Paula Rivera:
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of AI Factor, the podcast that dives into how AI is transforming business communications and the world at large. I’m Paula Rivera, and today we’re kicking off this series with the powerful conversation featuring two leaders shaping the future of our business. Mike Rapp, our Chief Revenue Officer, and Aqeel Shahid, Senior Vice President of Channel Sales. In today’s episode, we’ll talk about the current state of the AI industry, how our technology and partnerships are positioned to lead in the months and years ahead, what partners can expect from the show, and why we launched AI Factor in the first place. To make this even more exciting, we’re giving away T-shirts to the first 100 people who guessed the number of times we say AI during the podcast. Let’s get started. Gentlemen, welcome.

Mike Rapp:
Thank you, Paula.

Aqeel Shahid:
Thanks for having us, Paula.

Paula Rivera:
Thank you. Glad to have you here. Before we jump into the heart of the conversation, I have a quick question. Sam Altman recently, I think in the past week or two, he recently said that people saying, please and thank you are costing the company millions of dollars. So when you guys are using AI, are you on team manners or do you just get down to business with this AI model? Mike.

Mike Rapp:
That’s a thought-provoking question because I chuckled when I heard that announcement from Sam Altman on that. I guess in my mind, I want to talk to AI like I would a human, and so I’d like to think I use my manners. So I probably am using please set up an appointment for 2:00 PM tomorrow when I talk to my Alexa.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. And how about you, Aqeel?

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, I agree with Mike. I’m very similar and not only do I say please, also, I am guilty of saying thank you to the AI system, whether it’s my Siri or Alexa or any other AI tool I’m using, and I didn’t actually realize I was costing that much money, but apparently I am.

Paula Rivera:
Well, I’m on team manners as well, so I think we’re all in good company. Thank you for that, gentlemen. Both of you have been in the industry for quite a long time, and I think all people in corporate America in the past year and a half or so have just seen an immense amount of change that has been brought on by AI. Mike, how would you describe the current state of the conversational AI space?

Mike Rapp:
That’s a big question. I will say in one way it’s a state of confusion, and another way I’ll say it’s a state of many options. So confusion in terms of the end users or the businesses figuring out where to start, who to work with, what’s the best approach, how to do it safely, rapidly, and get the most value. Contrary, there’s just so many providers out there in the space all saying the same thing, at least from slideware and a marketing standpoint. So that’s how I describe it.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. Are you seeing any major shifts in enterprise adoption of AI?

Mike Rapp:
Well, certainly, and I think with the advent of, and really the big launch of generative AI going back probably two and a half years ago now with ChatGPT and all the different purpose-built LLMs, I see a lot of adoption in various different areas. People using AI to make their jobs easier, using AI to gain more insights on top of data. And then what we’re really focused on and what we’re seeing big drivers on is you’re starting to use more AI to drive business efficiencies and help automate customer or patient activities.

Paula Rivera:
Well, that’s a perfect lead into my next question, which is what misconceptions do people have about AI and business communications?

Mike Rapp:
Yeah, I think it’s interesting, so that’s a good question. I think AI is only as good as the data you can interact with with AI. So AI is not one of these things that you can just turn on and it magically works. You have to be able to tap into data, and that data really drives what the AI provides back to you, whether it’s AI data you’re accessing in a customer service inquiry or it’s AI you’re applying against customer interaction data to drive insights, right? It’s really the combination of AI and data that really drives getting effective results and communications out of AI.

Paula Rivera:
And people have been talking, I would say, I don’t think this is a new term, but it’s not uncommon to hear people talking about clean data, and I think it kind of goes, it speaks well to the adage of good in good out, or conversely garbage in, garbage out. And I think that the data is such an important point for people to kind of think about and understand as they’re embarking on an AI journey. Would you agree with that?

Mike Rapp:
Certainly, right. I mean, certainly there are things you can do without data where you can create your own data for frequently asked questions and things like that, but fundamentally, to maximize the output of what you’re going to do with AI, you do have to think about how you’re going to access and leverage data as part of that to make it most effective, whether you’re going to tie into your CRM, your patient management system, other data sources, knowledge bases, et cetera.

Paula Rivera:
Nice, nice. That’s a perfect segue to Aqeel, you’ve spent, again, you’ve spent a lot of your career within the industry, especially within the channel. How are partners adapting to this changing landscape?

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, no, that’s a great question, Paula. When you look at the evolution that’s happening in this space, partners and especially in the channel community are extremely involved in helping be the Cloud Sherpas and be the technology advisors that are needed by organizations as they’re making these shifts and critical decisions for their organizations. So more and more you are seeing now in the space these companies leveraging partners to one, validate what they’re trying to accomplish, keep up with the pace of technology because it’s evolving and changing so rapidly. No organization has the resource, the time, or the patience I guess, to go and learn on their own. So they’re definitely leaning more and more on the partner community to help them and be that subject matter expert that they can lean on and validate. So what partners are doing obviously from an evolution perspective as the landscape is changing is they’re constantly going out there educating themselves and staying on top of all the changes that are happening.

They have a pulse on what’s happening not only from the current customer that they’re currently servicing and supporting, but also other customers that are in a similar industry or similar challenges that are being faced across the various industries that they’re supporting. So they’re really bringing in a very valuable expertise that can help the customer navigate through these different scenarios that they’re coming across. They’ve definitely also embraced the digital transformation side. They have embraced cloud-based solution. They’re now also developing these specialized expertise areas within their organizations where there’s high demand, whether it’s security, whether it’s AI, whether it’s CX, you name it. These guys have now developed specific groups within the organizations that just go deep and wide, and these guys are, I mean they know it, right? And that’s what customers are leaning on partners to help them is have that expertise so they could feel comfortable knowing that they will be guided the right way.

And then the other big thing that you were seeing as well is that they’re focusing now more on customer outcomes rather than product features. So they are no longer, “Hey, let me match feature for a feature.” The conversation has now shifted around where are you trying to go, not just today, tomorrow, five years from now, 10 years from now, and let’s create this roadmap. Let’s create this journey for you that you can go out there and be able to accomplish that. And so you’re also seeing that happen, including more engagement from a flexibility perspective and ongoing development that they’re heavily investing in to really go out there and continue to be that SME for their customers.

Paula Rivera:
Wow, great. And I love the Sherpa reference. I really appreciate that. Can you tell us some partner-led successes or insights that you’ve recently seen, especially as it pertains to the adoption of AI?

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, the successes we’re obviously seeing, and especially with a technology that is evolving so rapidly. I mean, I think I heard a stat someplace recently talking about obviously we’re now in this next era of transformation that’s happening, and I guess next industrial revolution that’s happening, which is this led by AI and organizations that are lagging behind, are certainly going to be either extinct or will have a very large tech debt to make up. So what partners are really doing from a success perspective right now is that they’re going out there. One, they’re embracing AI within their organizations, they’re using it, they’re playing with it. They’re actually becoming those individuals that are subject matter experts by actually testing and doing it by themselves. So no longer just theory but actually doing it. And then they’re focusing on industry-specific challenges with tailored approaches. So in the specific verticals, in the specific groups that they’re servicing, they’re going and learning what those industry challenges are, whether it’s manufacturing and dealing with the current geo-economic environment, a geopolitical environment, whether it’s in the healthcare space and how they’re handling patient interaction.

These guys are going deep and wide. That’s the leveraging how AI can actually help with those specific outcomes. So when they’re going to the customer, they’re going in with a solution in mind based on something that they’ve already tested and vetted out, and so that it’s not necessarily something that is new. No customer is essentially going to be a Guinea pig in this because they’ve already kind of gone through this stuff. And that’s kind of how these organizations are doing it. And plus they’re creating ecosystems to provide more complete solutions because if there’s a specific gap in a solution, they’re creating this kind of almost kind of an ecosystem with different point solutions that bring in an overall complete package for the end users to really go out there and leverage.

Paula Rivera:
I love it. I love it. What are we, IntelePeer, doing to help partners navigate this evolving industry?

Aqeel Shahid:
The thing we’re doing, and we continue to do this daily, is really spending time with our partners in the education side. Like I mentioned earlier, partners want to be that subject matter expert. They can’t do that if they’re not necessarily staying up to date with the technology. So we’re getting alongside our partners, we’re really educating them on use cases, specific business outcomes, how we’re helping them solve, giving them the appropriate education aspect of what’s happening in the industry in general, but then also what we’re doing in the overall evolution of product from our end to really take their feedback and go build something that will really allow us to provide a very specific use case for their customers. We have ton of resources and training and material that’s available for our partners to consume through our partner portal, through one-on-one interactions that we’re having in the field and getting alongside their sellers, selling alongside them.

One thing at IntelePeer, we’ve done a phenomenal job is really kind of evening that playing field. So removing any kind of conflict that typically exists in organizations between direct sellers and channel, and really made it simple and easy so that the partners can lean on our sales teams that have the expertise that are talking to customers on a day-to-day basis to come alongside them as extensions of their organizations and really help move the deal along the sales process. Because again, just as the technology is new for our customers, it’s also new for our partners. They haven’t sold AI before. They don’t understand exactly where to begin, how to begin, how to start a conversation.

So let we come in as those subject matter experts for our partners where they can then now come alongside us and join us on that journey and learn and be the subject matter experts for their customers, including things such as making sure that we’re creating very specific partner tier, benefits, offers, and incentives that we’re offering our partner community, partner success managers that we have in the field that can come alongside them and support them on the day-to-day stuff, market intelligence and industry trends that they need to really go out there and be that subject matter expert for their end customers.

Paula Rivera:
So that’s great. I mean, so it really sounds like in an ideal world, it is a true partnership and the two-

Aqeel Shahid:
Exactly.

Paula Rivera:
… entities are holding hands working alongside one another together.

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, we win together and sometimes in cases we may go stop by tours and learn together through the process too, but this is absolutely, that’s how we are successfully winning out there. And look, in this space, when you look at it, right, it’s the rising tide raises all ships, and that’s kind of the mentality we have. We go together because collectively the work we do not only is validating what’s happening in the channel community, but also what’s happening in the space in general. There’s a lot of skeptics that are out there on the AI technology. And so the more and more we implement a successful deployment and have a successful outcome, the more it validates the space, it validates what we’re offering. It validates the benefits the partner brings to the customer and makes the customer stickier, and everyone likes a customer that will continue to buy from them now.

Paula Rivera:
Exactly. So you did mention a little bit some of the resources that we provide to our partners. Do we have any new initiatives or programs rolling out this year for partners?

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, what we’re really doing with our partner community, as I mentioned earlier, initiative wise, we’re really coming out with our partners and working with them to go find customers together, right? We’re working with our partners to really identify accounts that they’re trying to get into. We’ll leverage our sellers to go be those individuals that can knock down these doors and get in with them. We’re also coming up with programs that can allow them to essentially come join us on that first mission with us, whether they bring the deal or we bring the deal to them, right? Mike’s been really gracious to allow us to do that, where when we have an opportunity that our seller has found and we have a partner that really wants to start the journey with us, but is also kind of skeptical and doesn’t know where to go, hey, we’re more than happy to bring them alongside us and join us on that journey where we will not only help them go through that sales process with us, but also give them the tools to be successful on the next deal they file on their own.

So we are bringing them into opportunities as opposed to going to them with our hands out going, “Hey, what do you got for us?” And then also we’ve created some programs this year now to really incentivize our partners to continue to grow with some really aggressive incentives that we have in play where every single deal that a partner brings to us, if they’re actually a qualified opportunity where a customer actually sitting down and talking to us, they’re getting incentivized to find those opportunities for us, when the deal actually closes, we’re incentivizing on the close, and obviously as the customer expands and adds more services, adds more scenarios with us, they continue to grow and continue getting paid on it.

So every stage of that sales cycle that a partner engages with us has now been actually incentivized. So there’s lots of great success there. We’re also doing a lot of things from a joint customer success story, creating case studies, creating customer success stories jointly with our partners to not only allow for us to, again, like I mentioned earlier, show the success we’re getting, but also allow the partner to continue to showcase themselves as that subject matter expert in the industry as they’re out there competing with other partners as well to continue to go hunt and find new customers for themselves as well.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. Well, it’s interesting that we do, and as we rightly should consider partners basically an extension of our company. Michael, how do you look at partner contributions and how do they impact the overall business?

Mike Rapp:
Great question. So certainly when I think about partners and Aqeel and I talk about our approach in the market, the partners are out there and they’ve already become trusted advisors to their customers. And meaning that those, as Aqeel mentioned earlier, those customers are relying on those partners to be up to speed on the technologies and provide recommendations of solutions that might help their business. And so it’s really, as I think about partners, are really kind of a scaling factor for us. What a partner can do versus an individual seller that significantly more scale than what a partner can do. And that’s why, as Aqeel mentioned, in certain cases, we’re investing in saying, hey, let’s take this deal that maybe we found and working with a partner on it to get them exposed to what we’re doing, kind of our outcome-based approach that we’re working with then customers on so they can benefit from that and expose us to the next three or four. So I look at it as critical to our growth and scaling as a company.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. So what are you most excited about in terms of the channel growth?

Mike Rapp:
Yeah, I mean, I think being in the AI space is exciting, and I think the way that we’re looking at AI in terms of value to our customers and value to our partners, it’s disruptive growth. And so those partners who have been on the early journey with us on AI have experienced some of that growth within an account and outcomes from a retention and outcome standpoint. So I mean, the upside when you’re out there solving business problems with AI is that usually means more wallet share for the partner and a deeper, longer lasting relationship with the customer.

Paula Rivera:
Wonderful, wonderful. So focusing more on AI and the technology itself, Aqeel, what AI trends should partners keep a close eye on in 2025?

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, I think as the industry continues to evolve, the technology continues to evolve at such a rapid pace. I think what they need to be more aware of is this context-aware interactions. So it’s now moving away from just conversational AI, which we’ve already kind of gone past this now where it’s now this agentic element that we’ve entered into where the AI technology is actually not only understanding intent, it’s understanding your next intent based on your historicals of what you’ve done, making more recommendations that are personalized based on the user that’s calling in, their enhanced personalization that’s happening through deeper integrations into the core applications that folks are using on a day-to basis.

I think I read a study someplace on average, an organization has anywhere between 7 to 15 different applications sometimes that are being used in an organization. So trying to bring all those different data sets together to be able to provide not only a comprehensive view of what’s actually happening in an organization, but also being able to provide a much more refined data set for the AI system to basically provide a smoother experience for the customers, for the users in the organization. I think that’s the evolution of where we’re seeing this thing go. You’re going to have a lot more specialized AI roles serving particular functions in a department. So you may have an HR department, an IT department, or a customer service department where the AI systems are going to be very specialized for that specific vertical, that specific department itself and their needs. And there’s going to be a lot more proactive AI interfaces and assistance that are going to be available, including the voice elements that are being used in this space, right?

And you’re already seeing that today where the AI technology is so good and the voices that are actually being used are definitely human-like, and it could get confusing knowing who you’re actually speaking with, whether it’s a live person or a AI agent or AI assistant on the back end. So that’s kind of the evolution of where I’m seeing. And as it becomes more and more involved in the day-to-day elements of what we do as humans, it is going to be become something that’s going to be more rapidly adopted in every aspect of our lives. And you’ll see that more weaved into how people adopt it and use it in business as well.

Paula Rivera:
I couldn’t agree more. Michael, where do you see conversational AI and automation heading in the next two to three years, maybe five years out?

Mike Rapp:
Five years out, it’s quite a horizon. So I’ll stick with the two to three-year ban there, but I think Aqeel hit on some of the points. I think certainly we’ll see that AI and the applications of AI for customer and patient interactions will become more human-like, more personalized, more enriched based on understanding of data. And I think Aqeel hit on something, it’ll be harder to discern between an AI conversation and a human conversation. But I think it’s also important when we think about applying AI, that we’re not trying to trick anybody either. There are certainly states and federal regulations and compliance tools to drive through related to disclosing recording and transcripts and other things, and that applies to the use of AI as well. And so I really think it though it is going to be more and more progressing to more context, more awareness, more data enabled, more intelligent AI that is able to answer and handle more of the different conversational idiosyncrasies and business scenarios and use cases that you’d be running to.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. Excellent. Do you have any bold predictions for how the partner ecosystem will evolve?

Mike Rapp:
I’ll have to defer to Aqeel on this one.

Paula Rivera:
Okay. Aqeel, what do you think?

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, again, this evolution is going to come to the point to where you’ll see some synergies and some blurring of the lines between the different partner ecosystems that are out there. You have ISVs, you have SIs, you have VARs, you have channel partners, and all of them have their own specific areas that they’re focused on. But you’ll start seeing those lines getting blurred more and more as more comprehensive capabilities are going to start getting offered, as the technology start coming together to where now you’ll have an ISV partner now also offering some of the cloud solutions and things that typically they would shy away from, VAR and SI now providing more consultation type models beyond just selling hardware and boxes as well. So you’ll see a ton of that happening specifically. There’s also been a lot of collaboration from what I see that that’ll start happening too.

And I say collaboration, meaning you’ll have your traditional marketplace type organizations like the Microsofts and the Amazons and the Googles of the world where they have these ecosystem of marketplaces that they’ve created. But now you’ll see where this convergence happening between the different buying journeys of the consumers, the enterprises, and the partner communities converging alongside that marketplace to provide a more comprehensive way to purchase, but also for partners to share the risk and reward through outcome based commercial model. So I think that’s where I’m seeing this ecosystem evolve. And it’ll have to, because again, as the technologies are evolving and rapidly changing, and the other big thing that organizations are going to start seeing as well is partners that traditionally relied on the traditional technologies that they would normally sell, which would be circuits or cloud-based solutions. Those margins continue to shrink and get… It’s a race to the zero unfortunately for connectivity and things of that sort.

So they’re seeing some of their margins shrink. They’re seeing some of their revenues shrink, so they have to find another opportunity in place where they can actually, one, retain the customer, but two, retain the overall spend and revenues they have associated with that specific customer. And this is a great way for them now to start this AI conversation with them and move some of that revenue share-shift that revenue to other technologies that are top of the mind for customers, just things that are being discussed in almost every board meeting. So I think that’s the evolution that I see.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. Well, we’re building this podcast for our partners in the broader ecosystem. Those looking to stay informed, inspired, and equipped as conversational AI continues to evolve. Whether you’re technical, strategic or something in between, we’re looking to provide insight, energy, and value here. I understand you two are kind of the brain trust behind let’s create the podcast, which I’m so excited about. What inspired us to launch this podcast series, Mike?

Mike Rapp:
Well, brain trust. Those are big words.

Aqeel Shahid:
I love it. Those are big words.

Paula Rivera:
Thought you’d appreciate it.

Mike Rapp:
Yeah. Well, that’s great. Well, I think as we were talking about this, right? Obviously IntelePeer has been rooted in the partner community for a number of years. We’ve been around for 20 years. We’ve got 2,500 customers, and 98% of those came through partner relationships. And so as we were thinking about that legacy, and we’ve been working in the automation space probably for seven, eight years now with our automation platform in the cloud, and obviously tripling down on it with the advent of generative AI. And we wanted to kind of have another mechanism to raise our profile in the partner community related to our use of AI and how we’re applying it in the market, and also providing another way to provide education and awareness to the partner community. And then I think lastly, Aqeel and I wanted to become internet celebrities.

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, there you go.

Mike Rapp:
That’s the last reason why we wanted to do it.

Paula Rivera:
Well, I’m here to help. I’m here to help. So Aqeel, how do you hope that the podcast supports our partners as well as our larger customer base?

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, no. I mean Mike hit it on the head. I think the big element right now that’s happening in the space is because of how fast the space is growing and because of the uncertainty that’s out there, there’s a lot of noise, there’s a lot of good information, but lots of invalid and not so accurate information that’s being shared out there. So the intent, obviously behind the podcast is really to help our partners navigate their conversations that they’re being asked, or at least having daily in the field with their customers around AI, lean on us as subject matter experts and lean on us to really help them through the journey.

And really the hope here with this podcast series is that we continue to share some valid information that will help them in the conversations that they’re having, and also make them be that subject matter expert for their customers so that they can talk more intelligently about the technology, talk more intelligently of where the industry is going, the different solutions that are being offered, and the overall value and ROI that it can bring to the organizations. And plus, we wanted to be an internet celebrity. So this is our first journey there.

Paula Rivera:
Well, on that note, in an effort to make you, gentlemen, famous, I’m going to switch gears a bit and ask you three rapid fire questions, short, quick answers to get to know you a little bit more above and beyond kind of what your day job entails. So Aqeel, we’ll start with you. Favorite AI platform.

Aqeel Shahid:
From a large language model perspective, I’d say I have used both OpenAI and I’ve also used Anthropic, and each of them have their own strengths. So I would say those two are my favorite ones.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. One emerging tech you’re personally excited about, I’m going to say outside of AI, but it seems like everything is marrying up with AI.

Aqeel Shahid:
Yeah, I think emerging tech for me that I’m excited about is the ability to have a virtual assistant with the apps now that can pretty much do things for you in a more agentic fashion. So I guess I more tie it back to that so that I don’t have to respond to certain things and I can have the system do it. I wish it could do more, but it is definitely evolving. So I think that those AI agents that are available to help you with the day-to-day mundane tasks are definitely on top of my list.

Paula Rivera:
Wonderful. Best piece of career advice you’ve received.

Aqeel Shahid:
Never be comfortable. That’s my biggest advice that I got from one of my leaders is always be uncomfortable, so you can keep growing.

Paula Rivera:
I love it. Okay, Mike, your turn. Favorite AI platform.

Mike Rapp:
Well, I have to go with what we use most commonly today, which is OpenAI and Microsoft Azure. Again, I think people can get overly excited about different AI platforms. They all have little differences and benefits, but I think ultimately the tide raises for everybody as the models evolve across all the different providers, and it really comes down to how you’re applying them.

Paula Rivera:
Yep. I concur. One emerging tech you personally excited about?

Mike Rapp:
Oh, I have this new little toy that I actually got this week. It’s called a Whoop device. It’s a personal tracker that I wear 24/7, and it tracks my sleep, tracks my heart rate, and all those other data important things. So I’m becoming overwhelmed with data, but it’s a fun little toy.

Paula Rivera:
Excellent. And hopefully it’s giving you good feedback. Best piece of career advice you’ve ever received.

Mike Rapp:
Geez. Well, I think two things I would say is effort always is important, right, in anything you’re doing. And don’t settle for the status quo.

Paula Rivera:
Don’t settle for the status quo. Perfect note to end on. And that’s a wrap for this debut episode of AI Factor. To kick off the series, we’re giving away T-shirts to the first 100 people who guessed the number of times we said AI during the podcast. Submit your answers to aifactor@intelepeer.ai and we’ll let you know if you’re correct. Huge thanks to Mike and Aqeel for sharing their vision, energy, and what partners can expect from us moving forward. Thank you, gentlemen.

Mike Rapp:
Thank you.

Aqeel Shahid:
Thank you for having us.

Paula Rivera:
Sure. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, be sure to follow AI Factor on your favorite podcast platform and connect with us on LinkedIn. We’ve got some incredible coming your way from customer success stories to platform deep dives and partner spotlights. In fact, our next episode will be with one of the company’s solution engineers, Drew Popham, who works closely with customers to bring our solutions to life. Questions, ideas, feedback, drop us a line at aifactor@intelepeer.ai. We’re always listening. Until next time, I’m Paula Rivera, and this has been AI Factor.