How Empathy’s Building Unique Experiences with Smarts, Heart & Technology

This post captures key insights from our recent Mission Ops Possible podcast episode featuring Sophie Ruddock, COO of Empathy. Listen to the full conversation for deeper insights into scaling with empathy and building mission-driven technology.

In a world where technology often feels cold and impersonal, Sophie Ruddock is proving that the most powerful innovations come from combining cutting-edge tech with genuine human compassion. As COO of Empathy, she's leading the Ops of a company that operates at the intersection of insurance, legacy planning, and tech-enabled care—helping families navigate one of life's most challenging experiences: loss.

The False Choice Between Scale and Quality

Most growing companies face what seems like an inevitable trade-off: maintain intimate, high-quality service or scale rapidly to reach more customers. Sophie and her team at Empathy have rejected this premise entirely.

"We don't believe in false choices," Sophie explains. "I don't believe that you should only have quality or scale."

The results speak for themselves. Since their founding four years ago, Empathy has achieved 10x growth over the last two years. One in five life insurance claims now covers their services, reaching 40 million people across the United States and Canada. Yet remarkably, their Net Promoter Score and customer satisfaction ratings haven't just held steady—they've improved. Last month marked their highest-ever family satisfaction score.

This isn't an accident. Both scale and quality metrics serve as North Star indicators for the business, creating essential guardrails and checks and balances. Every team, from product to customer success to care management, maintains relentless focus on enhancing the family experience.

"We will never trade efficiency for empathy," Sophie emphasizes. "If a shortcut will damage that experience, we ultimately won't take it."

Technology as a Force Multiplier for Human Connection

The Empathy app addresses both practical and emotional needs following a loss. On the practical side, it helps with everything from probate processes (crucial since two-thirds of Americans don't have wills) to closing accounts, planning funerals, and writing obituaries. Emotionally, it provides pathways for people to get back on their feet after losing a loved one.

But technology doesn't replace the human element—it amplifies it. Empathy's care team consists of licensed therapists, former social workers, and grief counselors who provide the emotional connection, nuance, and trust that technology cannot yet replicate.

"The human connection is something that still cannot yet be replicated," Sophie notes. "When someone is going through a loss, there is a desire to feel heard, but also a need to help navigate that."

The key insight is positioning AI and automation as supporters, not leaders. Technology handles background work like summarizing conversations, pulling up relevant resources, and surfacing personalized recommendations. This frees care managers to focus entirely on the person in front of them, staying present during conversations rather than getting bogged down in documentation.

Breaking Down Silos for Better Outcomes

One of Sophie's most powerful observations centers on the danger of organizational silos. At Empathy, product managers sit side by side with care managers, observing workflows, listening to anonymized calls, and understanding the number of clicks required to serve a family effectively.

"When you have a product manager sitting side by side with a care manager, you're actually seeing their workflows, you're hearing the questions," Sophie explains. "At the end of the day, it all goes back to empathy. I think that's the most important skillset for a product manager as well—to truly understand what your user is going through."

This cross-functional collaboration extends beyond product development. The partner success team works closely with product teams, and external advisors from the field ensure knowledge and content remain best in class. The result is technology that feels intuitive and supportive rather than frustrating or disconnected.

The Strategic Application of AI

While many companies rush to implement AI everywhere, Empathy has taken a more measured approach. Every AI-supported output gets reviewed by humans, with real-life human feedback shaping how AI is built and deployed. They don't use their data to train external models, and they would never experiment with families' experiences.

"This isn't an area that you want to experiment with," Sophie emphasizes, highlighting the particular sensitivity required when working with people in vulnerable situations.

Their AI applications focus on practical enhancements: streamlining automated tasks for care managers, creating one-stop shops for building wills and trusts (reducing what once took tens of hours to a matter of clicks), and internal community moderation to ensure safe peer support spaces.

The guiding principle remains constant: grief isn't generic, and support can't be one-size-fits-all. AI helps with the "how," but humans own the "why."

Redefining Operations in the Modern Era

Sophie sees operations professionals as uniquely positioned to drive impact in today's technology landscape. Rather than operating in silos, the most effective ops professionals serve as bridges between go-to-market teams and product development.

"You really do sit at the intersection of go-to-market and product," she explains. "The more you can play that bridge, the more you can both align internal incentives and deliver something that is 10x more impactful."

This evolution transforms operations from a reactive, firefighting role into a proactive, strategic function. As AI handles more routine tasks, operations professionals can focus on higher-level problem-solving, root cause analysis, and building sustainable systems that maintain quality at scale.

The Ultimate Lesson: Stay Close to Your Users

Throughout our conversation, one theme remained constant: the importance of staying connected to the people you're building for. Sophie's advice for anyone looking to make a difference through technology is elegantly simple yet profound:

"Stay close to the people you're building for and build with the user in mind. The best tech isn't gonna just solve problems, it's gonna honor and empower the people experiencing them."

In our rush to build and scale, it's easy to lose sight of the "so what"—the fundamental reason why your work matters. For Empathy, that reason is crystal clear: making one of life's most difficult experiences just a little bit less hard.

As technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, Empathy's approach offers a blueprint for building companies that don't just succeed financially, but genuinely improve human lives. The future belongs to organizations that can combine technological excellence with deep empathy—and Sophie Ruddock is showing us exactly how to get there.

Want to dive deeper into Sophie's insights? Listen to the full episode of Mission Ops Possible to hear more about Empathy's scaling strategies, their approach to AI implementation, and practical tips for operations professionals looking to make a bigger impact.

You can also find Mission Ops Possible on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms.