How is AI actually changing utility customer experience? Johanna from National Grid breaks down where AI helps, where it risks eroding trust, and how CX became a company wide job.

FULL EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Can AI make a power company feel more human, or does it risk doing the opposite?

On this episode of The Intertie, host Kyle Loving (Motive Power) and co-host Austin Miley sit down with Johanna Fulache, Customer Experience leader at National Grid, to unpack how one of the largest utilities in the country is rethinking customer experience (CX) from the ground up — and where AI fits into that shift.

Johanna shares how CX at National Grid has evolved from being "one team's job" to a shared responsibility across the entire organization, why empathy matters most in high-stress utility moments like outages and billing hardship, and how tools like their internal "Grid GPT" platform are helping employees — not replacing them — to deliver clearer, faster, more consistent support. She also gets candid about the flip side: where AI can erode customer trust if it feels too generic, impersonal, or disconnected from the human moments utilities are built to serve.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why customer experience in utilities can't live in a single department — and how National Grid is rolling out a company-wide "customer-first" mindset
• How empathy shows up operationally through National Grid's Customer Advocates team, including automatic enrollment in discount rate programs for qualifying customers
• Where AI is genuinely improving the employee and customer experience (hint: it's not just about speed)
• The risks of AI in customer-facing utility work — data privacy, bias, and the importance of keeping "humans in the loop"
• How National Grid measures whether CX is actually working, using behavioral signals like channel-switching and task completion instead of a single score

Plus, in this episode's Culinary Corner, Johanna, Austin, and Kyle share the meals that stopped them in their tracks — from a New York City pizza slice to Twin Cities sushi to a Portland restaurant helmed by a Top Chef alum.

Timestamps:

00:00:19 - Welcome to The Intertie
00:01:10 - Meet Johanna, National Grid Customer Experience
00:03:09 - A day in the life: connecting internal ops to customer experience
00:04:15 - What's fundamentally changing in utility CX
00:05:55 - Where empathy comes in and National Grid's Customer Advocates team
00:09:23 - How AI is improving the customer experience
00:10:46 - Where AI risks eroding customer trust
00:11:40 - Keeping humans in the loop
00:12:05 - How National Grid measures CX success
00:13:00 - Culinary Corner: the meal that made them say "wow"

About The Intertie: The Intertie is where we connect the people, ideas, and practical solutions shaping the future of energy. Hosted by Kyle Loving of Motive Power, each episode features candid conversations with utility leaders, innovators, and industry experts on what's changing, what's working, and what it will take to meet the energy needs of the future.

Website: Link

Social links: Kyle Loving, Austin Miley and Johanna Fulache