Sutherland Labs · Conversational AI for customer service

Customers want fast answers. Businesses want lower costs. Nobody wants to wait six months for a chatbot.

  • Head of Design, Conversational AI
  • 2020–2023
  • Team of 5
Sutherland Labs product, hero view

Sutherland Labs built chatbots that took routine questions off tier-one agents and let customers help themselves, for clients including CBS, Sony PlayStation, Micron, Disney, ESPN, and Mars. I led design for the practice, with a team of designers and conversational writers.

The opportunity

The bots worked. The process behind them didn’t scale. Every client started from scratch: its own discovery, its own flows, its own look. A launch took about six months and was hard to repeat.

What we built

  • A map of the whole lifecycle. I led a deep blueprint analysis of how a bot got made, from sales and discovery through design, build, and launch, to find where every project was reinventing the same work.
  • Patterns for conversation. A library of the moves every bot needs, so writers and designers could build consistent flows for any client instead of starting from a blank page.
  • A design language built to flex. One visual system that each client could make its own, customized at the surface and shared underneath.

The result

A repeatable program that took a new client from kickoff to launch in weeks instead of six months.

The full lifecycle on one map, from sales and discovery to design, build, and launch.
The full lifecycle on one map, from sales and discovery to design, build, and launch.
Conversation patterns that let any designer or writer build a consistent flow for any client. Conversation patterns that let any designer or writer build a consistent flow for any client. Conversation patterns that let any designer or writer build a consistent flow for any client.
Conversation patterns that let any designer or writer build a consistent flow for any client.
In production on CBS properties, handling self-service questions.
In production on CBS properties, handling self-service questions.
One design language, customized for each client's brand. One design language, customized for each client's brand. One design language, customized for each client's brand.
One design language, customized for each client’s brand.
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