January 13, 2026
Interview: CX Goalkeeper Gregorio Uglioni Shows How Businesses Can Keep Their Soul in the AI Era
AI brings many promises, advances and some scary tones to the organisations that adopt it.
Consultant Gregorio Uglioni considers how businesses can maintain their soul while advancing the aims of CX, and how it impacts the c-suite, and those affected operationally by transformations. And how culture and curiosity can play a key role in guiding dogmatic business thinking.
In the drumbeat to AI-with-all-software, do you see once-human-focused businesses losing their soul during transformation, or is that a human hallucination formed by the deluge of AI marketing?
Some businesses are losing their soul, but not because of AI. They lose it when efficiency and short-term optimization becomes the purpose instead of the outcome.
AI is neutral. What damages humanity is automating broken processes, building on broken legacy (infrastructure, data and organizational) and distancing decisions from human context.
Think about ordering a Christmas present, I ordered, planned for December 20th that arrives January 6th due to “unforeseen reasons.”
No AI chatbot apology fixes what’s broken underneath: fragmented systems, poor coordination, and processes optimized for cost rather than the customer’s actual need.
Much of the fear is amplified by AI marketing that talks about replacement of human beings instead of augmentation. The companies that keep their soul use AI to remove friction and give people more time for what matters. The risk is not technology, it’s leadership avoidance and short-term view.
And what’s the one-step (or first-step) that any business can make to ensure it retains that soul, humanity and customer focus?
Trust, transparency, fairness, and human judgment should be explicit non-negotiables. Company values are not only depicted on a wall but in the way decisions are taken. If leadership focuses on individual metrics instead of shared human values, AI and transformation will quietly destroy the company.
What gets measured, prioritized, and rewarded under pressure reveals what the company actually values.
Do you see battles within the c-suite or across a business when it comes to transformation, and how can that be resolved in a favourable way?
Yes, and that’s healthy. Transformation creates tension because leaders are measured on different outcomes. The mistake is trying to eliminate conflict. The solution is making trade-offs explicit and aligning on shared enterprise goals. CX fails when accountability is pushed down instead of owned at the top.
Culture is a common target during transformation, but do you think the modern MBA-led business leaders understand its importance enough in their metrics-driven world?
Most understand culture intellectually, but forget to live it. Culture is treated as a given and not as the environment where everything happens. In reality, culture shows up in how decisions are made under pressure.
Leaders who ignore it eventually pay for it in churn, resistance, and lost trust (on both sides, employees and customers). The question isn’t whether leaders value culture, it’s whether they’re willing to protect it when quarterly numbers are at risk.
What’s your favourite example of culture trumping conventional business thinking?
Organizations that choose trust over speed. Especially in very small companies where the focus is on what really matters, where the C-Suite regularly connects with both employees and customers.
Building long-term sustainable businesses where resilience and loyalty matter most. Culture wins when leaders accept that not everything valuable fits into a quarterly KPI.
Where do you see space for curiosity and experimenting in modern business practices and the typical results-led-focus?
Curiosity survives where experimentation is bounded.
Not everywhere, not all the time. Small, protected spaces with fast feedback work better than big innovation programs. Curiosity dies when every experiment needs a business case.
The best organizations measure what matters over time: customer trust that deepens across years, employee retention during difficult moments, time spent on meaningful work rather than administrative friction. These aren’t quarterly metrics, but they predict long-term survival better than most dashboards.
Who would you cite as a strong example of a human-focused leader from a SMB that the world should hear more about?
Many of the best examples avoid the spotlight. They grow steadily, invest deeply in people, and treat customers and employees with the same respect. They don’t scale noise, they scale trust. People remember moments and how they were treated in different situations.
I think of old an shop where the owner still remembers every customer by heart. In fact, he knows my name and my preference, always invests time to talk with me in an intentional way when I am on vacation in the mountains. That’s not nostalgia. That’s a deliberate choice to prioritise human connection over transactional efficiency.
Finally, what should we be willing to stop doing to help maintain good service?
Transformation is not about adding more (AI, tools, initiatives). It’s about removing complexity and habits that no longer serve customers or employees. That question is still asked too rarely.
We’re keen to talk about more examples of businesses baring their soul when it comes to adopting to the AI world, and keeping that human focus.
