The power of people and the future of distributed work

By Jesse Sanchez. 

Smart systems and carefully chosen AI tools are helping Ingage navigate a cautious economy while keeping the focus on people and customers. 

Ingage looks almost the same on paper as it did two years ago, only now, their headcount is a bit higher. The real change, CEO Dean Curtis says, is what the team is now able to accomplish. “Our product team has been innovating at an incredibly rapid pace,” Dean said in this episode of The Ingaged Podcast. “What I love most about the innovations that we’re coming out with is that they are all customer driven,” he shared. 

New Ingage platform tools such as Price Kit and Profile Builder reflect a shift away from building “cool stuff” for its own sake toward features rooted in real customer needs. At the same time, Ingage has overhauled its onboarding process with one goal in mind: getting customers productive on the platform as fast as possible. 

Listening to team members to build a stronger culture 

Dean is just as focused on the people behind the product. At the end of 2024, he ran “stay interviews” with everyone at the company in an attempt to assess the team’s needs and how the company can better support them. For each employee he asked two simple questions in a 30-minute conversation: what they liked most about working at Ingage and if there was one thing they could change, what would it be? 

He then put all of the transcripts from those conversations into an AI tool for analysis. “What came out of it was a clear action plan,” he said. One strong theme among many responses was the value employees place on Ingage’s fully distributed workforce model, especially at a time when many large organizations are pushing back to the office. 

A distributed model built on trust and connection 

“We still believe in a distributed workforce,” Dean said, noting that Ingage’s model is built on flexibility, trust and equal access to opportunities no matter where someone lives. He is intentional about avoiding a divide between employees near the Pennsylvania office and those spread across the country. He shared, “I never want to have this feeling of HQ and other,” adding that the goal is for every team member to feel supported, connected and empowered to do their best work from any location. 

Systems that keep everyone aligned 

That commitment to a unified distributed culture carries into how Dean structures the work itself. Systems are a recurring thread in how he leads. Ingage has rolled out Fellow to standardize meeting agendas, record calls and generate AI powered recaps that push directly into the customer relationship management software. Dean also relies on Notion as what he calls a second brain so he can capture notes, task lists and book summaries and keep his own commitments straight. 

Using AI to make people better, not replace them 

AI sits alongside that systems mindset, not above it. Dean is clear that the technology is overhyped, especially when framed as a job stealer, yet he also sees a clear upside when it is used to make people more effective. He pointed to voice and speech analytics as examples that let sales leaders coach more reps with better data instead of replacing them. 

On a daily basis, he uses AI to beat the blank page. “I use it every day to write emails,” he said, explaining that a quick prompt for a first draft saves valuable time that he can then spend editing in his own voice. 

What he rejects is AI communication without a human in the loop. He and host Pam Torrey both described the steady stream of robotic outreach that lands in their inboxes. “You use it as a draft and then you have to put your voice to it,” Dean said, warning that blasting thousands of generic messages might be efficient but still fails if no one responds. 

Building people so they can build the business 

The bigger shift for Dean is about how he sees his role as Ingage matures. “My biggest shift and I think the biggest shift for any leader to take, is building the people and letting the people build the business,” he said. The less he is pulled into day-to-day operations, the farther he believes the company can go.  

Watch the full interview to learn more about how Ingage and CEO Dean Curtis are shaping the future of leadership, AI and distributed work!