The alpha, twice a week
That was 4 min.
Get the best new moments in your inbox every Wednesday and Saturday. It's free.
Check your inbox
We sent a link to your address. Click it to finish signing up. Not there in a minute? Look in spam.
or
Founders · 4 min · Oct 12, 2025
Dell's support tool turns customer data into agent guidance
Michael Dell
Michael Dell combines telemetry, warranty records, call logs and knowledge bases to guide agents toward the shortest path to a fix.
In this episode
Full episode- 1:01:54A five-day supply chain created a cash and cost advantagePro pick 4 min
- 29:52Companies must remake their processes for AIPro pick 3 min
- 24:54Keep mistakes small and fix them quickly4 min
- 5:48Dell found IBM's markup by pricing every component3 min
- 57:51Dell used receivables to finance growth before it had capital4 min
- 42:26Dell's support tool turns customer data into agent guidance4 min
- 1:19:23Dell turned its direct catalog into an early online storefront4 min
- 33:40Technology waves now reach scale faster than the internet did5 min
“And so we created This tool called Next Best Action, which takes all this data and understands what problem the customer is trying to solve”
Michael Dellat 43:53 · Founders
Takeaways
- The tool draws on telemetry, warranty and call data.
- It guides agents to the fewest-step resolution.
- Call summaries save support teams time.
About this segment
Michael Dell combines telemetry, warranty records, call logs and knowledge bases to guide agents toward the shortest path to a fix. The tool also summarizes calls, saving time for support teams.
Michael Dell is founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies.
Founded Dell Technologies and committed $6.25 billion to investment accounts for 25 million American children.
David Senra, Host · Host, Founders
Has read an entrepreneur's biography every week for Founders since 2016.
From “Michael Dell, Dell Technologies | David Senra”, Oct 12, 2025. Watch the full episode
Answers “Is AI paying off for companies?” See all 45 answers
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 42:32
They're going to be faster, more efficient, more capable, and they're going to put us out of business. And we're not going to let that happen because we're going to transform. We are going to be that business. Right. What was your hypothesis back then? Do you remember? Oh, it's pretty simple. It's that it will be possible to dramatically improve the way we do things in all the core processes of the business, from software development to support to sales to every major function, our supply chain.
- 43:05
Everything can be improved in a dramatic way. And that's what we're doing. And we're finding, you know, as we take our data, as we reimagine the processes and simplify and standardize them, we can make them way more effective. So, you know, an example would be in support, we have incredible amounts of data. We have telemetry data that the machines are giving us all the time, right, about, you know, soft errors and all these things that are going on, you know, inside the usage patterns from customers.
- 43:46
We have warranty data. You know, we have previous call logs. We have all these knowledge bases. we have JIRA databases. It's like millions and millions of documents. No human could ever interpret all this. And so we created This tool called Next Best Action, which takes all this data and understands what problem the customer is trying to solve, and it helps either the customer or the agent that's trying to help the customer get to exactly the best way to solve that problem in the fewest possible steps.
- 44:24
And so the person helping them feels like, wow, I'm way better at my job than I used to be. because now I got this genius on my shoulders telling me exactly how to solve this problem. The customer's way happier. The problem's solved way faster. And the tool summarizes the call. So that saves a ton of time. And so everything gets way better. So you can take that same example and software development with coding assistance.
- 44:52
Our sales teams have access to incredible tools. And so we're doing this all over our business. And, of course, our customers are doing it. And what is this doing? It's unlocking the power of data using compute and using all these models, which also happens to be, you know, we're in the business of compute and storage and networking. So, it's an enormous opportunity for Dell itself to be able to help all of our customers unlock the power of their data.
- 45:23
You couldn't predict, like, the actual tools that were going to be invented. You just knew that now we have this new – there's this new technology that it will transform every single process inside the business. We won't be able to predict, like, all the tools, but we just know that they're coming. If we didn't do that and our competitors did, we'd be finished, all right? And so, we're not going to do that.
- 45:51
And, you know, even if we did it and our competitors did it, let's say it just neutralizes, you have to do it. You have no choice.