Earning the Right to Automate with Carlos Almeida, Founder & CEO of Optave

Many teams want AI to take over tasks, but Carlos Almeida thinks that automation comes later. Before you hand over the work, you need to understand it, control it, and measure it.

Carlos is the CEO and co-founder of Optave, where they’re building AI copilots and autopilots for customer support. In this conversation, he shares why the real work isn’t in generating responses, but in building the systems around them: the guardrails, escalation triggers, and insights that make automation trustworthy.

We talk about what makes AI useful in day-to-day operations, why trust and visibility are more important than speed, and how focusing on metrics and manager tooling led Optave to better outcomes than competitors chasing 90% automation.

🔑 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

📌 For AI Product Builders & Founders:

• ✅ Why automation only works after you’ve earned trust
• ✅ What makes user interfaces more important than model capabilities
• ✅ How to structure real-time feedback loops for humans and machines

📌 For Business & Ops Leaders:

• ✅ How to spot empty AI promises (and what to ask instead)
• ✅ Why control systems will be the next differentiator
• ✅ How to measure AI success without hiding behind accuracy

🔗 Resources & Links

• 🤝 Connect with Carlos on LinkedIn
• 🤖 Learn more about Optave
• 📩 Subscribe to the Artificial Insights newsletter for episode summaries

🚀 Found the episode valuable? Share it with someone building trust into AI systems