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Is AI Really Transforming Customer Service? Or Just Handling the Mess?

ByPaul Dobinson

Every week brings another headline about AI reinventing customer service. “AI agents now handle thousands of support requests.”“Chatbots are deflecting 40% of inbound interactions.”“Digital assistants are reshaping contact centres.” All true — and yet, here’s the uncomfortable question: If AI is transforming customer service, why are customers still reaching out so much? We’re Still Fixing…

Robots standing around a barrel with a fish in it. Caption, Sometimes, Simple Works
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🐟 Pacific Blue-Eyes, AI, and the Over-Engineering Trap

ByPaul Dobinson

I stumbled across a beautifully simple idea the other day: placing native fish like Pacific Blue-eyes into rain barrels that collect overflow from water tanks to stop mosquitoes breeding. It’s a classic Aussie summer dilemma: you want to store rainwater for your garden, but standing water becomes a mozzie nursery. And with climate change and…

From WFH to WTF: Why Full-Time Office Life Feels Impossible
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From WFH to WTF: Why Full-Time Office Life Feels Impossible

ByPaul Dobinson

How did anyone used to do it? Five days a week in the office.School drop-offs. Dog walks. Hour-long commutes.Dinner on the table, footy training, homework supervision, laundry, groceries, deliveries, tradies, life admin… all somehow done before falling asleep in front of the 9:30 news. And now some leaders want us to “get back” to that?…

Beginner’s Mind in a World of Experts: Lessons from Marc Benioff (and My Five-Year-Old)
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Beginner’s Mind in a World of Experts: Lessons from Marc Benioff (and My Five-Year-Old)

ByPaul Dobinson

When you’ve been in the game long enough—whether in tech, business, or life—you earn the right to call yourself experienced. But what if the real power lies not in what you already know, but in how willing you are to see the world as if you don’t? Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, calls this…

The Choice by Edith Eger: Resilience Forged in the Fire
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The Choice by Edith Eger: Resilience Forged in the Fire

ByPaul Dobinson

There’s a quote in The Choice that lingers long after the page turns: “We can’t change what happened—but we can choose to find the gift in our lives.” It’s the kind of truth that hits differently depending on where you are in life. When I picked up Edith Eger’s memoir, I wasn’t just looking for…

There Must Be a Better Way: Moving Beyond Labels in a Data-Rich World
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There Must Be a Better Way: Moving Beyond Labels in a Data-Rich World

ByPaul Dobinson

Most of what I write on pauldobinson.com is grounded in the safe terrain of technology, sport, and business. But sometimes, something personal lingers long enough to demand reflection. This post is one of those. It’s different. And I hesitated to write it. Because it’s about fairness. About identity. About systems built with good intent, which—over…

The World Happiness Report 2025: Building a Connected Team (And Why It Matters to Your Bottom Line) 🚀
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The World Happiness Report 2025: Building a Connected Team (And Why It Matters to Your Bottom Line) 🚀

ByPaul Dobinson

From Team Lunches to Trust: Simple Ways to Boost Wellbeing & Drive Growth in 2025 📈 As an expat living in Australia with a background in the tech and Salesforce ecosystem—and a keen interest in sports psychology and team dynamics—the World Happiness Report 2025 immediately resonated with me. It offers a data-driven perspective on how…

✈️ Joe Aston’s ‘The Chairman’s Lounge’ Review: Exposing Qantas’ Corporate Failure
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✈️ Joe Aston’s ‘The Chairman’s Lounge’ Review: Exposing Qantas’ Corporate Failure

ByPaul Dobinson

“Where was the caring in leaving children without meals? Where was the excellence in serving food unfit for purpose?”

Just off a Qantas flight that felt more “Spirit of Squeezed Sardine” than “Spirit of Australia,” I couldn’t shake the disconnect between my lived experience and the airline’s stated values of safety, caring, integrity, and excellence.

As I’ve been reading Joe Aston’s The Chairman’s Lounge, that disconnect has come into sharper focus. The book doesn’t just explain what’s gone wrong—it reveals how the pursuit of EBITDA and adjusted earnings has gradually reshaped Qantas into something unrecognisable.

My review explores the flight, the facts, and the bigger question facing all businesses:
👉 What happens when financial metrics trump human experience?

💭 Read it now on pauldobinson.com.

The Improbable Genesis of Netflix: A Review of ‘That Will Never Work’ by Marc Randolph
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The Improbable Genesis of Netflix: A Review of ‘That Will Never Work’ by Marc Randolph

ByPaul Dobinson

🗣️ “Everyone had an opinion. And every opinion was the same: That will never work.” ~ Marc Randolph, That Will Never Work Marc Randolph’s That Will Never Work isn’t just a nostalgic trip down memory lane—it’s a raw, unfiltered chronicle of the chaotic and exhilarating birth of Netflix. For those of us immersed in the…

Agentforce: The Key to Blending AI and Human Touch in Customer Service
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Agentforce: The Key to Blending AI and Human Touch in Customer Service

ByPaul Dobinson

Salesforce’s recent $2.5 billion investment announcement for Australia, announced at the Agentforce World Tour Sydney (Source: Salesforce), signals a major acceleration of AI adoption, with Agentforce leading the charge. As AI takes over more customer interactions, businesses need to ask themselves a critical question: Are we enhancing the customer experience or automating away the human…