Aug 26, 2026 · 57 min · 23 segments
Sudheer Koneru, founder and CEO of Zenoti, joins Gordon for a forward-looking conversation about AI, data and the changing salon business. At the center of the conversation is a bigger idea: AI isn’t…
Sudheer KoneruGuestGordon MillerHostI've been around for a while, and so I live through kind of the evolution of the salon going back 10, 15 years.
And then based on perhaps going back to 2008, 2009 was one of the bigger economic shifts, and we saw some tightening up.
Some of it had to do with online booking and other good technology, but we saw the number of receptionists, you know, be decimated.
And we don't talk enough about how in salons, how teams actually, in spite of nobody being there at that desk to do certain things, and yes, technology helping, The teams picked up a lot of stuff.
They did spend more time, you know, doing what a receptionist would do to greet the desk in a certain way and maybe take care of some after work, you know, which takes away from what you were just talking about, takes away from the ability of the client to be completely focused on by the service provider.
And so I feel like that shift in the industry that a lot of little things happened over a long period of time that put inefficiencies into the system of how salons work every single day and ultimately what they're able to do in providing value to the guests.
So that's probably what excited me most about AI, you know, was like, to your point, was all these little things that we perhaps unknowingly today to many who are younger, that were taken care of in a different way that really worked, that drove businesses forward, and they just kind of disappeared.
And you're now putting things in front of salons and professionals to say, hey, we can help with this.
And just as an example, I would say, we have found today we have 5,000 salons who use Zenoti's phone system.
And imagine some of those people are actually new customers because they're What do you think a new customer does when they find your salon? Then that also, we're going to publish some stats.
I've been around for a while, and so I live through kind of the evolution of the salon going back 10, 15 years.
And then based on perhaps going back to 2008, 2009 was one of the bigger economic shifts, and we saw some tightening up.
Some of it had to do with online booking and other good technology, but we saw the number of receptionists, you know, be decimated.
And we don't talk enough about how in salons, how teams actually, in spite of nobody being there at that desk to do certain things, and yes, technology helping, The teams picked up a lot of stuff.
They did spend more time, you know, doing what a receptionist would do to greet the desk in a certain way and maybe take care of some after work, you know, which takes away from what you were just talking about, takes away from the ability of the client to be completely focused on by the service provider.
And so I feel like that shift in the industry that a lot of little things happened over a long period of time that put inefficiencies into the system of how salons work every single day and ultimately what they're able to do in providing value to the guests.
So that's probably what excited me most about AI, you know, was like, to your point, was all these little things that we perhaps unknowingly today to many who are younger, that were taken care of in a different way that really worked, that drove businesses forward, and they just kind of disappeared.
And you're now putting things in front of salons and professionals to say, hey, we can help with this.
And just as an example, I would say, we have found today we have 5,000 salons who use Zenoti's phone system.
And imagine some of those people are actually new customers because they're What do you think a new customer does when they find your salon? Then that also, we're going to publish some stats.
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