An Interview With Kieran Powell
Add a Final Layer of Human Oversight to Confirm the Output. When leveraging AI to complete a task, I recommend relying on humans to have the final say. As previously mentioned, technology can be an efficient tool, but it lacks human intuition and as a result, it may fail to consider certain scenarios. With a final review by a human teammate, these mistakes can be avoided.
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance and integrate into various aspects of business, decision-makers at the highest levels face the complex task of determining where AI can be most effectively utilized and where the human touch remains irreplaceable. This series seeks to explore the nuanced decisions made by C-Suite executives regarding the implementation of AI in their operations. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ron Gura.
Ron Gura is a tech entrepreneur who has brought his love for developing empowering products to startups and major international corporations alike. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Empathy, the world’s leading support system for navigating loss. Before launching Empathy in 2020, Ron held roles as a Product Executive at WeWork and eBay. He initially joined eBay after the acquisition of The Gifts Project in 2011, a social-commerce startup where he served as Co-Founder & CEO.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I started my entrepreneurial career in 2009 with The Gifts Project, a social e-commerce platform for Group Gifting that was acquired by eBay. Two years later, I joined eBay as a General Manager and later joined WeWork as a Senior Vice President of Product. Four years later, Empathy was born.
Empathy’s founding story ties back to the loss of my brother when I was 3 years old. It had a tremendous impact on my family and opened my eyes to all of the emotional and administrative challenges that come with loss. While working at eBay and helping a colleague navigate losing a loved one, I once again came to see the complexities that death brings to the lives of their families and friends. In watching him manage funeral planning, navigate probate, claim benefits, and more, while processing grief and juggling a full-time job, it struck me just how few tools and support systems exist to help individuals through this difficult time.
This collection of experiences throughout my life motivated me to build a company that would alleviate the burdens that come with losing a loved one and inject empathy, humanity, and understanding into an industry that hadn’t evolved in decades. A few months later, alongside my co-founder, Yonatan Bergman, we created Empathy to change how the world deals with, perceives, and approaches loss.
In our early stages, Yonatan and I spoke with many families who had recently experienced loss and found they all agreed that what they needed most at this time was not just compassion or sympathy, but empathy.
Sympathy is sending flowers, or yet another casserole they don’t want. In contrast, empathy brings you to the person who is suffering and meets them where they are — it is offering to walk their dog while they’re dealing with the funeral home or to edit the obituary and send it out for them. Our goal as a company is to embody the latter, so today, we work to ensure families can spend their time healing and grieving, instead of dealing with the administrative challenges that follow loss.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Many years into the entrepreneurship journey, it’s hard to pick one. However, I’ve come to recognize that making mistakes is not only a rite of passage for every founder and entrepreneur but a necessary step, as resilience and adaptability are two qualities that I believe are key to success. They teach us to overcome obstacles, think, and resolve quickly.
Ultimately, as entrepreneurs, we are continuous learners and students — and I am confident that perceiving mistakes as lessons can only make us stronger.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We are currently focused on enhancing our platform and building new offerings to better support bereaved families through all these crucial moments while partnering with businesses to provide said support at no cost
At the core, we created Empathy to help people navigate one of the most difficult times in their lives, and we are working towards expanding our geographical footprint in the future.
We are also focused on shaking up bereavement care and benefits at work. To date, bereavement care has been overlooked in the workplace, but employers are starting to modernize their benefits and offering loss support to employees. We’ve already started working with companies like AT&T and Lemonade, as well as many life insurance carriers as they sign on to provide our services to their employees and beneficiaries. We are excited to continue expanding on this front.
Thank you for that. Let’s now shift to the central focus of our discussion. In your experience, what have been the most challenging aspects of integrating AI into your business operations, and how have you balanced these with the need to preserve human-centric roles?
The biggest AI-related challenge we faced was knowing when, and how to integrate AI.
Empathy is a human-first company: we provide human care to other humans. It is non-negotiable as it represents our company’s core values and is responsible for our company’s DNA and success. It quickly became clear that to introduce this technology into our work, we would need to be mindful of all scenarios, results, and approaches.
It would be naive to believe there is no room for AI at Empathy, so alongside my co-founder and Empathy’s CTO, we identified gaps in our business that AI could address and conducted careful research on best practices to fill these while honoring our core values and preserving our team’s roles.
Can you share a specific instance where AI initially seemed like the optimal solution but ultimately proved less effective than human intervention? What did this experience teach you about the limitations of AI in your field?
Over a year ago, we launched our first 100% AI-based tool to both Empathy users and non-users: an obituary writer.
In line with other tools and services we offer, the goal of the obituary writer was to alleviate burdens. As such, we launched this product to provide an initial obituary draft that would only require families to customize it and edit it as needed. However, we were met with mixed responses, and while our goal was to create a publicly available product to serve more people, we learned that some services cannot be decoupled from human support, and removing human tact from our work is sometimes not an option as it could sacrifice quality. Ultimately, we decided to pivot away from this approach.
Today, our obituary writing support is offered as part of our comprehensive care solution, and although it incorporates AI in the initial drafting, our team is responsible for reviewing and editing this draft prior to sharing it with families.
How do you navigate the ethical implications of implementing AI in your company, especially concerning potential job displacement and ensuring ethical AI usage?
When it comes to AI, one of the biggest concerns is privacy and its ethical use. Empathy is a human-first company, but I knew AI would eventually find its way into our solution. As we’ve integrated it in specific areas, we’ve made sure to do so responsibly, without sacrificing our key values or damaging our commitment to support and protect the families we interact with. That’s why, unlike OpenAI and ChatGPT which use huge, unspecialized datasets, we use our own data internally to improve proprietary tools and support for our users.
This database is specialized and reflects our unique knowledge and experiences of grief and loss. We uphold the highest compliance and ethical standards that protect our users, so this data is only used to improve our own products and services to best support families — it’s never shared.
As AI continues to grow, I wouldn’t rule out the idea that it might play a larger role at Empathy one day, and I would encourage other leaders to do the same — but I am also confident that it will never replace our team. They are the reason why we are capable of providing a human, emotional tact to our approach, which AI can’t replicate.
Could you describe a successful instance in your company where AI and human skills were synergistically combined to achieve a result that neither could have accomplished alone?
Our Care Team’s work is a prime example of AI and human skills working synergistically and successfully.
This multi-disciplinary team of employees coming from diverse disciplines in mental and behavioral health, social work, and other relevant backgrounds leverages their specialized knowledge to help families through the logistical, administrative, and emotional challenges that follow loss.
To ensure they can remain present during conversations and interactions with each individual while also formulating detailed documentation to keep families on track, and our extended team informed of their progress, we leverage AI for administrative tasks such as documentation, sorting through information, or summarizing calls with users.
Based on your experience and success, what are the “5 Things To Keep in Mind When Deciding Where to Use AI and Where to Rely Only on Humans, and Why?” How have these 5 things impacted your work or your career?
1 . Human Care for Emotional Support. For companies in the wellness, healthcare, and care space, I strongly suggest opting out of AI and technology to do our jobs, as human needs must be met with emotional intelligence and support, which machines are unable to provide. This is at the core of Empathy, and it has shown me that people crave human care, affection, and guidance — no matter how advanced technology may be these days.
2 . Human Care Where Sensitivity is Needed. Similarly to my first point, certain conversations, words, or interactions can raise triggers for humans, and not only is AI unable to identify these, but also address them. I’ve seen our Care Team at Empathy time and time again prioritize their emotional side to provide empathetic care in these moments, and I cannot imagine what the outcome would be if AI was presented with this scenario. With this in mind, I believe that if we are dealing with human customers, we must meet them with human care as well.
3 . If the Task is Mundane, Repetitive, or Time-Consuming, Consider Tech — and Perhaps AI. AI is a powerful tool, but it does not seamlessly belong in every aspect of our work. I would encourage leaders to implement technology, such as AI, in areas that could facilitate our work, like administrative tasks that may prevent our teams from focusing on the most important parts of our work, and ultimately, provide quality results. I have found this to be true as we implement this approach with Empathy’s Care Team, and in seeing positive results, such as providing them with
4 . Add a Final Layer of Human Oversight to Confirm the Output. When leveraging AI to complete a task, I recommend relying on humans to have the final say. As previously mentioned, technology can be an efficient tool, but it lacks human intuition and as a result, it may fail to consider certain scenarios. With a final review by a human teammate, these mistakes can be avoided.
5 . Add a Layer of Human Interaction to Communicate the Final Response With Care. As we enter an era of pervasive technology, human communication remains vital to customers. Failing to deliver non-technical interactions, and relying on AI instead, can affect loyalty and hinder customer-company relationships.
Looking towards the future, in which areas of your business do you foresee AI making the most significant impact, and conversely, in which areas do you believe a human touch will remain indispensable?
I predict AI will continue to help our Care Team, specifically in terms of aiding administrative tasks, which can be time-consuming and repetitive. Giving that time back to our team to focus on helping individuals experiencing loss will be invaluable.
At the same time, I think it is important to be mindful that although machines and AI can perform some tasks, they cannot mirror the emotional intelligence and intuition of humans. As more people perform tasks remotely and with technology on the rise, we crave human connections and interactions. Certain tools can help facilitate and speed up processes but I would encourage leaders to protect the human touch wherever they can.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would continue pursuing the movement we are leading at Empathy today: to change the way the world deals with loss.
Our current work provides tools for families at no cost by creating a strong win-win model for their employers or carriers, which is a game-changer in an industry that has been severely underserved. But these changes are necessary on a societal level as well. My vision is not only focused on democratizing estate and the administration and destigmatization of grief for families engaging directly with Empathy, but also on ensuring every family and community reaps the benefits of this cultural shift as we aim to, eventually, encourage legal and policy changes.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find me on X as @rongura or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/rongura. If you’d like to learn more about Empathy and our work, you can find us at www.empathy.com, on X as @empathy, or on LinkedIn, at www.linkedin.com/company/empathy-com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About The Interviewer: Kieran Powell is the EVP of Channel V Media a New York City Public Relations agency with a global network of agency partners in over 30 countries. Kieran has advised more than 150 companies in the Technology, B2B, Retail and Financial sectors. Prior to taking over business operations at Channel V Media, Kieran held roles at Merrill Lynch, PwC and Ernst & Young. Get in touch with Kieran to discuss how marketing and public relations can be leveraged to achieve concrete business goals.
C-Suite Perspectives On AI: Ron Gura Of Empathy On Where to Use AI and Where to Rely Only on Humans was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.