:
Any parting advice for enterprises on the fence?

Amir Hameed:
Bring us in for discovery. It costs nothing to explore what “great” could look like. With Amplix and RingCentral together, we can share best practices and real‑world ROI from similar customers.

Shawn Cordner:
Amir, thanks so much for your time and expertise.

Amir Hameed:
Pleasure was mine—thank you.