Tobias Dengel
Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
13K followers
500+ connections
About
Seasoned technology executive and founder with 25+ years experience, and President of…
Articles by Tobias
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Our Next Chapter Starts Today
Our Next Chapter Starts Today
Today, Jan 4th, marks the official start of our next chapter as WillowTree, a TELUS International Company. From the…
21 Comments -
The Future of Work: One Culture, Two Systems
The Future of Work: One Culture, Two Systems
In February, I published an article about maintaining a post-COVID company culture where I took a strong position that…
6 Comments -
Why Microsoft's Deal for Nuance is so Brilliant
Why Microsoft's Deal for Nuance is so Brilliant
Today, Microsoft announced its acquisition of voice company Nuance: https://www.cnbc.
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The Secret Core Value That Makes WillowTree Different
The Secret Core Value That Makes WillowTree Different
As our reliance on technology grows in modern work environments, so do the distractions. Incoming email notifications…
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Did COVID Kill the Office Culture?
Did COVID Kill the Office Culture?
While no one yet knows what “the end” of COVID-19 actually means, one thing is certain: it will be much more complex to…
30 Comments -
Safety and Efficiency with On-Campus COVID Reporting
Safety and Efficiency with On-Campus COVID Reporting
Universities around the country are coming to terms with how they will provide education this fall, in the midst of the…
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Why the Future of WFH Depends on Asking the Right Questions
Why the Future of WFH Depends on Asking the Right Questions
Most of us who are able to have been working from home since March or early April. At first, we had to get used to it –…
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The Downside of Density
The Downside of Density
Re-Opening Means Opening the Tech Bubble As the U.S.
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A Voice From the #WFH Front
A Voice From the #WFH Front
A few weeks ago, although it seems like forever since the #COVID19 shutdown, I looked at how voice technology might…
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WillowTree Releases Equal Pay Day Data
WillowTree Releases Equal Pay Day Data
For the 3rd consecutive year, WillowTree is posting our salary comparisons by gender identity for titles on…
5 Comments
Activity
13K followers
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Tobias Dengel shared thisWe've taken #vibecoding to the next level at TELUS Digital with our #ALT teams (AI-First Lean Teams) -- in essence "zero budgeting" the entire #software development lifecyle to be re-imagined from the ground up assuming every step is #AI-first or AI-informed. See how we do it... #SDLC #genai #strategyTobias Dengel shared thisThere are critical projects in almost every enterprise backlog that never get built. Why? Because the traditional cost of entry — large teams, long discovery, multi-month timelines — makes the math not work for anything that isn’t flagship. We’ve been putting a different model to work. Our AI-First Lean Teams (ALT) methodology embeds AI into small, senior-led squads from day one. By lowering the cost of execution and experimentation, ALT makes it economically viable for enterprises to pursue high-impact niche projects. Two recent projects, where speed-to-market and rapid innovation were the primary driving factors, show what that looks like in practice: 1. A four-person team built a content approval platform for a media company, improving review time by 70%. 2. A three-person team helped a start-up ship a mobile app for end-of-life care in eight weeks. Get the full, case-study breakdown: https://lnkd.in/eFybZe6F #AIFirstLeanTeams
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Tobias Dengel shared thisOn point research from our team at TELUS Digital on what users actually want from AI interfaces -- and the answer changes completely depending on the stakes of the task. What builds trust in health and wellness looks nothing like what works in finance or travel. Katie Krol, Ph.D. digs into exactly what that means for design. #TELUSDigital #AI #CustomerExperience https://lnkd.in/e3g5vyqy
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Tobias Dengel shared thisWhere consumers will begin their AI-fueled journey is one of the most important trends and questions of the year. How will AI manifest itself in the digital interaction between consumers and top brands? There are two paths -- consumers will enter the experience via AI experiences like ChatGPT or Claude, asking them to "prepare my regular Starbucks order" which then would kick off a Starbucks app and either complete the order within ChatGPT or kick over to the Starbucks app. The alternative experience is that Starbucks creates a full AI-first app, with voice and text chat interface. The argument being that customers are already used to entering the app (it's one tap after all to open it), and companies would much rather keep their consumers within their own app vs. having them migrate the relationship to the AI interfaces, with the resulting loss of data and relationship control. At TELUS Digital are advising clients to pursue both avenues -- the game is early and it's hard to see where consumer traction will end up. I suspect large brands that are used regularly by consumers (e.g. Starbucks) will end up having the gravitas with consumers to do most of the AI interactions within their apps. Smaller brands or rare consumer actions (e.g. buying a car or house, putting on a new roof, etc.) will end up having to rely on the distribution from the AI platforms as that is where consumers will start their journey. Either way, apps are back in a big way...whether AI first or AI enabled.... #AI #genai #chatgpt Great article from The Wall Street Journal's Isabelle Bousquette...
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Tobias Dengel shared thisGrowth follows opportunity, and right now, some of the most dynamic technology ecosystems in the world are in Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Over the last nine months, TELUS Digital has expanded significantly across both regions: new operations in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Argentina, eight sites across six cities in India, CX delivery in 60+ languages, and AI data labeling support in 500+. Welcome to all our amazing new team members! Enterprises scaling AI globally need partners embedded in the right markets, with the right talent and language capabilities to make it work. Winning the moments that matter starts here. #AI #CustomerExperience #CX #data #strategyTobias Dengel shared thisTELUS Digital has significantly expanded its global delivery footprint over the last nine months, strengthening our presence across Asia-Pacific and Latin America to better serve enterprises deploying AI at scale. Our expansion spans Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Argentina, and deepens our existing presence in India with eight sites now operating across six cities. Enterprises embedding AI across the customer experience value chain require partners who can deliver language and cultural diversity alongside deep technical expertise. With operations in 35+ countries, more than 82,000 team members and CX delivery in 60 languages, we are well-positioned to support that demand. From AI data labeling and model training, to trust and safety, digital customer experience and enterprise AI solutions — our expanded footprint enables us to meet clients wherever growth is taking place. Read the full announcement: https://lnkd.in/g9tg3tXq #TELUSDigital #AI #CustomerExperience
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Tobias Dengel reposted thisTobias Dengel reposted thisExcited to be a part of TELUS Digital and Plug and Play Tech Center ‘s World Models Summit in San Jose today. Wonderful talks here to include Yann LeCun kicking off our keynote session. #physicalAI #worldmodels
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Tobias Dengel shared thisData is the new gold, and here's more proof: fewer than 30% of AI projects show positive ROI, driven primarily by bad data. Especially in the domain of autonomous vehicles, that's a highly inefficient use of capital. Quality enforcement and data lineage are needed from Day One. Cutting corners on data collection and management just doesn't work. #AutonomousVehicles #AI #genai #data https://lnkd.in/eXp7QndDWhat AV Programs That Ship Get Right About Data Annotation | HackerNoonWhat AV Programs That Ship Get Right About Data Annotation | HackerNoon
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Tobias Dengel shared thisGreat stuff from Zendesk's Nuri Gocayn and TELUS Digital's Abby Spahich -- for AI to work, context is everything -- and that's not an easy problem to solve real time when a customer calls in -- find out how to make it happen... #cx #cxai #ai #genaiTobias Dengel shared thisWhen a customer calls your contact center, how much does your AI already know about why they’re calling? 🤔 Orchestration is what makes that possible in CX AI, breaking down silos and connecting systems so AI can understand the complete customer context and drive resolution across channels. On “Questions for now,” Nuri Gocay, director of contact center platform architecture at Zendesk, and Abby Spahich, global vice president, digital CX solutions at TELUS Digital, explore what orchestration requires organizationally, how to build a business case for it and why resolution is the primary measure that reflects success. 🎧 Listen to the full episode: https://lnkd.in/e3E74Cih #CXAIOrchestration #CXAI #ZendeskRelate
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Tobias Dengel shared thisIf you are at the World Models Summit today in #sunnyvale CA please swing by to visit the TELUS Digital team! #ai #robotics #data #aidataTobias Dengel shared thisJoin us next week on April 30th to discover the future of AI, simulation, and robotics at the World Models and the Architecture of Reality Summit. One of the highlights of the summit is a keynote exploring the future of infinite simulation. Hear from Yann LeCun of Advanced Machine Intelligence & Phi Nguyen of Master of AI LLC as they share perspectives on the future of AI architecture. The summit will also feature a robotics panel: “The Roadmap to General Purpose Embodied AI” with experts from NVIDIA, Niantic Spatial, Inc., Lightwheel, and Serve Robotics. 🚨 Panelists will explore topics including: • World models and foundation models • Data strategy and egocentric pre-training • Simulation and real-world deployment • The path toward scalable embodied AI systems If you're interested in where AI, robotics, and simulation converge, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss! 🗓️ Thursday, April 30, 2026 📍 Hosted by Plug and Play Tech Center & TELUS Digital Check out full agenda & apply here: https://luma.com/643g0v2t Sce Pike Rajesh Radhakrishnan Myles L. Ben Levin Tory Smith #AI #Robotics #EmbodiedAI #WorldModels #Simulation #FutureOfAI
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Tobias Dengel shared thisJoin our panel on AI Safety on May 5th! Shocking that only $1 out of every $750 invested in AI capabilities is spent on trust and safety -- a glaring liability in the age of tools like Mythos.... #ai #genaiTobias Dengel shared thisAI is moving fast. The safety gap is moving faster. For every $750 spent on AI capabilities, only $1 goes to trust, risk and security. That's not a strategy — that's a liability. We're hosting Uncharted: The AI safety & security summit on May 5 to change that. This isn't another panel about AI ethics. It's a technical deep dive into what it actually takes to secure production-grade GenAI — with real frameworks, live demos and proprietary research you won't find anywhere else. What we'll cover: → Why point-in-time hardening is no longer enough → How to move from manual spot checks to automated red teaming at CI/CD speed → Proprietary benchmark data from 34 leading models, 620,000 adversarial attacks and 1.6 billion tokens → Live demo: how Fuel iX™ Fortify identifies vulnerabilities in minutes 🗓️ May 5, 2026 | Virtual | Free 👉 Register now: https://lnkd.in/eqs553Zq
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Tobias Dengel liked thisIt was great catching up with Emerson Sklar from Amazon in Barcelona. AI adoption delivers benefits, but when you reach a certain scale, you have to look at the finances. It gets expensive quickly. So, financial optimization needs to accompany performance and accuracy optimization.Tobias Dengel liked thisHow do you scale AI from 50 billion to 2 trillion tokens in a year? Bret Kinsella, GM and SVP of Fuel iX™ at TELUS Digital, shares the blueprint in our latest AI Innovator Series interview: ✅ 35x usage growth in just 6 months ✅ AI adoption across 70,000+ employees globally ✅ Multi-model flexibility through AI gateways Key insight: "Adoption is actually more important than the technology. The technology was the limiting factor, but now it's actually the adoption and training." See the full interview with Emerson Sklar➡️https://lnkd.in/gmaHFWgt
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Tobias Dengel liked thisTobias Dengel liked this30 meetings. 2+ weeks. 1,300 owners. 9 Markets. 26 Dealerships Every room we walked into was filled with people who genuinely care — about their work, their teammates, and the customers they serve every single day. This year's theme, Mission-ESOPable, says it all. When your associates are owners, the impossible becomes possible. The mission becomes personal. And the results? Extraordinary. I am so proud of this CMA family. The best is truly yet to come. ❤️ Carter Myers Automotive #MissionESOPable #ProudToBeCMA #CMAFamily #movinglivesforward #MoreThanCars
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Tobias Dengel liked thisTobias Dengel liked thisGreat to spend the day at “Grow with Braze Asia” in Singapore. A few themes came up repeatedly across the conversations and panels today. Trust is becoming central in how brands build real long term relationships with customers in an AI driven world. One statistic shared during the event particularly stood out: a growing number of customers no longer trust brands enough to share their data freely. Human emotion also still matters enormously. AI can automate, personalise and accelerate interactions at scale, but empathy, judgement and genuine understanding remain deeply human strengths. There was also an interesting discussion around taste and discernment. AI is becoming incredibly powerful at generating content, but humans are still far better at recognising what truly resonates and what cuts through emotionally. And finally, signal versus noise is becoming one of the defining challenges of modern customer engagement. Companies have more data, channels and automation than ever before, yet standing out meaningfully is becoming harder, not easier. Curious to see how companies across APAC balance AI driven scale with trust, relevance and genuinely human customer experiences over the next few years. #CustomerEngagement #AI #CX TELUS Digital Canva Contentsquare Amplitude Chris Johnston Scott Doughty Cory Kazar Ross Koon Monty Hamilton
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Tobias Dengel liked thisTobias Dengel liked thisAs part of TELUS Digital India’s ongoing commitment to education and digital inclusion, we donated 40 refurbished laptops on April 21 to Bihari Lal Inter College, our TELUS Days of Giving 2025 beneficiary school. This initiative is enabling digital access for students, strengthening technology-led learning, and supporting the school’s long-term educational development. By bridging the digital gap, we hope that these gadgets create more opportunities for students to learn, grow, and prepare for the future. #GiveWhereWeLive #TELUSDigitalIN
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Tobias Dengel liked thisTobias Dengel liked thisWe're in the top 5! 🚀 Honored to be recognized by the Top of Mind Index (TOM) as one of Central America's leading employers for tech professionals. ⚡ A reflection of our people, our culture, and the work we're building together. 🎯 #TechCareers #TopOfMind #TopOfMindIndex
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Tobias Dengel liked thisTobias Dengel liked thisThere are critical projects in almost every enterprise backlog that never get built. Why? Because the traditional cost of entry — large teams, long discovery, multi-month timelines — makes the math not work for anything that isn’t flagship. We’ve been putting a different model to work. Our AI-First Lean Teams (ALT) methodology embeds AI into small, senior-led squads from day one. By lowering the cost of execution and experimentation, ALT makes it economically viable for enterprises to pursue high-impact niche projects. Two recent projects, where speed-to-market and rapid innovation were the primary driving factors, show what that looks like in practice: 1. A four-person team built a content approval platform for a media company, improving review time by 70%. 2. A three-person team helped a start-up ship a mobile app for end-of-life care in eight weeks. Get the full, case-study breakdown: https://lnkd.in/eFybZe6F #AIFirstLeanTeams
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Tobias Dengel liked thisTobias Dengel liked thisJoin our Masterclass at Web Summit Vancouver 2026: Break your AI system before customers (or attackers) do. Learn the methods attackers use to break AI systems, the failures customers find and how red teaming helps you test, monitor and validate. Workshop: Tuesday, May 12 @ 4:30 PM PT (45 min) Where: Web Summit Vancouver Come say hi at the TELUS Booth: 0404-20 / E368! Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dw7DPHAR Laptops out. Let's break AI. Bret Kinsella Ryan Miller Reilly Kwiatkovsky, PMP Somto Ofonagoro
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Education
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Volunteer Experience
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Vice Chair
Thomas Jefferson Foundation
- 2 years 9 months
Arts and Culture
https://www.monticello.org/press/news-releases/monticello-announces-new-board-members-and-leadership/
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Publications
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Motley Fool Podcast on AI Powered Voice Technology
Motley Fool
See publicationTobias Dengel as guest on Montley Fool's Money discussing the future of AI powered voice technology
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The Sound of the Future
Public Affairs
See publicationHow the coming tsunami of Conversational AI and Gen AI will change every single industry and user experience. Every app will be rebuilt as a voice first experience, and customer service will be reinvented.
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Voice Assistants Gain New Skills
Marketwatch
See publicationSummary of how new voice tech will impact financial services.
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Voice Will Transform Financial Services, but Not the Way You Think
VOICE Conference
See publicationFeatures Speaker at VOICE conference on the future of voice-enabled devices in the Financial Services industry.
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Darden Leadership Speaker
Darden School of Business
See publicationFeatured at Darden's Leadership Speaker Series
Honors & Awards
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Featured on Hilton Supra's Youtube Podcast
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxE5WOm-1Eo
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VOICE22 Speaker
VOICE22
Featured Speaker at VOICE22 Conference. https://vimeo.com/766617143/677344b609
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Darden Leadership Speaker
Darden School of Business
http://www.darden.virginia.edu/news/2017/willowtree-tobias-dengel/
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Glassdoor's Top CEOs List
Glassdoor
Ranked #2 in US among SMB CEOs.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Highest-Rated-CEOs-at-SMBs-LST_KQ0,26.htm -
Inc 5000
Inc Magazine
4th consecutive year on Inc 500 / 5000 List
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Smart CEO Future 50 Award
SmartCEOs
Recognizes 50 fast growth mid-size companies.
http://smartceo.com/2015-washington-future-50-willowtree-apps/
Languages
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German
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Organizations
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YPO
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500,000+ visitors. Hundreds of venues. 🏟️ Founders, artists, celebrities. 🧑🎤 Coffee everywhere. ☕ Music on every corner. 🎶 Innovation and AI filling the city. One city navigating it all in real time. That’s #SXSW2026 in #Austin. Hope everyone finds their way using a map powered by an AI lead real-time spatial Intelligence platform. 😉 See you there. AI-led Spatial Intelligence | MapsPeople #SXSW #SpatialIntelligence #AI #SmartCities
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FUTR
FUTR Partners with KCSA Strategic Communications to Expand U.S. Investor and Media Presence 📣 The FUTR Corporation (TSX.V:FTRC / OTCQB:FTRCF), an AI Agent App helping people turn their data into everyday value, has engaged KCSA Strategic Communications, a leading New York–based investor and public relations firm, to support FUTR’s next stage of growth and U.S. market visibility. Through this collaboration, KCSA will: • Elevate FUTR’s story to investors, analysts, and media across North America. • Strengthen FUTR’s positioning as an innovator in AI, data, and fintech. • Support FUTR’s mission to help consumers turn data into everyday value. As Lewis Goldberg, Managing Partner at KCSA Strategic Communications, noted: “We are proud and excited to introduce The FUTR Corporation to the US investor marketplace as we believe the FUTR AI Agent App is highly unique and has massive potential both to change consumers' lives for the better and also for investors.” This partnership reinforces FUTR’s commitment to transparency, growth, and building meaningful connections with investors and stakeholders across the U.S. and Canada. 👉🏼 Read the full announcement: https://lnkd.in/ggj-a_92 #BusinessUpdate #Fintech #AI #DataMonetization #Innovation #Growth #Investors #FUTR #KCSA #Toronto
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Ryan Green
Thanks to Business Insider and Lloyd L. for covering how AV adoption is beginning to influence driver pay across U.S. cities. The latest Gridwise Analytics report shows a clear trend: AV activity is starting to impact traditional rideshare driver pay in select markets. We’re already showing up in earnings data—though the long-term impact is still unfolding. One key takeaway: earnings pressure isn’t consistent across all AV-active cities. Local dynamics—rider demand, traffic patterns, and how fast AV fleets are expanding— seem to be resulting in different outcomes in each market. It’s a reminder that national averages often overlook what’s happening at the street level. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/d6jTuqHs Download the report for a deeper look into the insights: https://lnkd.in/drHnjtCS #MobilityData #AVs #DriverEconomy #Gridwise #GigWorkInsights
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