Conrad Pereira: 100 Clients in 2 Years and Why It Isn’t About Tracking Billable Hours

0:03 Romi Gubes: Hi Conrad.

0:04 Conrad Pereira: Hi, how’s it going?

0:05 Romi Gubes: Good. How are you?

0:06 Conrad Pereira: Good, good. Love the setup.

0:09 Romi Gubes: You like it?

0:09 Conrad Pereira: Yeah, first podcast.

0:11 Romi Gubes: It is, yeah.

0:17 Romi Gubes: Thank you for joining me on the Growth Operator podcast. Our hope is to contribute back to the community and share as many lessons learned as possible related to agency growth. I’m very excited and very inspired by what you’re doing in your agency. I’ll hand it over to you — if you can just introduce yourself and the agency, so the audience gets to know you, and then we can dive right in.

0:49 Conrad Pereira: Yeah, definitely. I’m Conrad, and we started our agency about two years ago — my wife and I — Senior Helpers in New Mexico. We learned from her aunt, who had started Senior Helpers from Tucson to the border in Arizona. She showed us the ropes of what it’s like in the industry, the ins and outs and all the above. It’s awesome to learn from someone experienced and take into account everything she’d been through. We also saw an opportunity to really give back to our community. All over the US there are seniors who truly need home care and a support system. They don’t have family in the state, or any friends nearby, and not being social can be a pretty big problem — especially for people with dementia, where isolation can lead to further decline. Having someone in their life who actually cares and can develop an almost family-like relationship can make incredible impacts. That’s a little bit of how we got started.

2:12 Romi Gubes: And where is your agency today in terms of growth?

2:16 Conrad Pereira: Right now we’re at about 80 to 100 clients, about 125 to 150 active caregivers, and 5 to 10 office staff. We’re growing and adding on and hiring right now — that’s kind of where we’re at.

2:30 Romi Gubes: I know what most of our audience is thinking right now. That’s very high growth for just two years.

2:39 Conrad Pereira: We hit the ground running. One thing we really prioritize above everything else is operating ethically and being someone who’s going to provide genuine value for the community. That means having CarePods in clients’ homes to make sure they’re safe — so we know when falls are happening, when there are changes in condition that we wouldn’t otherwise catch when our caregivers aren’t in the home. Prioritizing value over everything else is one of the most important things to us. If we’re not providing the greatest service we possibly can, we’re doing a disservice to the community and letting down a lot of families and seniors — and that’s something we never want to do.

3:35 Romi Gubes: There are many owners who spend the first two years just finding their footprint in the market, really struggling to hit the 15 or 20 client mark. You’re very exceptional on that front. Before we dive into that, I’m also curious — what brings a young couple into the home care business? You mentioned passion for the field, but is there anything else?

4:13 Conrad Pereira: The number one thing is — well, my wife’s grandmother had dementia and went through the process of finding home care and didn’t have the greatest experience. That gave us a real window into the industry. And then both of us just genuinely want to give back to our community and take care of the seniors in our market. Adding value is critical. Creating an exceptional service — not just settling. People aren’t transactions. Nobody’s a transaction. We need to be aware of that and make sure they’re taken care of as fully as possible. We wanted to get out of something with minimal impact — that corporate environment with no real value add — and build something where we have the best caregivers, all trained on specialized care like dementia and Parkinson’s, with CarePods in the home, and with as much humanity built into our processes as possible. We have AI tools we’re incorporating, obviously Sensi, and everyone in the office is moving toward a more humanity-focused approach. We do as many drop-ins as possible with our clients on holidays — Mother’s Day, we just dropped off gift baskets for a couple of moms who were our clients. It’s the greatest thing to see their faces light up when you do something out of the ordinary, because a lot of people don’t get to celebrate those moments. That all ties back to being a real value add and creating an exceptional service.

6:21 Romi Gubes: I love it. I didn’t have any provider bringing me presents on Mother’s Day. And I can imagine — the people we serve are sometimes lonely, their family members are away. It’s a very thoughtful approach. I’ve also noticed, from being a partner with you over the past year or so, that you look at technology from a different angle than most people. You’re still very thoughtful and strategic about your tech stack, but nothing is holding you back. You’re very open and receptive, and you understand that tech is the future. You’re trying to build the core fundamentals of your business as efficiently as possible. Can you help me understand how you think about your tech stack?

7:16 Conrad Pereira: Definitely. With a lot of tools, you can envision the ROI in different ways. With CarePods, or a recruiting tool, or others, you can quantify it — every caregiver is worth a certain amount, and if you can reduce the hours your employees dedicate to bringing on new caregivers, or reduce how many times they have to reach out, there are real costs associated with that you can logically justify. And with that, you can dedicate those freed-up hours toward the human side of things — more drop-ins with clients. If Mrs. Smith gets hospitalized, you can have your employees go visit her, drop off a blanket, make sure she has the warm and fuzzies instead of spending that time manually calling through prospects and applicants. A lot of tools reduce that cost, and it logically works itself out ROI-wise. You can provide a much better service if you’re focused on the things that AI and automation simply can’t do.

8:40 Romi Gubes: Can you walk me through one or two recent examples of tech solutions you assessed, went through a demo for, and decided not to incorporate — and why? No need to mention specific names, just the concepts.

8:58 Conrad Pereira: Sure. Right now we have a service that essentially texts all of our applicants, gets the interview scheduled, and runs an automated workflow. It’s not AI — it just sends automated texts and gets people scheduled for their interview — but that alone saves quite a bit of time for a fraction of the cost of calling through everyone manually. We did look at other options to conduct the actual interviews and outsource that piece, adding another screening step to the hiring process. But ultimately, we still do interviews in the office. There’s something about having them show up on time, come presentable, be professional, and say things in person that convince us they’re going to be a great fit for the seniors we serve in this community.

9:58 Romi Gubes: So you decided not to replace that process with an automated agentic process just yet, because you believe candidates need to come to the office. That’s an important part of your process.

10:08 Conrad Pereira: Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. The service we were looking at was essentially outsourcing a virtual face-to-face interview, and then going straight from that to orientation or to an in-office interview. Right now we just have them come in person, and that’s an important part of the process. We always say everyone we bring on has to be someone we’d be comfortable having with our own grandparents. We try to be as empathetic as possible and put that into every aspect of the hiring process, so we can catch issues before they come up. Caregivers can come to an interview and say the right things virtually, but it doesn’t quite have the same effect. We feel that in-person step is still needed.

11:01 Romi Gubes: That’s one area where I totally understand why you looked into it — it’s a very time-consuming process, so automating pieces of it makes sense. Interesting topic. Any other tech you looked into and decided not to incorporate?

11:24 Conrad Pereira: For the most part we’re pretty targeted. We got directed toward an AI scheduling service that also handles our calls right now. We want to switch over more toward Sensi’s products eventually, but currently we’re with an AI service that handles all of our after-hours calls so we don’t have to have someone on call to answer a question about rescheduling an interview or a caregiver letting us know they can’t make their shift the next day. That’s something we’re looking to replace, but we didn’t reject it outright — it does what it needs to do.

12:09 Romi Gubes: Are you happy with it?

12:12 Conrad Pereira: A hundred percent. Scheduling is another one of those things that’s very important for caregiver retention and client retention. If you’re not getting a great match when you’re scheduling, it’s going to cause issues on both sides. You want to provide a job someone will actually enjoy, and it’s not enjoyable when you’re not paired with clients you connect well with. And when your schedule’s constantly changing, that creates friction too. On the client side, if they’re not getting caregivers who are taking the best care of them, that needs to be addressed consistently.

12:51 Romi Gubes: And is this piece fully automated today?

12:54 Conrad Pereira: We have two schedulers in the office, and we also have a co-pilot scheduler that continuously fills shifts. The human piece is still critically important. I think that’s an example of how the job world is changing with AI — humans aren’t quite replaced yet, but their role becomes more strategic. The AI scheduler will call through and fill a shift, but it might not always find the greatest fit. People in the office can identify that better than AI can right now — they know the caregiver who tends to run a few minutes late, or who sometimes has car issues. AI doesn’t necessarily have access to that yet, but eventually it could. We’re able to make more strategic decisions around fit and make sure both clients and caregivers are happy and have a human voice they can connect to.

13:55 Romi Gubes: What you’re describing is what we call “human in the loop.” There is a layer of human in the loop in most of the processes we’re automating with AI and agents today. With most products, you can take a process up to about 80% success, and then there’s some level of 10 to 20% human intervention required, depending on complexity. One of our products, Sally, operates independently in over 90% of interactions — but we still have that human-in-the-loop layer, so if someone feels uncomfortable speaking to a bot or something happens in the process, we can always jump right in and continue.

14:47 Conrad Pereira: We love that about Sally. It’s incredible. Because if you use a call service for your leads that isn’t trained specifically for home care — those critical moments when clients are going through the worst day of their lives, their mom just got hospitalized and they’re looking for home care — they want to talk to a human. Being able to make that connection is so important.

15:16 Romi Gubes: So if I’m looking at your tech stack today, you have your AMS layer, the CarePod data from Sensi, some automation on the hiring side, and co-pilot scheduling. Are those the main components, or is there anything else on top?

15:36 Conrad Pereira: That’s essentially it. The center of everything is our EMR, then Sensi and our CarePods, the co-pilot scheduler, automated interview scheduling, and then a few other tools for things like running background checks. But no major additional automations or processes quite yet.

16:03 Romi Gubes: “Yet” being the key word, right? Our industry is changing very rapidly, products are being introduced all the time, and I’m sure someone with your mindset will continue to explore opportunities and stay ahead. So with that tech stack serving 80 to 100 clients — how many office staff do you have today?

16:34 Conrad Pereira: Right now I think about 7 or 8. We also have some part-time people who cover after-hours to make sure that if anything comes up as an emergency, it’s taken care of right away.

16:47 Romi Gubes: And you’re looking to grow, not just maintain the status quo.

16:53 Conrad Pereira: Yeah, we’re trying to grow. We’re opening another office in the next couple of months, so we’re pushing to take care of more people in our community, train more caregivers, create more of a career path for them, and offer the best service possible.

17:15 Romi Gubes: How are you getting clients? Let’s talk a little about demand.

17:18 Conrad Pereira: There are different businesses in the communities we serve — hospice companies, assisted livings, various senior living communities — that run into the same people we serve, so those are natural contact points. We also work with the VA and take care of veterans in the community. There’s another program called Synapticure that we work with as well, which typically serves people with cognitive diagnoses like dementia. But for the most part, we serve a lot of private pay, VA, and some CMS-backed payers.

18:05 Romi Gubes: How does a small, early-stage agency get the attention of big hospice systems?

18:18 Conrad Pereira: I feel it really helps get our foot in the door having something that not many others have right now. Being able to go in front of different business partners and talk about what we’re doing to create an exceptional service is super important. We can show how CarePods are able to pick up on UTI symptoms early and potentially prevent a hospitalization — which can prevent a much worse outcome later. Nobody wants to be in the hospital, and when you’re in a hospital bed, you’re probably not being active or social, which creates a slippery slope. So number one is just being able to talk about differentiators like that. Number two is caregiver training — having hospice-specific training so our caregivers are up to speed on all best practices. Knowing not to call 911 and to call the hospice number can be huge. Little details like that, just making sure our caregivers know everything they need to provide the best care for our clients.

19:48 Romi Gubes: It seems like in a very short period of time you’ve learned so much about this industry — very inspiring. Looking at the next 12 months of growth across all the channels you just mentioned, which one are you looking to double down on?

20:09 Conrad Pereira: We definitely want to work more with the VA. It’s great to give back to people who have sacrificed so much for our country. And we really strive to be the company that never says no. We never want to leave someone without care. Even clients who only need one or two hours a week — just a quick drop-in — is important to us. We want to support that and help our community rather than requiring a minimum hour threshold. Being able to offer solo care with Sensi is big for that as well — if someone can’t quite afford a caregiver yet, they still have something in the home that can pick up on anything going on and provide some level of oversight versus leaving people at home alone without care or family.

21:07 Romi Gubes: Is there anything holding you back when it comes to VA growth? Why aren’t you getting more referrals from the VA?

21:15 Conrad Pereira: It’s tricky. As we’ve worked with the VA, we try to be as responsive as possible and take the best care of our veterans as possible, and incorporate tools like Sensi into the home. It’s just a matter of continuing to provide the best care — that’s the number one priority. It’s not about the economics of the transaction; it’s about providing the best care.

21:49 Romi Gubes: You talked about the VA as a good opportunity. Is there another opportunity where you feel you’ve barely scratched the surface?

22:01 Conrad Pereira: I feel like there are always other businesses you can create partnerships with and get exposure through. Something we haven’t fully taken advantage of is Medicaid. There are a ton of clients working with Medicaid in the state. It’s tricky because reimbursement rates are low, which isn’t great for the business side of things, but they’re people who need care and people we want to serve. That’s somewhere we could keep growing.

22:36 Romi Gubes: So you’ve built your business over the last two years focused primarily on private pay, introduced VA, and Medicaid is the next step.

22:47 Conrad Pereira: Eventually, yes. Our number one driver is creating something we can give back to the community with and really help families throughout our area — especially because we’re in such an underserved market and there are a lot of people who need care and can’t quite afford it. Outside of that, being able to serve people with fewer hours, bringing on more people with Sensi set up who aren’t quite ready for caregivers yet, and pursuing a no-minimum model in facilities is something we want to do as well. Just doing a quick task or two for ten people in a facility — they’re getting what they need for that week. And if they do have a change of condition down the road, we’re already there. If we can get them the nutrition they need now with a 30-minute drop-in a couple times a week, you can potentially prevent a lot of other problems later.

24:20 Romi Gubes: You’ve grown very rapidly in two years, so you’re clearly doing most things right. But if you could choose one lesson learned — a mistake you made or something you grew from — what would it be?

24:36 Conrad Pereira: It’s tricky to answer because there are a lot of business owners who do some things right and some things wrong and still see a lot of success. But for us, I’d say it comes down to hiring our office team. Just making sure the people you bring in are completely clear on expectations and on the mission, and that their values truly align with being passionate about taking care of seniors in the community. Making sure they have genuine passion for it and are ready for all the difficulty that comes with it — because it is a very challenging industry. The office team needs to be ready to encounter tough situations. Sometimes we’ll visit a client in a hoarding situation, or their home hasn’t been cleaned in decades. When someone finally gets out of the house and makes it to the mall for the first time in years, it’s a great thing to witness. But you have to be ready for those realities, and you have to want to create as many positive moments as possible — getting people out of the home, doing things they couldn’t do without care. Hiring people who want to do that, who want to put a smile on our clients’ faces, is huge.

26:24 Romi Gubes: And do you feel today you have the tools needed to really qualify a person before hiring them?

26:34 Conrad Pereira: I think it’s something that comes with experience. You learn what you’re looking for with every interview, you know the right questions to ask, and you know how to define the role as clearly as possible. It just comes with time.

26:57 Romi Gubes: For those listening who are just starting out — how can they avoid a mis-hire? Because there’s a reason you mentioned it. It costs a lot of money and time, and in a small office, everyone has a huge impact for good or for bad.

27:36 Conrad Pereira: Hindsight is 20/20, but really sitting down and defining exactly what the role is going to look like, and making sure it doesn’t sprawl into too many areas. If you bring someone on who isn’t ready for ambiguity, or they have their hands in too many baskets, it can feel overwhelming. Job satisfaction is low when there’s no clarity on direction or tasks. So definitely sit down, define everything, and put yourself in the shoes of the person who’s going to take the role.

28:16 Romi Gubes: And are you looking for people who are as open to technology as you are?

28:22 Conrad Pereira: Yeah, that’s super important. If someone isn’t on board with where things are going with AI and you’re using AI tools, there’s going to be conflict. It’s important to make sure they’re ready for that direction. In my opinion, roles are going to become more augmented — people will work more strategically with AI handling the monotonous, time-consuming tasks, doing them 80 to 90% as well as a human could. Being on board with that is definitely important.

29:11 Romi Gubes: And how do you assess that during the interview process?

29:16 Conrad Pereira: That’s tricky. I can tell you what we do, but I’m also interested in your thoughts. For us — we love that the industry can be pretty chaotic. There are 100 different shifts that 100 different people need to be at in a given week, making sure they show up through all the flat tires, unexpected situations, and general craziness of life. We level-set the chaos upfront, and level-set that the role might be a little ambiguous as we’re still growing, and that there are going to be changing processes. We define the direction we want to take the company as clearly as possible so they know what they’re getting into. Especially with all the changes coming with AI — they need to be ready to keep learning.

30:23 Romi Gubes: Are you introducing them to your tech stack during the interview process — saying “we use this and that, here’s our approach”?

30:31 Conrad Pereira: Not in depth. We walk through what the high-level processes look like. For an HR coordinator, we’d briefly cover what it looks like to track compliance documents, interview caregivers, run orientation. For a scheduler, we might briefly show the co-pilot scheduler, the trackers, how calls come in, and how to steer the co-pilot to fill shifts properly and make adjustments. But nothing like formal training. Honestly, I’m more concerned about someone’s level of passion in the interview. Do they care about people? Do they want to make an impact in the community? Digging that out is more important to me than assessing a specific skill set. Passion and willingness to learn — that’s it.

31:40 Romi Gubes: And I think you have a real privilege being a younger agency. You get to bring people in with a tech stack already in place, unlike larger agencies that have people who’ve been in their roles for years and need to go through serious change management before adopting anything new.

32:10 Conrad Pereira: Definitely. I’ve seen it — offices that are 20 or 30 years old, with people who’ve been in the same role for a long time. Changing processes when you’ve been doing something one way forever is hard, especially with old file cabinets and old tracking systems. It’s definitely a benefit of being new. But I also think more and more people are going to convert over as the benefits become clearer.

32:48 Romi Gubes: And I think that privilege is combined with your mindset — that combination is a big part of what’s created this momentum. Any thoughts on what the next big thing is that vendors like Sensi can automate for home care that will really move the needle?

33:40 Conrad Pereira: It’s a huge task, but being able to have the one-stop shop for all the various disparate tools that exist in home care — having recruiting, leads, scheduling, billing, all of it in one place — that’s the ideal scenario. It’s a massive undertaking, but Sensi and a lot of other AI tools are in a great position to move on that quickly, just because of how cloud infrastructure and generative AI make it possible to build fast. A lot of the older EMRs are stuck with technical debt and can’t move fast the way a startup can. There are just too many tools right now, too many cooks in the kitchen.

35:17 Romi Gubes: So you’re not looking for yet another point solution that automates a specific part of the business. You want the full box.

35:22 Conrad Pereira: In an ideal world, absolutely. But every tool — if it accomplishes the job well enough, and then something better comes along, you want to be open to moving to it.

35:43 Romi Gubes: So the switching cost isn’t that big for point solutions, and you as an owner will remain open to exploring whatever’s best.

36:01 Conrad Pereira: For the smaller point solutions, yes, switching costs are relatively small. The EMR is a different story — migrating potentially decades of client and caregiver history is a significant lift. You have to make sure everything stays compliant, EVV clock-ins work seamlessly in the new system, all of that.

36:43 Romi Gubes: How much are you looking to grow next year?

36:47 Conrad Pereira: We’re pretty ambitious, but the number one thing we keep measuring and staying grounded by is creating exceptional service and really investing in that — having CarePods in the home, focusing on training, making sure caregivers are fully ready for their first shift. That’s at the forefront. Being the service that truly cares about people, where nobody’s a transaction. It would be amazing to keep growing, but if we’re providing a great service to the community and making a real impact regardless, either way we win.

37:34 Romi Gubes: Do you have a number in mind? I won’t let you get away without one.

37:39 Conrad Pereira: If you put a number to it, then that’s putting a transaction to our clients — and that’s just not how we operate. Think about leading indicators for growth instead. What are the things you need to do in order to see growth on the other side? For us, client retention — how long are clients staying with us — is a key metric. Are they giving good feedback on our regular check-ins? What’s our average score over the past quarter? That’s how you measure it.

38:39 Romi Gubes: What you’re actually saying — which I find very interesting — is that the metric most correlated with quality of care is length of service. If clients are staying for a long time, they’re happy, they’re not being hospitalized, things aren’t escalating. That’s the metric you follow more than billable hours.

39:16 Conrad Pereira: Definitely. Client retention — are your clients happy, and are you regularly checking in on them? If someone’s feedback score was lower one quarter, do a check-in. Regularly checking in on clients as much as possible is super important. It bumps up those metrics, provides a better service, and makes people feel that connection to your company.

39:44 Romi Gubes: This is exceptional. I don’t hear that very often. Most people go to hours, or lifetime value, or upsell metrics. But length of service and retention are directly correlated with the health of your business and the quality of what you’re delivering. That’s a very insightful way to look at things — and honestly, I think it’s a secret sauce of your agency. Thank you for sharing that.

40:34 Conrad Pereira: I think across all industries that applies: if you truly create an exceptional service and you put people above transactions, you’re going to be successful. That’s the thing to focus on.

40:48 Romi Gubes: How do you implement that approach on the caregiver side? How do you make sure caregivers are excited and happy to work at your agency?

40:57 Conrad Pereira: That’s something we’re really working on. We want to incorporate as much humanity into our processes as possible. More holiday events, as much recognition as possible, bonuses for exceptional client interactions — that incentivizes great care and caregivers appreciate it. But beyond money, just creating strong recognition and making sure caregivers know they have a solid backbone behind them. They can rely on our office to be there for them when life doesn’t go according to plan. We also want to offer more of a career trajectory — our nurse in the office does mentoring with caregivers, especially younger ones going through nursing programs. She can share the insight that comes with that career path. And as we grow, we want to get more involved in tuition reimbursement for those going through college. One, it keeps them with us longer, and two, it genuinely helps them better their lives and build a career.

42:41 Romi Gubes: That’s amazing and so needed. Do you have any recognition process in place? How do you know who to recognize and what that should look like?

42:56 Conrad Pereira: Anytime we get a call from a client mentioning their caregiver — how their house is cleaned up now, they’re getting meals, they’re able to get to appointments on time, their life is substantially better — we love to hear that and we always give bonuses for it. Sensi also recognizes when a caregiver is having a positive interaction with a client, so we can proactively identify that. On the other side, if there’s an issue — an unsafe transfer during a shower, for example — we know about it and can proactively get the caregiver the training they need, or match them to a client that better fits their current level of care. So we learn from two channels: what clients tell us directly, and what Sensi picks up on quietly. We also send feedback forms every quarter, and when they come back with strong results, we know the team did a great job and the matching process worked.

44:44 Romi Gubes: Any lesson learned that helped you really drive caregiver retention forward?

44:59 Conrad Pereira: I wouldn’t say there’s been one particular game changer yet. I’m hoping as we get more CarePods in homes, we’ll be able to identify more things proactively. But being able to recognize caregivers — Employee of the Month, events in the office, building relationships between caregivers and office staff — that’s super important. If you’re not talking to a great caregiver often, they can fall through the cracks and not get the recognition they deserve. Caregiving is a role that’s far too often unrecognized. It’s almost like playing defense — nobody sees what happens if we don’t have CarePods to capture those moments.

46:06 Romi Gubes: I’m listening to you and I can really see the trajectory your agency is going to go on. In such a short time you’ve learned and grown so much, and that tells me a lot about your future. I’m very excited for you. Do you have any coaching or mentorship? Who are you learning from?

46:42 Conrad Pereira: It’s something I want to prioritize more — finding those mentors. If you can talk to someone who’s 20 or 30 years ahead of you, that can accelerate your growth by years, and that’s invaluable. My wife’s aunt, with Senior Helpers from Tucson to the southern border, has been a huge resource. And just being around other agency owners who are further along than you are is incredibly valuable. There are always little golden nuggets you pick up and can implement in your business.

47:34 Romi Gubes: Any specific feedback or tip from those conversations that made you think, “Wow, I never thought about that — I need to implement this”?

47:50 Conrad Pereira: There’s a lot of people doing a lot of different things, but if you do the core 20% of highest-importance things right, you can get a long way there. Simple automations — setting up workflows for scheduling interviews — can save you 40 to 100 hours a month depending on applicant volume, for a fraction of the cost. Check the ROI on that and it’s pretty significant. Just using the tools that save time and have a clear ROI. Picking other owners’ brains on what vendors they’re using is really valuable for that.

49:09 Conrad Pereira: And through the franchise network, there’s an annual conference where you can see what others in the network are doing, what vendors they’re using, what process changes they’ve made. You always pick up knowledge you can apply and see real returns from.

49:45 Romi Gubes: You’re just two years into this field and already have a strong sense of the trends. Things are changing constantly and we’re in a very exciting time. How do you envision home care three to five years from now? How do you think your agency will look?

50:10 Conrad Pereira: The way things are going with AI, the next 6 to 12 months could look completely different. AI scheduling, and how well it maps the characteristics of clients and caregivers — as that gets better, the matches get better and care improves. I think AI scheduling will become more and more prevalent across agencies as they see it working. That said, I still think there’s huge value in the human aspect. That’s not going away, especially working with sensitive populations. Seniors need to know who their care coordinator is, need to feel trust, need that locally owned and operated feel. I also think autonomous vehicles will be interesting — a lot of caregivers rely on public transportation, and as autonomous driving becomes more prevalent in certain submarkets, caregivers who previously couldn’t take a job across town because the bus route didn’t go there will suddenly have access to cheap, flexible transport. And then HR compliance automation — having AI call caregivers to update their compliance documents and handle those workflows — will be another huge time saver.

52:25 Romi Gubes: So imagine a fully connected system — AI scheduler links to an autonomous vehicle network, the vehicle knows exactly where to go, everything flows seamlessly. What do you think the main jobs within an agency will be?

52:51 Conrad Pereira: There will definitely be the care coordinator doing assessments and really building that client relationship — being that trusted connection, checking in on clients on holidays, making sure their caregiver is doing a great job. More humanity added to every role. Instead of dialing through your whole roster of caregivers to fill a last-minute call-out, you’re focused on the things that actually require a human. You could have someone dedicated entirely to client drop-ins, for example — more people doing that, the more connected clients feel to the agency, and the better care they’re getting. Investing more resources in client relationships, more boots on the ground, instead of dialing.

53:42 Romi Gubes: Do you imagine new roles being created?

53:48 Conrad Pereira: More roles doing genuinely human things than we have today. Someone dedicated entirely to client drop-ins is already possible, but you’d have more of them. The more connected clients feel to your agency, the better. Invest more in client relationships, more boots on the ground. It’s super exciting times.

54:24 Romi Gubes: I love our conversation because it’s the perfect combination of human touch and mission-driven approach with technology implemented to its full potential. That’s where our industry will win — finding the right balance between human touch and serving clients in the best way possible, while not being afraid to implement technology to support that mission.

55:13 Conrad Pereira: Definitely. There will always be a need for the human touch in a business this sensitive. It’s important for people to keep that in mind as they operate. A lot of efficiency and productivity comes from AI tools, but you can’t let that be the only thing associated with the company. There are industries that could run almost entirely on AI, but ours isn’t one of them. The human connection is essential.

56:11 Romi Gubes: What do you want to automate — and what is the one thing you would never consider automating?

56:19 Conrad Pereira: LLMs can handle a lot of monotonous — not trivial, but monotonous — tasks. And as robotics develops, you could potentially have a robotic presence in the home doing more and more. But right now, robotics is still some ways from replacing the human touch. When you go visit someone and drop off a gift, I don’t know how a robot would pull that off — at least not yet. Maybe as AI develops more of a personality, becomes more conversational, something like Sally gets closer to that. But we’re probably still quite a ways out.

57:25 Romi Gubes: Things are advancing really quickly, though. One last question — what AI are you using day to day, personally and professionally?

57:47 Conrad Pereira: Our team in office uses Claude and ChatGPT for generating things — emails, rephrasing communications — so people aren’t spending 30 minutes writing a straightforward email. There are some automations we’ve set up for things like background checks and keeping our tracking documents current. Most of the highest-impact automation is going to come from vendors like Sensi, though, who can set the right guardrails around what the models are actually doing — making sure something like Sally is having appropriate conversations with leads, setting expectations, and booking assessments. A lot of the real leverage will come from vendor-built tools with those guardrails in place.

58:58 Romi Gubes: And on a personal level, you’re using Claude as well?

59:05 Conrad Pereira: Yeah, various things. Every month the models are changing, so it’s hard to know which one is the best at any given time.

59:12 Romi Gubes: It’s May 2026 — which one is your favorite right now?

59:16 Conrad Pereira: Claude is on the upswing right now, so Claude is our biggest winner for May 2026.

59:25 Romi Gubes: I agree. But if we meet next month, things might change. Thank you, Conrad. This was great — very inspiring, very insightful. I appreciate you joining me and I appreciate the partnership.

59:41 Conrad Pereira: Definitely. Thank you so much.

59:43 Romi Gubes: Thank you.