Carol Houle on AI and the future of tech services

I’d love to start broad- tell me a bit about who you are and how you came to be where you are now

I grew up right outside of Washington, D.C. I went to the University of Maryland and started with Price Waterhouse Consulting right out of college. I was a part of the supply chain re-engineering group where we were applying lean principles to client supply chains. By the early 2000s, when those same principles started being applied to the software delivery lifecycle, I was an early adopter of lean agile for software delivery. In 2009, I was recruited to join an infrastructure company, EMC Consulting. They had sold a piece of work to a large bank to define their target operating model for the e-commerce division but nobody on their team actually knew how to deliver it. I didn’t know much about infrastructure or EMC, but I took a bold leap of faith. This has been a pattern in my story, I have an intuitive sense of when something is the next right step. I learned so much with that company.

I did my first cloud strategy in 2011. It was early on in the cloud space, cloud strategy was primarily on-prem, private cloud, but public cloud was nascent. I recognized that cloud was more than infrastructure. It was something that could enable us to create new digital business models in ways that we couldn't have possibly imagined before. I learned everything I possibly could about cloud, twelve-factor development, and how to create automation from idea into production using DevOps. 

In 2014, after a lot of applied learning, I was working with a gentleman who I had worked with across many companies. He brought me into AIG insurance to implement DevOps. By this time, I had been a developer, tester, database administrator, I’d pulled cables through a data center, you name it, I had done it. I knew that if we just focused on implementing the technology, it would fail. So I encouraged him to start with a piece of work that the business really cares about. We landed on cybersecurity insurance as a product. It was new in the market, they had been working on this product for about nine months and had done nine releases. I knew that it wasn't fast enough and they did too. We reorganized around a modern product team construct and got set up on AWS cloud for continuous delivery pipelines. After a year, they went from doing nine releases a year to 3,700 releases a year. Today, that's a $4 billion business for AIG insurance. I tell that story because that was an inflection point. From that point forward, I was recruited to Cognizant to build out a team of people that could do that kind of work. I then moved to Atos, a French firm, to help them develop that capability for Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance. I was then recruited to ThoughtWorks to run BFSI globally before I started Inspire Digital Consulting.

How have you seen the tech services industry evolve throughout the course of your career? What’s changed? What’s stayed the same? 

A major change is that when I first started in this business, all of our engagements were a heavy waterfall-based software delivery lifecycle. We've shifted to agile and to what I would call enabling continuous delivery as an operating model. This allows us to go from idea to end production as rapidly as possible. That's been a major change. What hasn't changed is that 90% percent of the change is between the ears. It's all about the people. It's all about helping people change their mindset to adapt to new issues. That will always be a constant.

Do you think AI is just kind of another big boom for this industry, or is it something fundamentally different?

I think it is fundamentally different. I actually wrote a piece on LinkedIn about the progression of the path of cloud technology versus where we are now with generative and agentic AI. Cloud had a slow, steady build in which we had time for learning and iteration. We had time to correct the course when it was necessary. Generative and agentic AI has shot out like a rocket and we've lost the built-in time for learning. It could go well, but it could equally be another bust cycle. The amount of money that's being spent is astronomical and the pace is just so fast.

I'm passionate about this topic. I’m part of a consortium of women in North Carolina focused on the responsible use of AI. We're thinking about how to root out bias, how to ensure that the right guardrails are in place, and how to move forward with risk management in mind but without reducing innovation. 

You’ve worked extensively across Banking and Financial Services- from small community banks to large global institutions. You’ve also been on the board of a bank. How is AI widening or closing the gaps between these organizations? Is it an equalizer? Is it leaving smaller companies behind?

What has played out with the S-curve in any technology is playing out in the same way with AI. The larger institutions like JP Morgan, or Citi, as an example, they're usually way ahead. They're out on the forefront because they can afford to innovate and make mistakes. They know that some of the things that they're doing are not going to pay off. The middle market companies are fast followers of these large institutions. They’re looking at the successful use cases and they’re starting pilots. The middle market is still the proof of concept stage whereas the large organizations are now scaling their efforts. 

Some of what's happening in that middle section is the Osborne effect. In the 1980s, the Osborne computer company went bankrupt because they had announced the next model that was coming out in six months, and nobody bought the current model. They had too much inventory and they ran out of cash. I think a lot of these rapid fire announcements of new tools and capabilities is creating some decision slowness for mid-sized organizations. They have to be very careful with where they spend money. The small institutions are dabbling but not investing. However, once some of the proof points are out there, it's going to allow the smaller institutions to truly implement some new technology.

You’ve spent your career advising BFSI clients on digital transformation, where do you see companies struggle the most? Any common mistakes you see when organizations are trying to modernize and innovate?

One tendency that I've seen is that some financial services and insurance clients think about technology from a cost standpoint. They don't look at technology as a strategic lever or accelerator. They think of it as something that supports the business, not something that drives the business. There's some notable exceptions though. Companies like Wells Fargo and JPM have leaders who understand the potential. Good tech investment can help organizations go after new markets, increase revenue, and create hyper personalized relationships with clients. 

The growth has been sucked out of the tech services industry- companies are struggling with a host of new challenges, including AI. What do you think will separate the winners and losers at this moment? What are the best companies doing that others are not?

They are cannibalizing their own business. It’s hard, but necessary. For example, if your business is providing developers that are much less expensive per hour and taking big application maintenance contracts offshore, what percentage of that work can be done by an AI agent now or in the future? What companies need to do in order to excel is to really go after automation and innovation. The ones who have a relationship with their client where they can test and innovate together will win.

In this time of low growth- how should companies be thinking about go-to-market and relationship management? What kinds of talent should they be looking for to fill these roles?

I think the best people to have are ones who are adaptable, curious learners, and who are willing to take a leap and try bold things. You also need people with the ability to authentically connect to another human being and collaborate to figure out big issues.You can teach people to code, you can teach people process, but people who are hard-working and authentic come that way. You can’t teach that. Those are the kinds of attributes that companies will need.

If you were just starting out in the services industry right now, what would you be focusing on? What skills/ traits/ experiences would you encourage people to get?

I would go very deep in understanding frameworks that can be used to create technology that truly improves people's lives. I would study outcomes and key results. I would study design thinking. I would learn all about the different AI models and how to practically use them. I also think it’s important to understand your strengths. Einstein once said, “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it'll go its whole life thinking it's a failure.” Not everybody is going to excel at every single role. What is it that comes easy to you? If you can really hone in on what your God given strengths are and build on them, then you'll be fulfilled. You'll find meaning and purpose in something other than yourself. 

I see on your LinkedIn that you’re a sailor- tell me a little bit about that. 

I didn't grow up with much money, I don't think I even set foot on a boat until I was an adult. But a few years after my husband and I got married, we decided to do a sailing camp on Lake Norman in Charlotte. The thing I love about sailing is that it's very intuitive. I can't explain why, but from the minute that I got behind the steering wheel of a sailboat, I intuitively understood how to point the boat to catch the wind. It's very fun and freeing. When you don't have a motor, and it's just you in the wind, it's very quiet and meditative.

How do you hire? What do you look for in people?

I look for people who are very genuine, people who have low ego, and people who really want to focus on technology for good. People with positive generative personalities that would inspire you to want to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with them.