Customer Success in the AI Era
Customer Success in the AI Era
Thursday, September 24, 2026 · 4:30 – 8:30 PM
Venue: Bishop Ranch · 2600 Camino Ramon · San Ramon, CA
Customer Success (CS) is often undervalued — but with the right focus and strategies, even a small startup can grow revenue and win new customers.
Following our recent sessions on AI era go-to-market and funding, this gathering turns to a discipline most founders underinvest in until it's too late:
what happens to a customer after they sign.
An industry veteran masterclass, a live "how I actually do it"
Hands on demo from a CS leader running AI agents on the ground,
2 Panels of stellar CS industry executives tackling and sharing their stories and insights
Panel 1 - How AI Is Transforming Customer Success
Panel 2 - Scaling CS As You Grow
This isn't a one-off event. It's an ecosystem.
THE FRAMEWORK
The 4Cs of the Founder Ecosystem and enduring companies are built where four forces intersect: Capital, Competencies, Customers, and Cities.
East Bay Founders helps to bring these forces together — creating the conditions for companies to start, scale, and succeed. This event focuses on the third C: Customers.
THE AGENDA
4:30 – 5:00 PM — Registration & Networking Doors open. Meet founders, operators, and CS leaders from across the East Bay startup ecosystem.
5:00 – 5:10 PM — Welcome from East Bay Founders: Opening remarks for the evening.
5:10 – 5:30 PM — Masterclass: Customer Lifecycle Management in the AI Era by Emilia D'Anzica — CS and Rev Ops executive, thought leader, Author Customer Lifecycle Management (Booth Executive Education) & CS Strategy
Emilia would deliver a master class on CS in a compressed on semester curriculum she teaches at Booth in 20 minutes.
You'll walk away with:
The four-stage CLM framework, and where early-stage companies leak customers without knowing it
Four AI-driven shifts in post-sale operations that are real today, not roadmap promises
predictive health scoring, faster time-to-value, support deflection, smarter win-back.
A one-week exercise to map your customer journey and find your first fix
5:30 – 5:50 PM — Live Build: From a 20-Person CS Team to a Team of One (Plus AI Agents) Melissa McMillan — Customer Success Leader · AI-Native CS Operations
This is a show-and-tell, not a slide deck. Melissa will walk through how she has configured and runs her agents day-to-day — the tools, the workflows, the judgment calls on what to automate and what not to — live, in real time.
Most hypergrowth startups solve "too many customers, not enough CS" by hiring. As a CS leader ,she built her org around AI agents instead of headcount.
She will show how she runs a fleet of AI agents with no headcount while managing her KPIs.
5:50 – 6:50 PM — Panel One: The New Age of CS — How AI Is Transforming Customer Success
Panelists:
Moderated by Vishnu Raju Datla
A conversation with CS executives on where AI is genuinely moving the needle in customer success today, and where founders are wasting time chasing hype.
Discussion topics:
How AI has transformed CS teams
Are QBRs dead? How are they evolving
The human touch in CS: preserving empathy in the AI era
How CS metrics like NPS and retention are changing
6:50 – 7:00 PM — User Groups Update The six East Bay Founders User Groups — how they run and how to join.
7:00 – 7:30 PM — Panel Two: Scaling CS As You Grow
Panelists
Moderated by Sugata Sanyal
7:30 – 7:35 PM — Closing Remarks Wrap-up, what's next, and how to plug in.
7:35 – 8:30 PM — Dinner & Networking Light dinner and refreshments provided.
THE ROOM
Who Should Attend
Founders building CS motions at any stage — pre-revenue through Series B+
Customer Success, Support, and Ops leaders
Sales and RevOps leaders thinking about the friction less sales-CS handoff & acclerate growth with existing customer base
Product leaders building for retention and expansion
Ecosystem builders and operators
THE COMMUNITY
About East Bay Founders
East Bay Founders is a community connecting capital, competencies, customers, and cities to help entrepreneurs learn faster, build smarter, and scale companies that last.
Where Founders Grow. www.eastbayfounders.net