Many leaders treat legacy technology like a prison sentence.

They’ll assume that because they aren't on a modern platform, they’re locked out of the AI revolution. They sit and wait for a massive migration that’s always eighteen months away.

Aurelia Pollet, the VP of Customer Experience at CarParts.com, and her colleagues decided to ignore that logic.

When the team faced a headcount reduction in their contact center last July, they had a choice. They could allow the customer experience to degrade. Or they could build something that didn't exist in a box.

They chose to build.

The Build vs. Buy Categorical Error

We’re often told that building proprietary software is a distraction from the core business. We’re advised to buy "best in breed" and integrate.

But Aurelia and her colleagues found that off-the-shelf tools were bloated with features they didn't need and missing the ones they did.

By using three data scientists and a small internal team, they built a proprietary AI chatbot and ticketing system in just three months. They didn't need a billion-dollar R&D budget. They just needed a clear understanding of their own friction points.

Today, that system deflects 30% of their volume. It isn't just a "wrapper" around an LLM. It is a custom engine built for their specific customer journey.

Managing the Digital Workforce

The CarParts team treats their AI agents like real employees. They gave them names and personas. Harper handles tracking. Penny handles payments.

But as with any new hire, they learned that agents need management. Early on, Harper started "hallucinating" helpfulness. She began promising customers that she could cancel orders when she didn't actually have the permission to do so.

Aurelia calls this the "Apprentice Sorcerer" phase.

If you give an agent too many guardrails, you get a rigid robot. If you give them too few, they go rogue. The job of the modern CCO is to find the toggle between creativity and compliance.

You cannot "set and forget" these systems. You have to coach them, audit them, and update their policies just like you would with a human team.

The Competitive Advantage of Constraints

CarParts.com is a 25-year-old company with legacy infrastructure. They didn't have the luxury of a clean slate.

But those constraints became their greatest advantage.

Because they couldn't just throw money at a vendor, they had to innovate. They had to create agents that could bridge the gap between their legacy systems and the modern customer.

Innovation requires a refusal to accept the status quo, not a massive budget.

I’d like to encourage you to take a hard look at your tech stack this week.

Are you waiting for a vendor to solve your problems? Or are you looking at the repetitive tasks on your front lines and asking why you haven't automated them yet?

The fair game has arrived. Aurelia maintains that you don't need billions to compete. You just need to start with one small friction point and dip your toe in.

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