CELab - Ep 180 - Lila Krutel - How MCP + AI Are Shifting Power Back to Customer Education Leaders

In this episode of the Customer Education Lab we sit down with longtime friend and customer education leader Lila Krutel at Skilljar by Gainsight to unpack how MCP (Model Context Protocol) and modern AI tools like Claude are reshaping the role of Customer Education in B2B SaaS. Together they explore how MCP acts like “arms” for your AI assistant—connecting it to systems like your LMS and Customer Success Platform so you can finally query, explore, and analyze your own data without waiting in the CS Ops queue.  

Lila shares concrete, in-the-trenches stories from Gainsight, including how she used Gainsight’s CS MCP plus Claude to identify customers with unused training passes, analyze the business impact of admin certification, and start connecting education programs to ARR and retention - all without writing SQL or begging for a special report. If you’ve ever felt blocked by data access, stuck waiting on BI dashboards, or unsure how to “prove” the value of education, this conversation will show you the art of the possible and give you practical ways to start experimenting—safely, skeptically, and out loud—with AI in your own CE or CS org.