🚀 Big News: ClientSuccess Acquires Product Signals to Transform Product Feedback into Actionable Insights
Learn More
ClientSuccess
On-Demand Webinar

AI ROI in Customer Success

Ziv Peled runs both the AI agenda and the customer relationship at AppsFlyer. He joined Dave Blake on the half of AI ROI almost nobody is measuring yet.

DateRecorded September 2026
FormatFireside chat · 56 min
DB
ZP
2 speakers
Now available on-demand
Watch the full session — AI ROI in Customer Success

TL;DR

  • AI ROI in customer success has two halves: the investment (tokens consumed, seats rolled out, agents and workflows built, hours spent) and the return (customers who renewed, expanded, or reached value faster, and the revenue or cost effect that followed). Most teams today are only measuring the first half.
  • "We saved five hours a week" is an input, not a return. Ziv Peled's reframe is a leverage formula — the same hours in, roughly twice the output out — so the question becomes what the team produced with the time, not how much time AI gave back.
  • Ziv separates soft ROI (capacity, coverage, speed, consistency of the customer experience) from hard ROI (retention, expansion, cost to serve), then ties the first to the second. That is the measurement framework he uses to keep the AI investment funded.
  • AI changes the coverage math: Ziv discusses a CSM carrying roughly 400 long-tail accounts or 90 mid-market accounts, a ratio that was not workable before.
  • His advice for starting an AI transformation is to leave the building — learn from people further along, apply AI to your own job before asking the team to change theirs, and plan on running multiple LLMs for the next two years rather than standardizing on one too early.

Most teams are experimenting with AI. Very few can show what they got back.

In this fireside chat, Dave Blake, Founder and CEO of ClientSuccess, sits down with Ziv Peled, Chief AI Officer and Chief Customer Officer at AppsFlyer, on what it actually takes to turn AI activity into measurable business return. Ziv joined AppsFlyer as employee #7 when the company was at $300K ARR. Today it is north of $500M, and he is leading its transformation into an AI-native company. He shares the personal habits, the team playbook, and the hard numbers he uses to prove AI is paying off.

What is AI ROI in customer success?

AI investment is everything you put in: tokens consumed, seats rolled out, agents and workflows built, hours spent. AI return is what came back out — a customer who renewed, expanded, or reached value faster, and the revenue or cost effect that followed.

There is no shortage of AI numbers right now — tokens burned, seats rolled out, agents built, hours saved. Every one of them represents a team that actually moved, and moving is the hard part. But nearly all of it is the I in ROI. Ziv's argument is that the R is what keeps the investment funded: what did the spend buy, and which customer renewed, expanded, or got to value faster because of it?

What you'll learn

In this session · 56 minutes
  • Why "we saved 5 hours a week" is not ROI. Saved hours are an input. What the team produced with them is the return.
  • The AI leverage formula. Same hours in, 2x output out — and how to hold a team to it.
  • How to build a "second brain." The personal habit Ziv uses to have his day prepped before he wakes up.
  • Where a CS leader should start. His answer: leave the building, and go learn from the people already further along.
  • Rethinking coverage ratios. What changes when a CSM can carry 400 long-tail or 90 mid-market accounts.
  • Security and data guardrails. Why the guardrails matter, and why not using AI is the bigger risk.
  • Why you'll run multiple LLMs. Plan on several for the next two years, not one.
  • Live Q&A.
💡

Soft ROI vs. hard ROI. Ziv splits the return into capacity and quality on one side — output per CSM, coverage, speed, consistency — and the board-deck numbers on the other: retention, expansion, and cost to serve. The work is tying the first to the second.

Chapters

  • 00:00 — Welcome and introductions
  • 01:24 — Ziv's journey: employee #7 to $500M+ ARR
  • 09:39 — Becoming an early adopter and going deep on AI
  • 14:09 — How to actually learn AI: mentors, mindset, and reps
  • 20:23 — Favorite tools and picking the right LLM for the job
  • 26:44 — Where a CS leader should start an AI transformation
  • 32:05 — Building a "second brain"
  • 36:01 — Internal AI vs. customer-facing AI
  • 38:42 — Security and data guardrails
  • 40:30 — Audience question: reforming a long-tail CS operation
  • 43:38 — What AI ROI really means — the leverage formula
  • 46:04 — Soft ROI vs. hard ROI
  • 49:15 — The AI ROI measurement framework
  • 52:12 — Final advice: patience beats speed

Who this is for

This session is built for anyone accountable for an AI number: VPs and Directors of Customer Success, Chief Customer Officers, CS Ops leads, and RevOps leaders who own retention reporting. If you have been asked what the AI investment returned, this is the hour that gives you an answer.

How to start measuring the return on your own team

Adoption is the prerequisite, and the building happening across customer success right now is real progress. But adoption is not the finish line — the point of adopting AI is to move outcomes for your business and your customers, and being able to show that is what keeps the investment funded.

Most of the evidence is already sitting in the renewal, expansion, and health data your team works every day. The job is connecting it back to what AI changed: which accounts a CSM could cover that they could not before, which renewals were saved earlier, which expansions surfaced sooner. That is the reporting layer your customer success software should be giving you — and if you want to see what it looks like against your own numbers, request a demo and we'll walk through it with you.

For background on the team side of this shift, read The AI-Native CSM Is Already on Your Team.

Speakers

Dave Blake
Founder & CEO, ClientSuccess
Dave founded ClientSuccess and works with B2B SaaS customer success leaders on how AI is reshaping the CSM role and what high-performing teams measure because of it.
Ziv Peled
Chief AI Officer & Chief Customer Officer, AppsFlyer
Ziv holds both the Chief AI Officer and Chief Customer Officer roles at AppsFlyer, putting the AI agenda and the customer outcomes it has to move under a single owner. He joined the company as employee #7 at $300K ARR and helped grow it past $500M.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Ziv Peled, and why does his dual role matter?
Ziv Peled is Chief AI Officer and Chief Customer Officer at AppsFlyer — two roles that almost always sit with different executives. At most companies the AI agenda and the customer relationship are owned separately, and they quietly disagree about what AI is for. Ziv owns both, so he has had to answer for the AI investment and for the customer outcomes it was meant to move, using one set of numbers. He joined AppsFlyer as employee #7 when it was at $300K ARR; it is now north of $500M.
What does this session mean by AI investment versus AI return?
Investment is everything you put in: tokens consumed, seats rolled out, agents and workflows built, hours spent. Return is what came back out — a customer who renewed, expanded, or reached value faster, and the revenue or cost effect that followed. Both halves are part of ROI. The session is about the second one, which far fewer teams are measuring today.
Why isn't "we saved five hours a week" AI ROI?
Because saved hours are only an input until something is done with them. Ziv's reframe is a leverage formula: the same hours in, roughly twice the output out. The question is not how much time AI gave back, it is what the team produced with the time — more accounts covered, faster time to value, more renewals and expansions worked. Hours saved is the start of the measurement, not the answer.
How should a CS team measure AI ROI?
Ziv separates soft ROI from hard ROI. Soft ROI is capacity and quality: output per CSM, coverage, speed, consistency of the customer experience. Hard ROI is the business result you can put in a board deck: retention, expansion, cost to serve, and the coverage ratio itself — he talks through carrying roughly 400 long-tail accounts or 90 mid-market accounts per CSM. Start by measuring the leverage, then tie the leverage to the revenue and cost lines it moves.
Where should a CS leader start an AI transformation?
Leave the building. Ziv's advice is to go learn from people who are further along before redesigning your own team — find mentors, put in the reps yourself, and apply AI to your own job before you ask anyone else to change theirs. He also makes the case for running multiple LLMs for the next couple of years rather than standardizing on one too early, because the models keep leapfrogging each other.
Is this session anti-AI adoption?
The opposite. Adoption is the prerequisite, and the building happening across customer success right now is real progress worth celebrating. Ziv's position on security is the same — the guardrails matter, but not using AI is the bigger risk. The argument is that adoption is not the finish line: the point of adopting AI is to move outcomes for your business and your customers, and being able to measure that is what keeps the investment funded.
Is the recording free to watch?
Yes. The full 56-minute session is on this page, ungated — no form, no email required. Press play and watch it end to end, or use the chapter list to jump to the part you need.
Who is this session for?
Anyone accountable for an AI number: VPs and Directors of Customer Success at B2B SaaS companies, plus Chief Customer Officers, CS Ops leads, and RevOps leaders who own retention reporting. It is built for the person who has to show what the AI investment returned.
Can I share this with my team?
Yes, please do. The session is aimed at CS leaders, but the measurement standard lands faster when the CSMs and ops analysts who build the reporting hear it directly. The recording is ungated, so the link on this page is all anyone needs.

Keep reading

Webinar
Stop Ignoring the AI Talent on Your Team — Empower Them
Webinar
On-Demand Webinar: Customer Happiness Is Not a Strategy
Webinar
On-Demand Webinar: No First Value, No Future
Webinar
On-Demand Webinar: The Revenue Growth Universe
See why teams choose ClientSuccessExplore the customer success software
Built for real CS teams

See how ClientSuccess scales the playbook you've built.

Walk through it with a CS-led demo and see how it'd fit your team.

Request a Demo