Pavel Malyshev spent 13 years building customer support and success teams at B2B SaaS companies, most recently as Director of Support at Productboard. Over the past year, he led his team's exploration and integration of AI — and then got laid off. In this episode, Pavel and Mat talk through what's actually happening with AI in support versus what the headlines say, why leaders making the big calls can sometimes miss what support really does, and what support professionals can do right now to be well-positioned... whatever comes next.

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Some key moments

  • (5:02) Customer-facing jobs are being reshaped faster than we might have expected.

  • (8:16) The Klarna lesson: you don't know what you're replacing until it's gone.

  • (11:37) Pavel's two paths for support professionals — go technical, or go white-glove. The middle is the dangerous place to be.

  • (13:35) Promises of 90% AI resolution don't apply everywhere.

  • (17:33) Other people's jobs look easier.

  • (21:33) Inner transformation before outward positioning.

  • (25:44) Invest in yourself.

Too long, didn’t watch?

  1. Support is more than closing tickets. The people deciding what can be replaced with AI might not have the full picture before they act.

  2. Pavel sees two paths for support professionals: get more technical, or become the premium human option. Going deeper on APIs, agents, and AI maintenance is one. Doubling down on high-touch, white-glove human service — the kind customers will seek out and pay for — is the other.

  3. Customers still don't fully trust AI answers, even when the answer is right. Pavel has seen customers asking to verify with a human even after a perfectly correct AI response. AI always sounds equally confident whether it's right or wrong. Customers need to trust your business, and that requires human connection.

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Mathew Patterson
Mathew Patterson

A veteran support leader, Mat spent years teaching better online support at Help Scout before founding More Human Content. Subscribe to The Supportive or find him on LinkedIn.