In this episode, IT Leader Fast-5 — An InformationWeek column for IT professionals to gain insight from their colleagues — Ed Fox, CTO of MetTel, explains why adding AI to broken processes makes things worse and faster. “If the process is broken in the first place, [AI] It’s not going to help you,” Fox said.
At MetTel, most AI remains focused on automation. Fox is encouraging its own teams to experiment more broadly with AI, while ramping up oversight after shadow AI begins to appear across its network. He is now officially driving biweekly AI productivity sessions and quarterly reviews to increase AI fluency across the organization.
Fox has worked for MetTel for more than 25 years and is a member of the Forbes Technology Council.
This column has been edited for clarity and space.
important decision
What recent decisions – technical or organizational – have led to the biggest change and why?
I recently decided to hire three active analyst engineers when I could have used the salary of a senior-level employee with AI experience. That was a big deal.
We’ve been working on automation and machine learning since 2016. [hire] It takes us to the next level.
Most of the time, we’ve used machine learning and AI to look at unformatted data and come back with a response. After confirming that, [we realized that] 98% [AI] It’s automation. This is primarily about the network operations side and not about customer interaction or customer service. I use it to open [service] ticket.
The AI part was learning what can be automated. In our business, we need to be very careful when opening tickets, but AI is essentially automation. Using productivity apps to speed up email drafts is another type of AI, but for us, it’s mostly automation.
Lessons learned the hard way
What recently didn’t go as planned, and what did it force you to reconsider?
We tried to introduce AI. We put together an automated process, but in this example, we quickly realized that all we were doing was expediting mistakes for our customers. We tried to automate, we tried to incorporate AI into broken manual processes, and we thought AI and automation could solve it. But that only made things worse. If the process is broken in the first place, [AI] I’m not going to help you.
We went back and had certain people participate in the project and process and take lots of notes with the help of an AI reader. AI helped us in that sense, but we manually fixed the process.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours could have been saved if processes, workflows, pivot points, and decision points were defined at the outset.
talent trade-off
Where are you currently investing in your talent, and what are you consciously not investing in?
So I decided to adopt it [AI executive]. But I would like to increase the average value. [AI talent] Everyone involved in the organization. I recently added this [proposal] I told my team that I wanted to have an AI meeting every other Thursday where people could come together and show us what they were doing personally. [with AI]regarding the productivity of MetTel or our customers. The biweekly demonstrations have been held since last year.
The teams involved include my group, Global NOC, Customer Service, Network Engineering, Network Backbone Team, Mobile Core Team, Mobile Core Security, and Compliance Team, spanning across the organization.
I also hold quarterly meetings with my six direct reports and their teams (the first meetings start next month). There, each quarter shows us what different departments have done with automation.
We also need more product managers and people focused on customer service.
external signal
What recent external developments are most likely to change the way your organization operates, even indirectly?
of memory [RAM] problem It definitely influences us. We are seeing an increase of 10% to 30%. [cost of] The hardware we sell to our customers. Many of them are three-year contracts, so it’s difficult for us to get over that.
About AI — OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot, Clawdbot) is pretty scary — it’s very agentic. We encourage everyone to actively participate. [AI] But then all of a sudden I saw it on the network and thought, “Oh my god, what have I done?” In partnership with Netskope, [monitors shadow AI] And anyone with inside information can tell you what AI they’re using and what that AI contains. But it’s also automation, so it’s important to try to keep up with it.
change of perspective
Have you read, seen, or heard anything recently that changed the way you think about leadership or technology in any way?
We asked futurist Zach Katz to read from his book and speak at client advisory boards and innovation summits.The next renaissance: Expanding AI and human potential“He’s pretty realistic about what AI can do and also connects it to social issues. I like reading books like that to understand where we are now and what’s going to happen next.”
