Freshworks Refresh 2026: pivot to AI-driven employee experience

What customers need to know now

Freshworks CTO Murali Swaminathan tells Computer Weekly in a one-to-one interview that he believes the on-stage announcements demonstrate that the company is pivoting strategically to develop a competitive edge in the age of AI.

“We’re trying to make our platform more configurable and usable,” he says. “It’s not like we’re trying to bring everyone else to our interface. Instead, we want to be more interoperable with everyone else. The MCP Gateway, for example, means our customers can use our technology to call any AI.”

This approach resonates with Chris Kairinos, senior director of global modern workplace technology, client services and technology operations at A+E Global Media. He explains to Computer Weekly how his media company has used Freshworks technology since late 2020.

During the past six years, Kairinos has continued to hone his company’s use of the platform. He says he is impressed with some of the new features, particularly Agent Studio. At a time when his company, like so many others, is attempting to plot a roadmap towards agentic AI in support services, Kairinos says he also likes the in-built flexibility of MCP Gateway. 

“The Freshworks approach is all about growing the ecosystem,” he says. “The MCP Gateway is going to help a lot. Before, you might have used something like Copilot Studio with Microsoft, but then, when you come to adding the technology to your platforms, you might encounter integration issues.”

Kairinos says he regularly speaks with the Freshworks product team about new features, adding that the company’s focus on interoperability is crucial to helping alleviate long-term integration concerns. “I say to the product team at Freshworks that AI is a case of, ‘Who’s the best kid in the playground?’” he says.

Success in the age of AI will be all about which provider will play nicest with your existing digital stack

“Success in the age of AI will be all about which provider will play nicest with your existing digital stack. With the technology they’ve demoed on stage, and from an MCP standpoint, Freshworks is a pretty good kid in that playground at the minute, and the position is only going to get better.”

Speaking on stage at the event, Julie Mohr, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, says the key to unlocking value from AI is focusing on the right business outcomes. Companies can use AI-powered technologies to boost employee experiences. However, their effectiveness will rely on in-depth expertise, and that’s where Freshworks can play a supporting role.

“Skill sets in AI are at a premium right now,” she says. “For people to make the right decisions and to understand how to transform, they need those skills. And because companies don’t necessarily fully understand what that transformation is going to look like, they’re going to rely on vendors and partners.”

The key to success for technology providers like Freshworks, suggests Swaminathan, is openness. Gone are the days when enterprise software specialists maintained a strong firewall that kept customers locked to their limited set of services. In the AI era, companies must be open to new interfaces and partnerships.

“Every single player has to coexist with the rest of the players, and interoperability is going to be the biggest thing that drives success,” he says. “You can’t force customers to say you have to use this tool or that tool. The customer is going to use the tool of their choice, and you have to be able to embed yourself or connect to that tool.”

Understanding the technology roadmap

While the announcements at the event highlight Freshworks’ desire to prepare for an agentic future, Swaminathan says customers should be aware that the company’s new features aren’t only focused on agents. He says the firm is aiming for breadth and depth, both in the features it offers and the ways it supports its clients.

“I meet many customers, and not everybody’s ready to embrace AI yet,” he adds. “They have their own challenges. So, we are in this mode where we still have to support folks who don’t use AI and those who do. That reality means everything we build has to be built with a mindset that says, ‘Okay, the world is moving, but not moving as fast as the technology is changing.’”

Swaminathan’s point is an interesting one – sometimes, technology suppliers, perhaps unwittingly, innovate faster than their customers can absorb. Speaking to Computer Weekly at the event, Shannon Kalvar, research director at analyst IDC, discusses Freshworks’ strategy.

“What they’re trying to say is that we can help mid-sized enterprises to achieve the end goal you’re headed towards, which is a world where you are working with your digital estate, not just as a productivity tool, but as a production tool,” he says. “They were saying, ‘It’s the world you already find yourself in, but you’re not ready.’”

Kalvar suggests that enterprises need to become agile organisations – and reaching this position might require a heavy lift for slower-moving firms. For Freshworks, like for all enterprise software providers, pushing transformation at the right pace for digital leaders is crucial. So, should Freshworks develop a strategy to help its customers manage cultural change?

The answer, says Swaminathan, is maybe. He stresses that the company already has an AI advisory group to help guide customers through the change process. While companies will have to deal with the “heavy stuff” behind the scenes, Swaminathan recognises that the rise of agentic AI poses new challenges and that advisory input can be crucial.

“A lot of the functionality we have in the product, you can turn it on and start using it,” he says. “But AI is one area where we will have to guide customers through the process. So, with our AI advisory and some of our specialised engineering, we want to help by providing white-glove service to the right customers, because that’s how we think they can be successful.”

Regardless of the route to the destination, one thing is certain: Freshworks’ future is all about embracing AI. So far, the market likes the moves the company is making. Before the New York event, the company presented its quarterly results in an earnings call. In Q1 2026, revenue rose 16% year-over-year to $228.6m.

During the call, Freshworks announced it would lay off roughly 500 employees (around 11% of staff). The company’s CEO, Dennis Woodside, stated the cuts are due to over 50% of the company’s code now being written by AI, reducing the need for traditional manual coding and allowing the company to streamline operations.

Woodside says on the earnings call: “About over half of our code is originated in AI today, and like many other software companies, that is definitely changing how we build products, how fast we can build products, and the amount of people who we need to build products.”

Freshworks is far from alone in announcing IT job cuts and joins an ever-growing list of technology firms that are seeing the power of AI-enabled code. At the event, Swaminathan tells Computer Weekly that the company recognises that innovation velocity has increased with AI-enabled development.

“That capability means we can do more quickly,” he says. “The speed and agility are where we’re seeing the difference, right? So, that’s what we have to figure out: how do we level up our engineers to do bigger things faster?”

Asked to paint a picture of how Freshworks and its services will look three years from now, Swaminathan says it won’t just be his company that uses AI heavily. He says AI-powered services will continue to mature, as will customers’ approaches, including firms that are slower to embrace AI right now.

“I said earlier that not everyone is ready for AI,” he says. “In three years, every customer will be there. That means we won’t need two ways to support customers; instead, everyone will be using AI. That means a lot of the workflows will be autonomous, and every single feature will be AI native or AI-powered.”