eBay VP Dan Leiva Exits Role Overseeing AI Customer Support To Launch Private Consulting Firm
eBay is losing a key leader of their AI support initiatives as VP Customer Service & Marketing Technology, Dan Leiva, heads for semi-retirement and a private consulting gig after almost 9 years at the company with previous stints at Apple, Intuit and more.
During his time at eBay, which started in 2017, Leiva led a team of over 900 professionals in Product Management, Design, Engineering, and Technology Operations, overseeing the technology infrastructure for eBay's Customer Service (both Digital and Live), Payment Operations, CRM, and Marketing (Performance and Customer) experiences.
He posted the news of his departure on LinkedIn, while also launching his consulting business, CXAmplify, where he will be "helping organizations optimize their customer experiences, implement AI the right way and drive meaningful growth."
Implementing AI customer support experiences was a major focus of his tenure at eBay, though buyers and sellers may have differing opinions about whether it has been done "the right away."
Liz Morton
After the announcement that previous US General Manage Dawn Block was taking on a new role as VP Global Customer Experience last month, sellers had hoped new leadership might finally fix long standing problems with support at the company and actually provide the "phenomenal" customer experience her predecessor, Derek Allgood, had promised in 2024.
Liz Morton
But recent job ads on eBay's careers page show the company plans to continue moving full speed ahead to integrate AI in the support experience, despite overwhelming sentiment from sellers that they need more human-centered help, not less.
For example, eBay recently posted a job ad for a Senior Director, CX (Customer Experience) Engineering with a "clear directive" to "leverage AI to redefine our customer journey, simultaneously achieving a new global standard for hyper-personalized and proactive customer interactions."
While the ad used corporate buzzwords like "customer-centricity", it's clear the real priority is cost savings and Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) impact - though eBay may want to actually speak to their customers about how they really feel about AI support experiences if they also care about seller retention.
Of course this isn't the first time eBay has looked to AI to cut costs on customer service, it's simply the next step in a multi-year "transformation."
For example, back in 2023, eBay spent ~$12 Million dollars overhauling their automated support systems that increasingly shuffle users to AI chat rather than human reps - a move that led to frustrating "call routing" issues for Anchor and Enterprise store subscribers last year.
Liz Morton
After mass layoffs were announced at the beginning of 2024, sellers worried that already lacking customer service would take a hit as the company looked to AI for even more cost-cutting.
Those fears turned out to be well-founded as CEO Jamie Iannone and then CFO Steve Priest told investors just a few months later that they had been deploying more AI into their global customer experience (GCX) operations, crowing about no longer having to pay customer service reps to read detailed explanations of business impacting issues from sellers before responding to their requests for help.
Liz Morton
eBay deals with a lot of customer support between buyers and sellers. And that customer agent sometimes had to read like a 12 paragraph e-mail where somebody explained it, we would hire someone to read that.
Now we have AI read that email, write the initial response. So it's fundamentally changing our pace of how we work and the pace of innovation.
Many sellers would likely agree this increasing automation of support has fundamentally changed things at eBay - but not for the better.
More recently, many sellers have been unceremoniously dumped from the eBay Concierge support program with no warning, despite previously being granted "lifetime" status as a token of eBay's appreciation for their years of selling.
Ironically, eBay had promised it was going to "fix customer service" way back in 2017 when then SVP Global Operations & Customer Service Wendy Jones acknowledged eBay had a lot of work to do.
Our reality today is that we don't make it easy for our customers. The rules and the systems are too complex, they are at times inconsistent, and in today's digital world of ecommerce, they're too slow......Our Unifying Purpose. We exist to help our customers and solve their problems in the quickest, simplest, easiest way possible… and make them feel great about eBay along the way.
Jones and then VP Customer Experience, North America Cathal McCarthy unveiled plans for eBay's higher tier support experience called Concierge. While it was initially promoted as an invite only program, it was made clear the plan was to make many parts of Concierge the standard support experience for all eBay sellers within 18 months...which obviously never happened.
Despite having decidedly not fixed customer service at eBay, Jones was awarded an $11 Million bonus in 2018 by then CEO Devin Wenig ($8 Million of which was a retention bonus.)
Sellers at the time questioned the wisdom of such a large bonus, given the still lagging state of customer support under her purview, and it was also seen by many as particularly insensitive given the round of layoffs the company undertook around the same time.
When Jones stepped down from her position in 2020 under current CEO Jamie Iannone, she collected another $11 Million+ in severance benefits, again despite perennial complaints about falling levels of service and failing to bring Concierge to the masses - and despite her alleged role in the 2019 eBay cyberstalking scandal.
Now, eBay has pulled the rug out from under sellers who had previously enjoyed that higher tier of support, telling them they no longer meet an "evolving threshold" meant to ensure the best support is reserved for those sellers who make up the top 10% of Gross Merchandise Volume on the platform - leaving these customers in the hands of lower tier support, or the AI self-service tools introduced by Leiva.
Liz Morton
Of course that doesn't even touch on the many problems that can occur when AI and automation take the place of humans for critical policy enforcement and trust and safety roles.
Liz Morton
And as one of Leiva's last initiatives at the company, eBay announced a partnership with Artium.AI and OpenAI to "build a next-generation AI customer service platform" last month, along with other AI-focused investments planned for 2026.
Liz Morton
This is also the second high-level AI executive loss for eBay in the last month as Chief Privacy Officer and VP AI and Data Responsibility, Anna Zeiter, also recently departed after 11.5 years at the company.
Liz Morton
It's not entirely clear if the VP Customer Service & Marketing Technology responsibilities will be rolling up into an existing role (possibly under Dawn Block) or if eBay will be hiring externally or promoting internally to fill this position.
eBay has not responded to request for comment as of time of publishing.
