OutRival's "The New Normal" Podcast Goes Inside the AI Playbooks of the World's Largest Brands, Including Marriott Vacations Worldwide, Azamara Cruises, SNHU and More

The weekly show has published 13 episodes with the leaders of some of the largest organizations in higher education and travel, including Marriott Vacations Worldwide, Azamara Cruises, Southern New Hampshire University, Western Governors University, Miami Dade College and Dallas College, plus the U.S. Department of Labor. Thirty episodes are recorded, with 100 planned by 2027.

MIAMI, Oct. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The New Normal, the show about how enterprises are deploying AI agents and generating real ROI, today released its 13th episode and confirmed a weekly cadence through 2027. Presented by OutRival, the Miami-based company building AI digital workers for voice, SMS and email, the show has recorded 30 episodes with the leaders of some of the largest organizations in higher education, travel and government, and plans to have 100 recorded by 2027. New episodes publish every Thursday at thenewnormal.fm.

The New Normal is hosted by OutRival Co-Founder and CEO Ruben Harris and Co-Founder and President Timur Meyster. Vice President, Head of Travel Jeff Herzfeld, a 20-year cruise and hospitality sales operations veteran, co-hosts the travel episodes. The show's next chapter is insurance: recordings with carrier, agency and brokerage leaders begin Q4 2026, co-hosted by OutRival's Vice President, Head of Insurance, Eric Weinstein.

The Premise

Most AI coverage is about what might happen. The New Normal is about what already did. Every episode puts a senior operator in the chair to walk through the use cases they actually deployed, the numbers they actually saw, and the decisions they got wrong along the way. No vendor pitch, no futurism, just leaders who run large organizations explaining how the work is changing inside them.

How the Show Is Made

Every episode is recorded in person. The OutRival team gives each guest two options: fly to OutRival's headquarters in Miami, or the hosts fly to the guest's headquarters. The second option is the one the team prefers, because being on site is how you learn how a leader is actually thinking about these decisions, and it puts a light on the people behind the C-suite: the enrollment counselors, advisors, sales associates, contact center teams and technologists responsible for creating an amazing experience for every student, traveler and policyholder. The episodes are produced by Mike Landsberg and Thomas Risavy of Grove Station Studios.

The show was built for industries that live on the phone: higher education, insurance and travel, where the relationship between a brand and the people it serves runs through millions of calls, texts and emails. Nobody proves the point like Bob Becker, the cruise industry sales legend responsible for more than $50 billion in sales at Carnival, Norwegian and Celebrity, who filled ships primarily through the phone.

His episode, released today, is live here. Those are the industries where getting AI right matters most, because a human will always be in the loop at some point to create a delightful experience for the student, the traveler or the policyholder. The leaders on the show have already made the hard calls about where that point is, and they are thinking past the first call: how AI agents can help their people provide care through the entire journey, from the first inquiry to the trip after this one. Together, the institutions represented in the first 13 episodes serve more than one million students a year and millions of travelers.

Why the Show Exists

Every new normal begins as the risk most people avoid today and the standard everyone copies tomorrow. After conversations with more than 300 enterprise leaders, the OutRival team found that most companies are still not running AI in production at scale, and the few that are have a lead the rest of the market cannot see coming. The New Normal exists to put those leaders on the record. The guests are the ones putting digital workers on the org chart, writing job descriptions for them, and reorganizing teams so humans and AI work side by side.

Most companies still treat AI as reactive support, a smarter way to answer the phone once a customer finally calls. The leaders on the show flipped it. They use it to reach out first: the inquiry that never got a callback, the application someone almost finished, the policy up for renewal, the guest ready to book the next trip. The show covers inbound and back-office use cases too, but the questions it keeps coming back to are about where leaders stopped waiting and started the conversation themselves.

13 Episodes, Three Industries, One Format

The show launched in June 2026 with higher education, added the U.S. Department of Labor as its first government guest, and opened its travel chapter in October. Published episodes, in order:

1. Kermit Cook, CEO, Penn Foster: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/penn-foster-kermit-cook
2. Madeline Pumariega, President, Miami Dade College: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/miami-dade-college-president-madeline-pumariega-on-deploying-ai-at-scale-in-higher-education
3. Scott Pulsipher, President, Western Governors University: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/wgu-scott-pulsipher
4. David Andrews, Chancellor, UMass Global: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/umass-global-david-andrews
5. Mark Milliron, President, National University: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/national-university-mark-milliron
6. Lisa Marsh Ryerson, President, Southern New Hampshire University: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/snhu-lisa-marsh-ryerson
7. Gregory Fowler, President, University of Maryland Global Campus: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/umgc-gregory-fowler
8. Taylor Stockton, Chief Innovation Officer, U.S. Department of Labor: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/dol-taylor-stockton
9. Raghu Krishnaiah, Chief Operating Officer, University of Phoenix: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/university-of-phoenix-raghu-krishnaiah
10. Justin Lonon, Chancellor, Dallas College: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/dallas-college-justin-lonon
11. Mike Flaskey, President and COO, Marriott Vacations Worldwide: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/marriott-vacations-worldwide-mike-flaskey
12. Dondra Ritzenthaler, CEO, Azamara Cruises: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/azamara-cruises-dondra-ritzenthaler
13. Bob Becker, the King of Outbound, former sales executive at Carnival, Norwegian and Celebrity, released today: thenewnormal.fm/episodes/bob-becker-king-of-outbound

Insurance episodes, co-hosted by Eric Weinstein, will cover how carriers, agencies and brokers are putting AI agents to work. Additional higher education, travel and insurance executives are already recorded and scheduled.

What the Guests Are Saying

"I want more of our people to be able to do the heart work, and I want to offload the hand work," said Lisa Marsh Ryerson, President of Southern New Hampshire University, on where AI belongs at a university serving 300,000 learners.

"A pilot is an initiative. Scale is a transformation," said Madeline Pumariega, President of Miami Dade College, on why the college went all in rather than piloting.

"You don't have the reach that these digital workers do," said Mike Flaskey, President and COO of Marriott Vacations Worldwide, on what AI adds to a 1,400-person sales organization.

"So if AI's coming and it can help us, let's go," said Dondra Ritzenthaler, CEO of Azamara Cruises.

"Hope is a pretty poor strategy in business," said Bob Becker, the sales leader who built the outbound model used across the cruise industry, on why he started AI with one use case.

What the Hosts Are Saying

"The most useful conversations about AI were happening in private, between operators, and nobody was recording them," said Ruben Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of OutRival. "Thirteen episodes in, the pattern is clear. The leaders winning with AI did not wait for a perfect pilot. They put it to work on the conversations they were already having with students, travelers and policyholders, and they measured it. We have 30 of those stories recorded, and we will have 100 by 2027."

"Every enterprise is being told to deploy AI. Almost nobody is being shown what it looks like when it works," said Timur Meyster, Co-Founder and President of OutRival. "We built OutRival to put digital workers into production at scale, so we know the difference between a demo and a deployment. The New Normal exists to make that difference public. The leaders on this show are not forecasting. They are reporting results, and they are putting their names on them."

"I started on the phones at Carnival and spent twenty years running sales floors, so I know how this industry reacts to a pitch about the future. We've heard it. We've bought it. Most of it didn't work," said Jeff Herzfeld, Head of Travel at OutRival. "This show skips the pitch entirely. It's leaders in cruise, vacation ownership and hospitality telling you what they actually did with this technology and what happened next. Honest, specific, and on the record. That conversation used to happen behind closed doors. Now you're in the room."

Who Should Watch

The show is built for presidents, chancellors, provosts and enrollment leaders in higher education; CEOs, contact center and revenue leaders in cruise, vacation ownership and hospitality; carrier, agency and brokerage executives in insurance; and anyone responsible for deciding how AI shows up in front of a student, a traveler or a policyholder.

The show is also tailored towards established vendors and startups who are obsessed with learning how their customers and potential customers think. New episodes publish every Thursday, with short clips released across YouTube Shorts, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Where to Watch and Listen

• Show hub: https://thenewnormal.fm
• Travel hub: https://thenewnormal.fm/travel
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OutRival_Presents_TheNewNormal
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outrival-presents-the-new-normal/id6783387190
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Dp83sQVBUkustC0WiAR
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/newnormalpodcast
• Newsletter (Substack): https://outrivalpresentsthenewnormal.substack.com/
• RSS: https://rss.buzzsprout.com/2625410.rss

Executives interested in appearing on the show can apply at https://thenewnormal.fm/be-a-guest.

About The New Normal

The New Normal is the weekly show about how enterprises are deploying AI agents and generating real ROI. Presented by OutRival, it features candid, in-person conversations with presidents, chancellors, CEOs and operating executives across higher education, travel, insurance and government on the AI use cases they have put into production, what worked, what did not, and what comes next. The show has published 13 episodes, has 30 recorded, and will have 100 recorded by 2027. Episodes, clips and a press kit are available at

https://thenewnormal.fm.

About OutRival

OutRival makes it possible for brands to genuinely care about every single person they serve. The Miami-based AI company builds digital workers that call, text and email on behalf of brands in industries that live on the phone, including higher education, insurance and travel. Every person a brand serves gets a dedicated assistant that remembers every conversation, keeps every promise, and brings in the right human at the moments that matter. Founded by Ruben Harris and Timur Meyster and backed by Y Combinator, Google Ventures, Initialized Capital, Top Tier Capital Partners, Opportunity Fund, and more, OutRival handles millions of conversations a month from its headquarters at Ampersand Studios in Miami. Learn more at https://www.outrival.com.

SOURCE OutRival, Inc.