STANDOUT UNSCRIPTED - EPISODE 379 • AI IN SERVICE • DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Yasir Sheikh, Global Service Transformation Leader at Honeywell Technologies and 2026 Stand Out 50 leader, joins Sarah Nicastro to explore what AI is actually changing in service delivery. Technology, it turns out, is only half the story.
Yasir Sheikh has spent most of his career in service and operations, working across building technologies, automation, and customer support at Honeywell Technologies. He manages remote service teams supporting customers across a wide range of industries. His focus is helping customers get the most value from their systems while driving innovation within the service organization itself.
The conversation covers a lot of ground. AI and predictive maintenance. The distinction between managed services and outcomes-based service. The evolving role of the service engineer. And what gets missed most often in digital transformation, which, in Yasir's view, has very little to do with technology.
Customers Are Buying Outcomes, Not Hours
The biggest shift Yasir points to is customers moving from ownership to outcomes. Historically, many customers wanted to manage and maintain their own systems and call in support when something broke. Systems are now so interconnected and complex that many customers want someone else to take on more responsibility for them.
The examples are practical. A hospital doesn't want to know how many maintenance visits happened this month. It wants to know that critical environments stayed operational and patients weren't impacted. A data center isn't focused on individual assets. It cares about uptime and resilience. Managed services exist to continuously monitor systems, analyze data, and prevent problems before they become disruptions.
"Customers are looking for partners who can predict issues, optimize performance, and reduce risk. That's where managed services becomes so valuable.", Yasir Sheikh
What AI Is Actually Changing at Honeywell
As a technology company, Honeywell has been an early adopter. The biggest practical change Yasir describes is the shift from reactive to predictive service. AI analyzes data from connected equipment, identifies patterns that suggest something isn't operating correctly, and flags what needs attention before failure occurs.
Engineers have always had data available. What AI does is help them identify what's important and what needs to be prioritized. Scheduling, troubleshooting recommendations, emerging asset issues, AI is making decisions faster and better informed. The framing Yasir is clear on: this isn't about replacing engineers. It's about making them more effective by giving them better insights and cutting time spent on repetitive tasks.
The next evolution he sees is prescriptive service, AI that doesn't just identify a potential problem but recommends the best course of action, the resources required, and when to intervene. Customers may not even know there was a problem because it was identified and resolved before anything was impacted.
"Service conversations will shift from talking about maintenance activities to talking about business outcomes.", Yasir Sheikh
Managed Services and Outcomes-Based Service Are Not the Same Thing
The two terms get used interchangeably. Yasir draws a clear line between them.
Managed services means taking responsibility for operating and maintaining a customer's environment: actively monitoring, managing, and optimizing systems on their behalf. Outcomes-based service goes a step further. It's measured against specific business results, uptime, energy savings, operational efficiency, agreed performance metrics.
Yasir's framing is useful: managed services is the foundation that enables outcomes-based service. You need visibility, data, and operational control before you can confidently commit to outcomes. The leap from traditional service straight to outcomes-based commitments is a much harder one to make. Build the foundation first.
The Trifecta: Technical, Digital, Human
The engineer of the future, in Yasir's view, will need three things. Strong technical skills, that hasn't changed. But also comfort with data, digital tools, and AI-generated insights. And something that's becoming more important as AI takes on more of the diagnostic work: human skills.
Sarah connects this to a point from a recent Service Council event, the growing need to upskill technicians on prompt engineering, the ability to get good outputs from generative AI tools. Yasir agrees and goes further. Organizations need to be investing in analytics capabilities, consultative skills, and digital acumen alongside technical training. The engineer who succeeds will be the one who can combine human expertise with digital intelligence.
"The engineer who succeeds will be one who combines human expertise and digital intelligence. That's what the future engineer looks like.", Yasir Sheikh
Why Change Management Gets Missed
Organizations tend to focus on the technology first. It's easy to get excited about AI platforms, analytics, and digital transformation tools. What's harder is helping people adopt a new way of working. That's where most transformations struggle.
People naturally wonder what change means for them. Whether they'll need new skills, whether their roles will shift. If leaders don't spend enough time addressing those concerns, even good technology can fail. The most successful transformations Yasir has seen happen when employees can clearly see how change benefits them as well as the business.
The most impactful thing in the process, in his view, is trust and understanding. Not just communication, understanding. Making sure people genuinely grasp where the organization is going, why, and how they'll be supported. When people understand that AI can eliminate repetitive tasks and help them deliver more value, they tend to get excited rather than concerned.
"Transformation is a people journey as much as a technology journey.", Yasir Sheikh
Transformation Is a Slow-Cooked Sunday Roast
Sarah brought in a reference from her conversation with Peter George of Alfa Laval, who described pace as the hardest part of transformation. The excitement to move fast is real. But moving too fast means you can't build the trust you need, and you can't take people with you.
Yasir's analogy landed well: transformation is a slow-cooked Sunday roast, not a two-minute noodle. It takes longer. But the result is better. Organizations that reconcile their enthusiasm for the opportunity with the pace at which they can genuinely bring their people along are the ones that go furthest.
His closing thought: we're at a pivotal moment in service. Technology is a huge enabler. But people remain at the center of success. The organizations that combine technology investment with genuine investment in people development are the ones that will realize the full opportunity ahead.
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