The AI You Don't Know About

Addressing Shadow AI & Governance in Post-Sales

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really fall?

And if someone on your customer team is using an AI tool you have never approved, reviewed, or even heard of, is it really a governance issue? Yes. Very much yes.

I was reading MagicMirror's Closing the AI Governance Gap white paper recently, and one stat stopped me: 90% of companies have employees using personal AI accounts.

For customer leaders, that number should get our attention. Post-sales teams sit on some of the richest and most sensitive customer context in the business. Renewal notes. Support tickets. Implementation details. Call transcripts. Product usage data. Contracts. Customer PII.

Now picture a smart, well-intentioned CSM trying to save 20 minutes by dropping some of that context into a personal AI account. This is not a theoretical risk. It is probably happening somewhere in your organization today. And I think this is where the AI conversation needs to mature.

We have spent a lot of time talking about adoption, productivity, copilots, agents, and helping teams move faster. All of that matters. But if leaders cannot see how AI is actually being used across Customer Success, Professional Services, Support, Account Management, and the rest of the customer lifecycle, then we are trying to optimize something we do not fully understand.

Governance is more than a policy document or a security checklist. It starts with visibility.

What tools are CSMs actually using? What customer data are they using? Which use cases are genuinely improving the work? Which ones introduce unnecessary risk? Where are we paying for overlapping tools? And where do employees need clearer guidance rather than another rule?

For CCOs, this is not just an IT issue. It is a customer trust issue. It is an operating model issue. And increasingly, it is a revenue issue. AI is already becoming part of the customer experience, whether we have deliberately designed for it or not.

So the question I would put to every customer leader this week is simple:

Do you actually know where AI is showing up in your customer journey today?

If the answer is "not really," that is probably the right place to start.

Roles on the Radar

• Value Partner at Totango
• Sr. Customer Success Manager, Strategic Accounts at Cofactr
• Executive Business Partner, Customer Success at Deepgram
• Customer Success Engineer, Scaled at Deepgram
• Senior Digital Success Manager at Atlassian
• Digital Success Manager at Atlassian

Where Molecules Meet

Our Head of Technical Services, Rishi Bhagwandeen, and Head of Advisory Services, James Scott, will be attending The Connect Expo Series 2026, September 9–10 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

With 2,000+ CX professionals expected, the event will bring together leaders to explore what's next in customer experience, AI, technology, and customer engagement.

Molecule Maker: Featured Leader

Meet Our Very Own Strategic Advisor Frank Lucier.

Frank's fun fact: I have been a live music fan for my entire life. I had the good fortune of managing a band after college for a couple of years. While that job ended and my corporate career began 20 years ago, I still try and see as much live music as I can manage!

Frank's current curiosity: I'm fascinated by the intersection of rapid AI advancement and our desire to create more analog space to experience and enjoy life. I see this positive collision in both my professional and personal life. At work, AI is accelerating change and helping employees apply their talents more effectively. Personally, I recently used AI while traveling with my family to find restaurants and experiences far more efficiently than a traditional Google search, creating more time to actually enjoy the trip.

Systems Frank has in progress: I have been an active bread baker for over a decade. What started as a hobby based out of necessity - poor bread options in Denver after I moved from San Francisco - has become a life long pursuit to make the perfect loaf of sourdough (at elevation!). I have been logging my bread baking notes all this time and I am moving my notes into Claude to help identify trends to help me continue to improve in the hopes of one day finding at least near perfection!

A recent challenge Frank has solved: There has never been a more exciting time to work with Customer Success and executive teams. The promise of "making value visible" has reached a point where technology can help CS teams deliver better insights and guidance so customers get more from their solutions. I recently worked with a company transitioning from a services-based model to a proactive Customer Success approach. While this is a familiar evolution for a growth-stage company, doing it in 2026 with AI-enabled technology accelerated the work in ways that weren't possible before. Thoughtful design paired with today's technology enables faster change, greater customer value, and stronger retention and growth.