Why an AI Company Sources Creative Talent on Upwork

One week
turnaround time on critical video projects
20%
reduction in internal workload
Industry
Enterprise AI
Category
Video Production, Writing
Employees
800+

Uniphore brings generative AI, knowledge AI, emotion AI and workflow automation to businesses around the world.

Randy Ksar, Uniphore’s Customer Marketing Lead, is an integral part of making sure that the company’s users are seen, heard, and supported.

“My work at Uniphore is focused on customers, and we try to elevate those customers and their stories so that their industry peers know how they’re leveraging AI for business,” Ksar said. “My day-to-day focuses on managing our product feedback on sites like G2, creating customer success stories, filming customers, recording podcasts, and amplifying that great content across our different channels.”

He’s a busy man—and that’s why Ksar relies on Upwork to help him get his critical work done.

Uniphore’s first introduction to Upwork

“Before we found Upwork, we were just trying to produce as much content as possible,” Ksar said. “When we were producing our live streaming events, for example, we’d leverage contractors who would come into the office and help us produce it. We’d also have to outsource some of the postproduction. The people we worked with were good, but we never knew if they’d be with us for the duration of a project as they were also looking for full-time jobs.”

This made it hard for Ksar and his team to build relationships with trusted professionals. After Uniphore’s CFO mentioned Upwork, Ksar decided to take a closer look.

He and his team needed to find someone who could make multiple videos for the Uniphore sales conference … in a week! At first, Ksar wasn’t sure he’d be able to line up talent with such a tight turnaround—but he found exactly the people he needed on Upwork.      

“We found the right talent to both do postproduction work, and also create an original video with a storyboard and a script. We even found someone on Upwork who could help us do customer testimonials,” he said. “The talent understood what the project was, the requirements, the tone, and our brand. They understood who we are.”

This immediate success impressed the Uniphore team, and the company began looking for other ways to use talent on Upwork in their operations.

“That ideation-to-completion experience, and the realization that it actually worked, was a huge win for our whole team,” Ksar said. “It really was a realization of the value of Upwork—that we could actually find talent who we trust, who can hit our crazy deliverables, and who can produce the quality that we’re looking for.”

Finding success at the intersection of AI and human creativity

Ksar’s reliance on human talent—for projects related to an AI company—might seem counterintuitive to anyone who’s read headlines that claim AI will replace the human workforce. For him, though, it makes sense.

“AI doesn’t take away from talent. It makes them more productive. It allows them to focus on key milestones and the parts within their job that they enjoy,” Ksar said.

He noted that AI has a broad range of applications, from finance to marketing and sales or customer service.

“Take a look at the experience that a contact center agent has. After each call, they have to create a summary and put it into the CRM,” Ksar said. “That is a big process that takes a lot of time, and it limits their ability to go to the next call or do something more exciting in their day. AI and automation can help with that.”

Contact centers still need humans to interact with customers, though, and creative teams need people who can strategize, create, and refine deliverables created in conjunction with AI. That’s why Ksar turns to Upwork for help filling key skill gaps.

“Before Upwork, I was doing all of our video work. I was doing the filming and postproduction, which prevented me from focusing on customer marketing,” he said. “I couldn’t tell the stories, I couldn’t evangelize how people were leveraging AI technology within their business.”

Ksar, who also hosts a podcast called “Conversations That Matter,” estimates that talent on Upwork helps him with about 20% of his job, saving him hours every week.

“Some people joke around saying that Upwork is my clone,” he said. “It’s how I get stuff done.”

Planning for a future with the help of talent on Upwork

“Without Upwork and the talent on Upwork, a lot of our projects—and the value that our marketing team brings to the whole Uniphore organization—would be lost,” Ksar said. “We had really big projects that were crucial to the company, and without the talent on Upwork, we couldn’t have done that. Upwork was critical.”

Ksar’s success using Upwork hasn’t gone unnoticed throughout the rest of the company, either. He’s made such an impact with the help of Upwork talent that he expects other departments to follow suit.

“Right now, we’re using a small group of talent, but after listening to so many different industry peers at the Work Without Limits conference, we’re seeing that it shouldn’t be siloed,” he said. “We always need to find ways to meet our goals faster, while maintaining the highest quality. That’s what Upwork brings to us.”

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Without Upwork and the talent on Upwork, a lot of our projects—and the value that our marketing team brings to the whole Uniphore organization—would be lost … Upwork was critical.”
Randy Ksar
Customer Marketing Lead, Uniphore
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