Buyer and worker expertise software program provider Freshworks is pivoting in the direction of synthetic intelligence (AI)-driven worker expertise (EX). This transfer, which locations AI on the coronary heart of the agency’s technique, has vital implications for corporations and professionals counting on its Freshservice platform.
That’s the key takeaway from Freshworks Refresh 2026 in New York Metropolis, the place senior executives define the corporate’s product roadmap, and prospects current best-practice methods they’ve adopted to benefit from the platform. What’s clear throughout the occasion is that the know-how agency appears wanting to do issues in another way from its opponents, comparable to Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot and ServiceNow.
Dennis Woodside, CEO and president at Freshworks, says in his keynote speech to service leaders within the room that his firm absorbs the complexity of contemporary enterprise to allow them to do their jobs higher. He means that attending professionals share one thing in frequent: “You all guess on a unique manner of doing enterprise software program.”
In the course of the keynote and a collection of product-focused classes, Woodside and his colleagues define new options the corporate hopes will differentiate it from its opponents. The intention is to create an agile, open platform for connecting belongings and incidents, with the corporate’s Freddy AI know-how on the coronary heart of an agentic method to buyer assist.
Freshworks introduced a collection of product options on the occasion, together with AI Agent Studio, its no-code agent builder; MCP Gateway, which bridges Freshservice with the AI instruments prospects select; and new efficiency dashboards that supply AI-powered insights to service leaders charged with delivering high-quality EX.
Woodside says these capabilities will place Freshservice for a unbroken data-enabled transformation that may speed up throughout the subsequent two years. He suggests everybody’s world will change in three radical methods.
First, professionals in any respect ranges in all sectors will depend on hundreds of brokers that have to be ruled and identifiable.
Second, conventional efficiency measures, comparable to service-level agreements (SLAs), will likely be changed by experience-level agreements, as service leaders intention to make sure agentic-enabled assist boosts workers productiveness.
Lastly, in an age when operations will likely be extra proactive than reactive, organisations would require a single supply of reality that human and AI brokers can belief.
“Once you take a look at what we’re transport at this time and what we’re speaking about for the long run, these are the beliefs that we’re constructing in the direction of,” says Woodside, as he concludes his keynote. “So, the query actually isn’t whether or not that is going to occur; it’s going to occur. The query is, ‘Who do you belief to stroll into that future with you?’”
What prospects must know now
Freshworks CTO Murali Swaminathan tells Pc Weekly in a one-to-one interview that he believes the on-stage bulletins display that the corporate is pivoting strategically to develop a aggressive edge within the age of AI.
“We’re making an attempt to make our platform extra configurable and usable,” he says. “It’s not like we’re making an attempt to carry everybody else to our interface. As an alternative, we need to be extra interoperable with everybody else. The MCP Gateway, for instance, means our prospects can use our know-how to name any AI.”
This method resonates with Chris Kairinos, senior director of worldwide fashionable office know-how, consumer companies and know-how operations at A+E World Media. He explains to Pc Weekly how his media firm has used Freshworks know-how since late 2020.
In the course of the previous six years, Kairinos has continued to hone his firm’s use of the platform. He says he’s impressed with among the new options, notably Agent Studio. At a time when his firm, like so many others, is making an attempt to plot a roadmap in the direction of agentic AI in assist companies, Kairinos says he additionally likes the in-built flexibility of MCP Gateway.
“The Freshworks method is all about rising the ecosystem,” he says. “The MCP Gateway goes to assist quite a bit. Earlier than, you might need used one thing like Copilot Studio with Microsoft, however then, whenever you come to including the know-how to your platforms, you may encounter integration points.”
Kairinos says he recurrently speaks with the Freshworks product crew about new options, including that the corporate’s deal with interoperability is essential to serving to alleviate long-term integration considerations. “I say to the product crew at Freshworks that AI is a case of, ‘Who’s the most effective child within the playground?’” he says.
Success within the age of AI will likely be all about which supplier will play nicest together with your present digital stack Chris Kairinos, A+E World Media
“Success within the age of AI will likely be all about which supplier will play nicest together with your present digital stack. With the know-how they’ve demoed on stage, and from an MCP standpoint, Freshworks is a fairly good child in that playground on the minute, and the place is just going to get higher.”
Talking on stage on the occasion, Julie Mohr, principal analyst at analysis agency Forrester, says the important thing to unlocking worth from AI is specializing in the best enterprise outcomes. Corporations can use AI-powered applied sciences to spice up worker experiences. Nonetheless, their effectiveness will depend on in-depth experience, and that’s the place Freshworks can play a supporting position.
“Ability units in AI are at a premium proper now,” she says. “For folks to make the best selections and to know the right way to remodel, they want these abilities. And since corporations don’t essentially absolutely perceive what that transformation goes to appear to be, they’re going to depend on distributors and companions.”
The important thing to success for know-how suppliers like Freshworks, suggests Swaminathan, is openness. Gone are the times when enterprise software program specialists maintained a robust firewall that saved prospects locked to their restricted set of companies. Within the AI period, corporations have to be open to new interfaces and partnerships.
“Each single participant has to coexist with the remainder of the gamers, and interoperability goes to be the most important factor that drives success,” he says. “You possibly can’t power prospects to say you need to use this instrument or that instrument. The client goes to make use of the instrument of their alternative, and you’ve got to have the ability to embed your self or hook up with that instrument.”
Understanding the know-how roadmap
Whereas the bulletins on the occasion spotlight Freshworks’ want to arrange for an agentic future, Swaminathan says prospects must be conscious that the corporate’s new options aren’t solely targeted on brokers. He says the agency is aiming for breadth and depth, each within the options it gives and the methods it helps its shoppers.
“I meet many purchasers, and never all people’s able to embrace AI but,” he provides. “They’ve their very own challenges. So, we’re on this mode the place we nonetheless need to assist people who don’t use AI and people who do. That actuality means every thing we construct must be constructed with a mindset that claims, ‘Okay, the world is transferring, however not transferring as quick because the know-how is altering.’”
Swaminathan’s level is an attention-grabbing one – typically, know-how suppliers, maybe unwittingly, innovate quicker than their prospects can soak up. Chatting with Pc Weekly on the occasion, Shannon Kalvar, analysis director at analyst IDC, discusses Freshworks’ technique.
“What they’re making an attempt to say is that we may also help mid-sized enterprises to realize the top objective you’re headed in the direction of, which is a world the place you’re working together with your digital property, not simply as a productiveness instrument, however as a manufacturing instrument,” he says. “They have been saying, ‘It’s the world you already end up in, however you’re not prepared.’”
Kalvar means that enterprises must develop into agile organisations – and reaching this place may require a heavy carry for slower-moving corporations. For Freshworks, like for all enterprise software program suppliers, pushing transformation on the proper tempo for digital leaders is essential. So, ought to Freshworks develop a technique to assist its prospects handle cultural change?
The reply, says Swaminathan, is perhaps. He stresses that the corporate already has an AI advisory group to assist information prospects by the change course of. Whereas corporations should take care of the “heavy stuff” behind the scenes, Swaminathan recognises that the rise of agentic AI poses new challenges and that advisory enter will be essential.
“Plenty of the performance we’ve got within the product, you’ll be able to flip it on and begin utilizing it,” he says. “However AI is one space the place we should information prospects by the method. So, with our AI advisory and a few of our specialised engineering, we need to assist by offering white-glove service to the best prospects, as a result of that’s how we predict they are often profitable.”
Whatever the path to the vacation spot, one factor is definite: Freshworks’ future is all about embracing AI. Up to now, the market likes the strikes the corporate is making. Earlier than the New York occasion, the corporate offered its quarterly ends in an earnings name. In Q1 2026, income rose 16% year-over-year to $228.6m.
In the course of the name, Freshworks introduced it will lay off roughly 500 workers (round 11% of workers). The corporate’s CEO, Dennis Woodside, acknowledged the cuts are resulting from over 50% of the corporate’s code now being written by AI, decreasing the necessity for conventional guide coding and permitting the corporate to streamline operations.
Woodside says on the earnings name: “About over half of our code is originated in AI at this time, and like many different software program corporations, that’s positively altering how we construct merchandise, how briskly we are able to construct merchandise, and the quantity of people that we have to construct merchandise.”
Freshworks is much from alone in saying IT job cuts and joins an ever-growing listing of know-how corporations which can be seeing the facility of AI-enabled code. On the occasion, Swaminathan tells Pc Weekly that the corporate recognises that innovation velocity has elevated with AI-enabled growth.
“That functionality means we are able to do extra rapidly,” he says. “The pace and agility are the place we’re seeing the distinction, proper? So, that’s what we’ve got to determine: how will we stage up our engineers to do greater issues quicker?”
Requested to color an image of how Freshworks and its companies will look three years from now, Swaminathan says it gained’t simply be his firm that makes use of AI closely. He says AI-powered companies will proceed to mature, as will prospects’ approaches, together with corporations which can be slower to embrace AI proper now.
“I mentioned earlier that not everybody is prepared for AI,” he says. “In three years, each buyer will likely be there. Which means we gained’t want two methods to assist prospects; as a substitute, everybody will likely be utilizing AI. Which means numerous the workflows will likely be autonomous, and each single function will likely be AI native or AI-powered.”
