Paul O'Hara is the Executive Vice President of Business Development at TP EMEA. He is based in the Tyneside area of North-East England.

Paul recently published an article on Customer Think magazine titled "AI Won't End BPO - It'll Supercharge It."

Mark called Paul to ask Paul about the article. What was Paul trying to say? How does he believe that AI and human-focused customer service can be blended? How can smarter more value-driven CX be planned using AI?

Paul outlined many of these ideas in his article, but Mark questioned him further on the reasons he felt the need to talk about AI in this way. Mark even mentioned this conversation with Paul in a SubStack article he published earlier this week.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauloharateleperformance/

https://customerthink.com/ai-wont-end-bpo-itll-supercharge-it/

https://www.tp.com/

https://markhillarysp.substack.com/p/ai-in-customer-service-isnt-about

Summary:

Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan discuss the impact of AI on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) with Paul O'Hara, EVP for Business Development at Teleperformance (TP). O'Hara argues that AI will enhance, rather than replace, BPO services. He emphasizes the importance of blending AI with human expertise to deliver smarter, scalable, and value-driven customer experiences. O'Hara highlights that BPOs, with their operational backbone and regulatory compliance, are better positioned to design and scale CX solutions. He predicts continued growth in the BPO industry, driven by automation and ethical outsourcing, and stresses the need for performance-based models over traditional metrics.