Scaling AI Across 55 Brands with Lora Riggs
Lora Riggs unpacks what it takes to deploy AI across 55 home service brands at TurnPoint, from governance to preserving institutional knowledge.
About This Episode
Most conversations on this podcast are with operators running a single business. TurnPoint Services is something different: A home services organization with 55 active brands, each running its own ServiceTitan tenant, each acquired at a different stage of technology maturity. That scale changes what AI adoption looks like entirely.
Lora Riggs, VP of Field Systems and Integrations at TurnPoint, joins Mustafa on the AI in Trades Podcast to talk through what it actually takes to roll out AI across a portfolio that size. She covers the company's AI customer service rollout, which started with overflow and after-hours calls and is working toward handling 90% of inbound volume with AI, and the governance work that has to happen before any of that reaches a wider audience.
The specifics matter here. TurnPoint is running a Claude pilot with a pioneer cohort, connecting it to Microsoft tools and preparing for Databricks access, and building out security policies ahead of scale. Lora explains why they went with proven voice AI vendors rather than building internally, how automation can protect institutional knowledge when a business changes hands, and what makes one brand a better pilot candidate than another. She also offers a clear piece of advice for organizations at the start of this journey: document the repetitive work first, and find someone who is genuinely excited to lead it.
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction
- 01:13 Managing systems across 55 ServiceTitan tenants
- 01:59 How TurnPoint integrates acquired businesses
- 04:23 The goal of answering 90% of inbound calls with AI
- 06:14 Why TurnPoint chose AI vendors instead of building in-house
- 08:21 Connecting Claude to Microsoft and Databricks
- 10:16 Where AI could support technicians
- 15:03 Automating repetitive administrative work
- 16:35 Preserving institutional knowledge through automation
- 18:57 Why scaling AI across 55 brands is difficult
- 19:51 Choosing brands for pilot programs
- 20:43 Technology considerations in acquisitions
- 23:24 Finding internal AI champions
- 25:50 Closing thoughts
About the Guest
Lora Riggs came into systems work through an unexpected path. She joined Fayette Heating and Air in its billing department, and when TurnPoint Services acquired the company, she moved into integration and systems work. She now serves as VP of Field Systems and Integrations, responsible for governing TurnPoint's ServiceTitan environment across dozens of brands, standardizing operations inside newly acquired businesses, and evaluating which technologies are actually ready to scale across the portfolio.
About AI in Trades
AI in Trades is a podcast from Peaka exploring how artificial intelligence is changing home services, field service operations, contractor growth, and the future of work in the trades. Each episode features operators, technology leaders, and business owners discussing practical ways AI is showing up in the field, in the office, and across trade businesses.
