Reimagining Work Through AI and Workforce Innovation with Robin Barbacane (Rackspace)

Welcome to the Edge of Work podcast. I'm your host, Al D. This is a podcast for leaders who want to make sense of workplace trends and are looking for new ideas about how to lead people and grow their business in a changing world of work. During each episode, I'll bring you the latest experts, researchers, founders and leaders to share new and unique ideas, as well as actionable advice around attracting and retaining talent, developing people, and building healthy and sustainable organizations. Welcome to the Edge of Work. Today's guest is Robin Barbicane, who is the head of talent development and AI workforce transformation at Rackspace. Robin, thanks so much for coming on today. Just to get the conversation started, I'd love to know from you, would you mind sharing a little bit about your role and how would you describe the work that you do? Hi Al. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and looking forward to our conversation. I guess in a nutshell, my work really in my career, I spent most of it in HR. So for 30 years I've been in HR. For the last 15 years, I've been working on large scale transformation as my thing. And at Rackspace, especially with the AI journey that we've been on in the last three years, I've been able to take that to a whole new level, helping the organization become an AI first company. What that means for us was not just really rolling out tools, but building the infrastructure and more importantly the operating model that makes it actually stick. Because what we identified early on and where I stepped into this work is that this wasn't really going to be a technology play. We thought technology was going to be the easy part to a certain extent. Right. This was more of a large scale workforce transformation change management initiative, which is what I've been doing for the organization, getting people and leaders and really the entire organization to think differently and work differently. And that's what I've been doing for the company since 2023 is when we started our journey. And for those who may be not as familiar with Rackspace, would you mind sharing a little bit about Rackspace and then for that matter, what some of the business context is today? Just that necessitates this AI transformation. Sure. So Rackspace Technology has always really been in the business of helping clients navigate big technology shifts. Initially, as the name would say Rackspace, we literally sold Rack spaces and data centers. We had migrated over the years to being a multi cloud provider to our clients. And as we continue to evolve to meet the demands of the market and the clients that we serve, we now really are getting to a place more and more where what's different about what we're doing now becoming an AI first company is we're not just advising clients on AI and how to protect it and have it in a secure and sovereign way of hosting any of the AI work that you're doing, but we're also really living it. So we're being intentional about embedding AI into the ways that we work and helping our clients to figure out the best ways to do that too, as we help create solutions for them from a technology perspective. So I'm familiar with the world of talent development, but where I really want to hone in on, at least just to start this conversation, is that half of role, or maybe it's more than half of your role that really focuses on the AI transformation piece. So I would love to talk a little bit more about that. Can you share a little bit more about your background with this role and how it got started? Because it sounds like we're recording this in the summer of 2026, but it really sounds, particularly as a technology company, you've been on this journey for quite some time, even though obviously we're all talking about this right now. Yeah, it's a great question. And I initially, it's funny because if you look at the job description that I was hired into, it's probably there's elements of it still that exist today. Right. But also totally different as many of the role that we have in the roles in this AI world. The role that I was hired into is traditional talent management focused on talent development, org design, career pathing and organization performance management. I also have internal communications and I have the corporate university under my purview. So doing things like ensuring that we call our employees Rackers, that Rackers are having a good employee experience at the organization, there are career opportunities for them and that overall we have ways to be able to coach them, develop them, manage performance, help leaders become the best leaders that they can and build the best teams that they possibly can. That's a big part of my job and what my boss sometimes will say is my day job. But then look at the work that we've been doing with AI transformation. We really started to look at embedding AI into everything that we do and having all those other areas that I have responsibility for running almost on a parallel path or track with the work that we're doing under AI, if you will. There are a lot of threads to pull at this in terms of the body of work that's been that you've been focused on in this AI transformation. I think the one in particular where I'd love to start, which is because the one I first read about that sparked me wanting to reach out to begin with, was the Ask HR chatbot. So could you talk a little bit more about how this got started as well as how it's really been able to help your organization and improve business performance? I would love to. It's one that we're really proud of and I would say it's the genesis of how a lot of the AI transformation work got started. So the woman on our HR leadership team who has responsibility for HR operations was a super early adopter. She probably is one of the most skilled AI practitioners or she's not an engineer, but I'll call her an engineer. I'll loosely throw that word out there and give it to her. Where she started to identify as we were learning about AI, what it could do and what it could be for us. We actually had a help desk, which many companies probably do, right, where employees would call in and ask any HR question that they may have. If you're an HR business partner, you know, probably nine times out of 10 the calls that you're getting is what's my vacation? What's maternity leave in US or India, Whatever those questions are that people are calling on a regular basis, which frankly, I don't want to say it distracts you from the work that you need to do, but it's really difficult to be able to do the higher level thinking working that you were actually hired for. Your actual job description, right, of what you're supposed to be doing and how you serve the company. And so that's what the Ask HR chatbot became. We were able to pull together a cross functional team. I partnered with her on bringing a group together using the thinking that I wanted to put in place for the way that we would approach AI. And we actually certified people in lean Six Sigma methodology so that we would have it viewed as a more of a project management change management initiative. We brought a cross functional group together within HR and we had all the best minds around the table pushing and pulling on the same problem. And what they were able to create is an automated flow. It wasn't agentic at the time when they first started. She's actually taking it to that the next level. But we were able to have really in the first pilot, when we roll it out, almost 85 to 90% of the questions coming through it as like tier one and two, tier two level questions. That were coming in being answered with very high levels of certainty and accuracy. So it was a game changer and it really unlocked other parts, other departments to look at. If HR is doing that, how come we can't do it? And it started to take off, the AI journey started to take off from there. I think it's such a great story. And the thing I go to when you're talking about that story is I'm curious to know how as a result of those shifts and what this chatbot was able to do, how it's changed either the nature of what HR has now been able to focus on as a result of having this support and having it automated, or having in, I presume, some freed up resources or time. What have you observed or what have you seen in terms of either what HR is now able to do or for that matter, on the flip side of that, like what are your, those stakeholders now? What are they asking you to do? Because all of a sudden they don't have to come to you anymore. They can get this answer and can do other things instead. Yeah, it's really created an environment where our rackers are able to. There's a bit of a self serve component to it. Right. Where they can get the information that they need. They have a high, a degree of certainty that they're getting accurate information. We do have an escalation feel that if the it's not being answered correctly or you don't feel like you've had a good experience, you can escalate it to a human being easily and talk with them what it's done. I wouldn't say that we now have extra resources available. I think it's just helped the HR business partners in particular really focus on the work that they should do. So we're lucky we just have such a talented team. I love the team that I'm a part of and they all serve as experts, as business strategists. They literally are arm in arm with all of our leaders at the table. They don't have to try to beg for a seat at the table. They're being brought in. It's just allowing them to continue to focus in the areas that they should be focusing on and being those true strategic business partners and helping to guide the leaders in our organization. Maybe last question on this. I'm just curious about the process for getting something like that off the ground. Right. You know, V1 or V2, if you will. I think if you're an org, if you are an organization out there that has experience with tech projects like these, maybe it goes a little bit easier because you've done this before. But even you, I think there was a wrinkle in there that you mentioned. You focused on Lean to Sigma to carry this out. So I'm wondering if you could just maybe talk us through a little bit of that process, the nitty gritty, if you will, of actually getting something like this out the door. Because there are many organizations out there that this might be the first time doing something of that nature. And I'm sure they'd be curious to hear a little bit more perspective on that. Absolutely. It's interesting because just using the example of Lean Six Sigma, we put it out there, we invited the members of the project team to go through the certification process. And when we did a retrospective afterwards, there were a couple people that I loved, their honesty and their candor. They were thinking like, why on earth is she bringing me to this? Why is she teaching me this? What are we doing? And I even opened up a lot of the training that way. Just bear with me. Jump into the trust, like both feet first and it's all gonna come together. And at the end, they got it and they understood that basically what we started with was a common language foundation and model to use. Right. And you can certainly customize it and make it your own as you go. But it gave us a really strong jumping off point to do the work. But a lot of people were definitely like, you guys can all talk about me afterwards around the water cooler if you want, but just bear with me when we're in the classroom and kind of stay with it and it's all gonna make sense. That was part of it. The big part of how did we get it launched so easily was executive sponsor. Our Chro was right on board with AI right away, wanted to be jump in both, both feet first, super curious about it. So that was phenomenal. She's just amazing to allow us to experiment and move forward with it. And then really the thing that was so different about the approach that we took is we started with, I believe, especially adults don't like to learn just sitting in a classroom. Theory. Right. They like to learn by. They learn by doing it hands on. So we gave them the business problem to solve. And when they started to really come together and collectively put their minds to how are we going to resolve this problem, that's where the light bulb really sparked and things took off. So I want to switch topics for a second to talk about something else that I think is really interesting, which is The AI Institute, which is I believe a part of broader Rackspace University and apologies maybe to even start. Could you share just a little bit of background on Rackspace University and then just talk a little bit about what the AI Institute is? Sure. So I'm really proud of Rackspace University. We have a team there too of phenomenal professionals, award winning programming that prior to me has just been an absolute crown jewel of what Rackspace has to offer. What happened? If you look at even that transformation journey that I talked about and the learning that we put in place from the experimentation we were doing with in within HR for the HR Ask HR chatbot, it started to really help us to understand we needed more focus on it and that the learning path that we were taking, the learning journey, having our professionals learn while they play and learn while they do, that's where the AI Institute became was really born out of. So the AI Institute is a larger scale model. We kicked off an ambassador project where we put something out to the entire organization to say we wanted to have all Rackers start to work on problems the same way that we tackled those problems within hr. And that was the next evolution or phase two of how we started to embed the AI work into the organization supported by the AI Institute. Hi everyone, ALD here. Thanks so much for listening to the Edge of Work podcast. I hope you're enjoying today's conversation. In addition to hosting the show, I spend my time advising, coaching and partnering with leaders and organizations who are navigating a rapidly changing workplace. If you or your organization are focused on helping your employees and leaders lead through change, strengthening their human skills in an increasingly technology driven world, build greater adaptability or navigate the AI change management challenges, I'd love to connect. Whether you're looking for a keynote speaker for an upcoming leadership event, a leadership program, or just want more hands on support through workshops or coaching, I'd be excited to learn about you and your goals and explore how I can help. You can find my contact information in the show notes. I'd love to hear from you. Now let's get back to the show. I think that one of the pieces of this that you I think mentioned to me previously was I think in some of the builds of some of the work from the AI Institute you had like a six week model or sprint model for being able to take something from idea to implementation. Could you share a little bit more about that? Why six weeks and how has that process gone? We did, I don't know why six weeks? I don't have a really provocative answer to that. It's just maybe the deadlines that we were working with at the time. But we knew that we wanted to embed AI further within to the organization. We wanted to, we knew that we had success with the cross functional teams. What we didn't want to do is have it be just a top down approach with executives doing it and pushing it down. We also knew that we didn't want it just creating AI models or tools and pushing it into the organization. And we knew that HR alone couldn't just do the work that we needed to do and have some major change management initiatives. So that's how we created the AI Ambassador program where I joke around and say that AI is, we're co parenting it between technology and the HR group, we're raising it together as our baby. And that's what the AI Ambassador program became. We worked with the executive committee within our organization. We found out what business problems were top of mind that we needed to solve for that we thought AI could be, could play a part in it. We knew within our organization, we set out from the beginning some certification and basically code of conduct or ethics for our organization that we did not want to use AI as something that was going to replace jobs. We, we're not the an organization that's saying we're going to have 50% of all work that we do run by AI agents. We decided we were going to use AI as co workers on the team to serve a specific purpose and take some of the administrative, repeatable tasks and burden off so that we would have humans operating at a higher level of value. And we also have a principle that says you must have human in the loop at all times in decision making. So we put all those elements together with the AI Ambassador model. We gave them the problems that we wanted to solve for. We put an open invitation out to everybody in the organization. We had 495 people raise their hand and say that they wanted to become involved. And we had those that were selected go through a very rigorous interview process. Only 17 people were selected. We had very specific job descriptions and roles that the teams played. We gave them very defined business problems to work on. We gave them the framework and the governance model that we wanted them to work within and the security aspects that were important to us. And then we stepped out of their way and magic was created. It was really, really, it's one of the coolest things I've ever experienced in my career. It was a really amazing program. Something that I found really interesting about some of this work that you're doing. When I talk to a lot of organizations or work with organizations that are doing things related to AI transformations, there is usually an approach around AI adoption of some kind. And I'm not suggesting that you don't have that. But something else you said that I thought was really interesting was you had said that you've observed that people like learning through doing. And I think what's really been interesting about this approach that you've taken is that you found a way, I think, to tap into people's intrinsic motivations or curiosities in a way that is very inviting versus like you, what you were saying before, something that was top down. And I just think I'm just more. It's more of an observation. You can take it however you want to take this. But I think that's a really fascinating approach in terms of not only does this look a little different in terms of at least stacking this up against other AI transformations that I've witnessed or seen, but the kinds of things that you're getting out of it, the outputs that you're getting out of it, I think are that are essentially getting launched into workflows or to production, if you will, is more to me, it was more interesting to me than just learning how to use a tool which has a place. And so anyway, that's just an observation that I've made. I'm curious if you've got any thoughts. I appreciate that. No, it makes me just beam with pride that you say that, because that was the intention. Right. A couple of things there. What I know about the Lean Six Sigma methodology, even if you don't use it exactly the way that it's intended. Right. Typically it's in a manufacturing environment. One of the first principles is called going to Gemba or doing a Gemba walk. Right. And that means going to where the work is being done and getting those individuals involved in the process. And by bringing them along for the ride and having them play an absolute critical role sitting next to the executive that they need approval from the IT group, that they need to build at the HR people that they need to not be with the police and put roadblocks in the way, but create programs that can allow them to move forward. That's where the magic actually happens and why things can move forward so quickly. It also unlocked for us very fast in the beginning the fear factor that we had at the time and many companies still have the fear factor of AI. Is it going to replace me? Is it going to take my job I had one of our engineers who made one of our fantastic AI agents call me at one point, and he said, we're onto something that's really amazing. It can just perform at an amazing level. But he's like, if I do this right, you kind of don't need me. And I was like, don't worry about that. Let's trust me. Another one of, like, jump into the deep end with, no, like, trust me, make it as good as you possibly can. And he did. And they did. Right. And it didn't replace him. It helped elevate his career and his thinking. Fast forward. We had him on stage at the Global Sales Kickoff Conference in front of every executive and top leader in the organization. And that's an opportunity that he hadn't had in eight or nine years that he was part of the organization. So everybody knows his name, everybody knows what he does. He's learned so much that if, God forbid, anything ever changes and his job is eliminated at some point or he decides to leave, that's portable knowledge and expertise he can take with him that he's never going to lose. So to me, it's a win win all the way around. So I know. One of the other things that I think you're really passionate about, or at least clamoring for, is that when you think about this AI transformation, the role of HR in IT, in terms of really playing a critical role in terms of how this will help rewire the way that work gets done in. You can either say that in conjunction with it, ahead of it. I'll let you kind of define what that is. And so I guess maybe the first part of this question is your perspective on that matter. And then the second part of that question would just be granted. This, broadly speaking, is still relatively new for the majority of companies. What do you think for HR teams is getting in the way that might hold them back from that perspective that you have? And how might they want to think about that if they're trying to get to a place where you are and want to overcome that? So I really love everything about this question and I am super passionate about it because I always start with saying, I'm not your typical HR person. I fancy myself to be more of a business strategist. I always say I'm a bit of a data geek because of the roles that I've had and the types of organizations that I've worked in. I love to look at how, what makes a company tick, how do they work, how do they make money and then focus on Helping to deliver results through the people systems that I can create in hr. I would say not many people in HR are known for that. That's not typically the way that HR works. And so if you're not working that way or you've always wanted to work that way, this is the time to jump into literally the driver's seat. Right? We in HR have access to the gold of the organization data. We have so much information, so much data in answer to one of the questions that you asked me earlier, and I actually skimmed over it and forgot to mention it. I want to mention it now. One of the biggest stumbling blocks into building AI is being sure that your data is clean. And data is, number one, not clean. I can guarantee you that right now it lives in a bunch of different disparate systems. Right? So we have the opportunity to help our internal clients get all of that wrapped up. And when you step into a strategic business role where you're looking at helping coach and guide leaders through this, you're viewed in a completely different way. And that's what I believe HR should really start to do. This is a transformational journey in the HR profession overall, where you have an opportunity to show up totally differently. Why I think people are not is, number one, there's probably some limiting beliefs. People are holding themselves back. They won't listen to me. They can't. It happens to me all the time. I feel like people tap me on the head and say, yes, HR lady, go sit in the corner. Why are you here? And I have to keep nudging my way back in. Right? So you. There is a little bit of a limiting belief. And then I think for executives and leaders, they're not used to seeing HR operate in that way. So there's a lot of conversation. There's a lot of leaving your ego at the door. There's a lot of chipping away. But as you produce results, and if you measure those results in return on investment to the company, whether it's efficiencies, it's time saved, it's actual dollars and cents, which is what I measure on a regular basis, the entire organ, the entire conversation starts to shift and the organization listens to you differently. And my observation, and I'd be curious just to get your perspective on this, is that for this specific conversation around whether you want to call it a seat at the table, being a better business partner, being a business leader first, HR second. There's. There's two. Two flavors of this. So there is the things we collectively do to ourselves that hold us back. Right? So this is almost like the internal stuff within hr, right? So these could be the limiting beliefs. These could be maybe the outdated thinking about what this is. This could be thinking about HR in a more traditional sense versus where we think it's headed. Right? So that's the internal stuff and that's stuff that collectively we have to think about how we can be better, how we can push ourselves to think and work differently. Then there's the external piece, which is a number of different things, but on the external side, it might be what do the, what does the executive team think about HR or how they view hr? It could be the past perception, rightly or wrongly, about what HR is. It could be past experiences that people there have had about hr. It could be, for better or worse, what the broader culture sometimes associates with hr. While we don't always control that external piece, it starts first with the internal. And even though we don't control that external piece per se, that is the invitation of when you start to get the internal piece, right, of how you start to push the envelope. Because as you said, once you start talking in a way that they can, your stakeholders can hear and once you start delivering on what's results, those results, you start to expand, I think the aperture in their mind of what you and your team are capable of and it doesn't happen overnight. But my assumption is that to your point, again, look, if you solve someone's problem, you do a good job solving it, they're going to invite you back. That's just, I think this is true just irrespective of function. But anyway, that's my perspective. I don't know if that lands at all for you, but that's, that's, yeah, yes to all that. And if whomever is listening to this session hears nothing more than that's what you should do. If I come to you and you're my executive in X, Y, Z department and I say, hey, Al, I've been thinking about that problem that you need to solve. I put some pen to paper and I think I have a plan that could save you $27 million. You are going to 100% take my meeting 100%, listen to me, shoot holes in some things and tell me, yes, this, no, that, yes, that. But if I come back to you and say, even if I could do half of this, would that be good for you? 100%, make it happen. And even if they say it'll never happen, be like, humor me, let me give it a try. And if I come back with 5 million, you're still. That's that chipping away. Keep at it. Think like a business owner. Look at what the problems are that they're up against. What's keeping them up at night? How are you going to help them solve their problems? Come in with a business plan, a roadmap, use AI. Claude is fantastic for this. It'll do all the thinking for you. Right? Come in with a specific plan and show them the ROI of what you're going to do. Like I said, whether it's time efficiencies, license, whatever it is, whatever the savings is. Show them what the end of the light looks like or the end of the tunnel looks like and how you're going to get to that. Give them a timeline, and they're going to give you the opportunity, I guarantee you. So I know, as you mentioned in your bio and intro, you've worked at this intersection of transformation in different, various roles in your career. And I'm just curious, from the AI transformation that you've been on and that you've been leading at Rackspace, has it been mostly like other transformations that you've done in the past? Is it different? Or. I'm just curious if there's anything that's new or different in terms of thinking and working differently, or is this a lot of the same principles that you have been through in previous transformations that you've been along? So I would say it's a lot of the same principles of the previous transformations that I've been on, a lot of the same methodology and process that I've used, that I know to be successful, that I've proven out. Of course, you have to customize it for the different aspects of projects that you're on. What is different in something like I have never, ever seen before, experience is the speed at which it's moving and the evolution of tooling and applications and things along those lines. Right. So initially, one of the things that I learned really early on, we were approaching it, and I was even approaching it as tooling. Let me teach you how to use XYZ tool. And it's going to write. And then I always talk about. I think I even mentioned this to you when we first met. I feel like it's like you're on this hike, hiking Kilimanjaro. Like, you think, oh, I'm finally getting to the summit. And you get up there and you look around, you're like, oh, my God. Like, just as you think you've got your arms around it, you totally 100% do not. So that's why you need to create the operating model and the business plan to be able to navigate these unchartered waters that are not changing. It's not about tools, it's not about learning technology. It's learning different ways of thinking, different ways of working, and approaching it from an owner's mindset. If it were your company, your, Your dollars that you were investing, what would you do? We're talking now so much about tokenization and AI sprawl, right? And AI economics. Really what that means when you get down to it. I saw one organization just rolled out Claude licenses to over 300,000 employees across the entire organization. That may be great for their model. I don't know that I would recommend that. Right. Because Cloud is different. You're going to use a different aspect of Claude, maybe not even Claude if you're a data scientist or an engineer versus a recruiter. Right. So if I spend 20, $40 a month for a license, are you really getting a return on investment out of that? Right. Or do you look at what is the problem you're solving for? What is the tool that you need? Right. And then how do I make an investment that. So you've talked about a lot of the great work that you've already done on this AI transformation, but I also know that this is. Work's not done and there's plenty up ahead. I'd be curious, as you're thinking about, we'll just say the next three to six months. Are there, is there anything on the roadmap that you're particularly excited about or really looking forward to sink your teeth into? So for me right now, the interesting pain point that I'm observing is we have so many people in our organization excited about AI, and I love that. I love everything about that. We are. Somebody said we're like the ideas factory. And I'm like, I'm going to steal that and use it. So I'm stealing it and using it. I want our organization in particular to be the ideas factory. But we need to figure out how can we not slow our organization down, how can we not take the wind out of the sails of innovation and creativity? But how can we govern it in such a way that we, as an organization, and especially at the executive team level, that I can give them information as to what's being built, how is it being used? Is it being used in the appropriate, in a secure environment? How are we not putting our clients, our company, ourselves at risk? And how are we helping people to I sound like a broken record but think can operate differently, so that continues to be a focus as I go forward. It sounds like you've done some great work and you've got a lot of exciting work ahead. Robin Barbicane, who is the head of Talent Development as well as AI Workforce Transformation at Rackspace, thank you so much for coming on the edgework podcast and talking about some of the great work that your team has been working on and what's ahead on AI transformation at Rackspace. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Foreign. Al D here thank you so much for listening to the Edge of Work podcast. If you like what you heard, encourage you to share the episode with a friend as well as to head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and let us know what you think. I would be forever grateful if you did that. I would also love to hear directly from you about what episodes you're listening to or any suggestions you have for how we can make it better. You can find me on LinkedIn.