Every post, summarised

Oct 5, 2026

• Intercom

  CX leader Camille Acey on the evolving dynamics in customer service - The Intercom Blog

  Camille E. Acey, a seasoned CX leader and consultant, describes the profound transformation underway in customer service, driven by AI, layoffs, and rising customer expectations. She advises startups to avoid over-hiring senior full-time roles and instead use fractional CX leaders who can establish strategy while junior or mid-level staff manage daily operations. Camille emphasizes that AI cannot replace human empathy and should be deployed first on repetitive, low-hanging tasks, preserving simpler issues for junior talent development. She notes that layoffs will degrade service quality unless leaders secure organizational buy-in, communicate resource impacts, and prioritize essential functions. Customer service teams must partner with product to prioritize requests that deliver the most value for the right target users, not fulfill every wish.

• Intercom

  Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli on how generative AI is transforming video

  Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli explains how generative AI is revolutionizing video production by allowing users to create videos from text without cameras, studios, or actors. The platform, founded in 2017, now serves enterprise customers for training and internal communications, converting text or PowerPoint into editable AI videos. Riparbelli predicts that within the next year, AI avatars will become virtually indistinguishable from real footage, and video may transform into interactive live streams. He notes that Synthesia’s target audience is not professional video producers but the vast number of people who lack resources to make video content. On regulation, he argues for focusing on outcomes rather than limiting the models themselves, given the potential for misuse.

• Intercom

  All that glitters is not gold: Angel investor Christoph Janz on finding the right opportunities in AI - The Intercom Blog

  Angel investor Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital, an early backer of Zendesk and Clio, shares his mental map for generative AI investment opportunities, describing ChatGPT’s launch as a wake-up call that surprised even AI experts. He argues that incumbents like Microsoft dominate horizontal categories such as spreadsheets through bundling and zero pricing, requiring startups to deliver a 10x better and cheaper product to win. Janz recommends targeting vertical markets like dentistry, where direct customer acquisition via industry channels reduces competition, and new categories for previously unsolvable problems, avoiding broad horizontal markets. He notes that relying on GPT-4 may force startups to accept lower gross margins or negative margins temporarily while betting on future cost reductions. For vertical SaaS, he believes persistent 30-50% year-over-year growth over 15 years can yield sizeable businesses due to direct customer access and less competition from large players.

• Intercom

  Turning the tide: CS expert Jo Causon on reviving customer satisfaction rates - The Intercom Blog

  UK customer satisfaction scores have fallen to 2015 levels, the worst drop since the national index began in 2008. Jo Causon, CEO of the Institute of Customer Service, attributes the decline to a perfect storm of recruitment and retention difficulties alongside technology that has not yet delivered on its promises. She notes that organizations spend roughly 20% of their time rectifying problems they created, a massive inefficiency. To reverse the trend, Causon advises embedding a service culture across every department, understanding the full customer journey, and proactively eliminating pain points rather than just handling complaints. Data shows that a 1% rise in employee engagement yields nearly a 0.5% increase in customer satisfaction, reinforcing that customer service must be an organization-wide priority.

• Intercom

  Training the next generation of support leaders with Peak Support’s Hannah Steiman - The Intercom Blog

  Hannah Steiman, President of Peak Support, argues that leadership enablement is critical for support teams in high-growth companies, since many leaders lack formal training and must be developed internally. Key challenges include retraining agents from rule-following to proactive problem-solving, coaching using performance data like DSATs, and engaging teams to maintain motivation. Steiman emphasizes that skills such as proactive thinking, vision setting, transparent communication, and ethical decision-making can be taught and are essential for guiding teams through change. For change management, the best approach is gaining buy-in from key influencers, encouraging transparent feedback, and explaining reasoning behind changes. When implementing AI, Peak Support advises optimizing the knowledge base and automating existing processes first before adding AI to avoid overpaying and poor bot performance.

• Intercom

  HubSpot’s Noel O’Reilly on embracing AI in your customer support strategy - The Intercom Blog

  HubSpot’s Director of Customer Support for EMEA, Noel O’Reilly, discusses the impact of AI on customer service in an Intercom podcast. He argues that AI should automate repetitive tasks, allowing support reps to focus on complex issues and build deeper customer connections, while gaining skills like helping customers optimize automation. O’Reilly emphasizes involving frontline staff in AI implementation to create a robust knowledge base and intuitive automation flows. He notes that maintaining high-quality customer experience requires new evaluation methods, as bot-influenced CSAT may be less relevant for high-performing teams. For small support teams, O’Reilly recommends starting with small AI projects, feeding bots from documentation, and iterating, as AI creates space for high-value work.

• Intercom

  Leonard Berry and the eternal pursuit of service excellence - The Intercom Blog

  In this podcast interview, Leonard Berry discusses his book “On Great Service” and its framework for improving service quality based on research across ten diverse organizations. He argues that great service starts with hiring for values, not just talent, and investing in employee confidence to excel. Berry’s service strategy comprises four components: reliability, surprise (a wow factor), readiness for service recovery, and perceived fairness to stakeholders. Implementation depends on the right organizational structure, technology, and people, supported by a listening system to identify gaps. In an AI-driven world, organizations must balance high-tech solutions with high-touch human interactions, as AI complements but does not replace people.

• Intercom

  Intercom on Product: Product strategy in the age of AI - The Intercom Blog

  In this episode of Intercom on Product, co-founder Des Traynor and CPO Paul Adams discuss how AI, particularly since the launch of ChatGPT, will transform the software industry and urge product leaders to reconsider their strategies for disruption. They argue that to truly disrupt established categories, startups must offer a unique attack angle that incumbents cannot easily replicate, rather than merely adding AI features without strategic differentiation. For product managers, they recommend evaluating AI opportunities by whether they expand the user base, enhance users’ abilities, or eliminate entire tasks, citing customer support as a domain rich with potential. They note that incumbents may survive disruption by integrating AI through APIs, making the ratio of new work required versus existing advantage critical. Traynor advises rereading ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’ to understand true disruption and warns that many AI startups risk becoming unpaid R&D for larger companies that can copy their features.

• Intercom

  Why design should start with words: Elizabeth McGuane, Shopify

  Elizabeth McGuane, UX Director at Shopify, argues that the design process should begin with words—defining concepts and building shared language—before any visual work. She draws on 15 years of experience in web and product design to explain that misalignment often stems from teams arguing over names because they haven’t agreed on what something actually is. Her book ‘Design by Definition’ provides methods to use linguistic elements like metaphor and narrative to frame design problems clearly and improve collaboration across disciplines. McGuane emphasizes treating text as a spatial design element, prioritizing simplification and consistency over literary flourish. The interview also covers how evolving technologies like LLMs challenge traditional interface conventions, requiring designers to rethink their approach.

• Intercom

  The emergence of superintelligent AI - The Intercom Blog

  In their podcast, Intercom’s Fergal Reid and Emmet Connolly examine superintelligent AI, where systems recursively improve beyond human intelligence, now considered a realistic possibility after evidence like Othello-GPT demonstrating reasoning. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute warn that containing such systems may be extremely challenging or impossible, posing an existential risk to humanity. The discussion weighs the need to regulate frontier labs closely while avoiding overregulation that curtails benefits, and notes that computation’s ubiquity makes bans difficult. They address the alignment problem and the debate between doomers and skeptics, arguing that AI is net positive up to human-level intelligence. However, they caution that the threshold beyond human-level requires serious societal engagement, and that the timeline remains uncertain, ranging from years to decades.

• Intercom

  Learn how AI can unlock productivity, according to AI founder Andrew Louder - The Intercom Blog

  AI founder Andrew Louder explains that the days of AI being unattainable are over, with accessible off-the-shelf tools available. He illustrates this with a law firm client that reduced e-discovery work from nearly 1,000 hours per case to about 40-50 hours using AI. Louder advises that the build-versus-buy decision depends on awareness of existing solutions and requirements. He emphasizes that change management, including awareness, communication, and training, is crucial for successful AI adoption. According to Louder, businesses should conduct AI readiness assessments, establish data management plans, and build robust knowledge bases to ensure AI effectiveness.

• Intercom

  Discover the secret sauce of innovative companies, according to Stanford professor Behnam Tabrizi - The Intercom Blog

  Stanford professor Behnam Tabrizi discusses his book ‘Going on Offense,’ which analyzes 26 companies to uncover the culture of perpetual innovation, based on a survey of over 6,000 executives, academics, and industry experts. He explains that Microsoft’s renaissance under Satya Nadella came from elevating engineers, prioritizing cloud computing, and making early bets on AI, creating a startup mindset. Tesla’s unique culture aligns with a holistic approach to cultivating change, inviting active participation across the company and a fierce dedication to overcoming challenges. Legacy companies often fail because they make cautious, incremental bets rather than bold moves like Nvidia’s 2018 bet on AI, which made it a trillion-dollar semiconductor leader. Tabrizi argues AI will not eliminate jobs but will displace those who fail to leverage it effectively, urging organizations to go on offense by deploying AI for growth and productivity.

• Intercom

  The father of customer journey mapping, Chip Bell, talks driving innovation through customer partnership - The Intercom Blog

  Chip Bell, author and co-developer of customer journey mapping, advocates for co-creation partnerships where customers become partners in innovation. By shifting from a transactional relationship to a partnership, companies can unlock customer creativity and unexpected breakthrough solutions. Bell recommends approaching inquiries with genuine curiosity, building trust through truth-telling and promise-keeping, and embracing daredevil learning that treats risk-taking as a learning venture. He contrasts AI’s limitations, stating it cannot replicate the human empathy and emotional depth that underpin genuine customer relationships. The key is to make customers feel welcomed to contribute, transforming them into co-creators of memorable experiences.

• Red Hat

  Why your non-root container dropped its capabilities (and how to fix it)

  A platform engineer traces why a non-root OpenShift container configured with CAP_NET_RAW still fails ping with Operation not permitted. The root cause is that SCC is only an admission-time gate that does not enforce runtime privileges. CRI-O translates the PodSpec into an OCI spec with the capability in the Bounding, Effective, and Permitted sets but deliberately omits ambient capabilities. During the runtime’s UID transition from root to the target non-root user, the kernel clears both Permitted and Effective sets, leaving an empty CapEff. The only mechanism that survives a UID transition for non-root processes is ambient capabilities, which CRI-O intentionally avoids to preserve the Kubernetes assumption that switching to a non-root user drops capabilities. To resolve this, file capabilities can be applied directly to the binary via setcap, avoiding the need for ambient capabilities.

• Red Hat

  Add NeMo Guardrails to a LangGraph agent on OpenShift AI

  LangGraph agents can call tools and follow prompts but lack safety guardrails, risking unsafe responses like explaining fraud. NeMo Guardrails acts as a transparent proxy between the agent and LLM, inspecting every request and response without requiring agent code changes. On Red Hat OpenShift AI, the guardrails service is deployed via a NemoGuardrails custom resource managed by the TrustyAI Operator, and the agent’s BASE_URL points to this service instead of the model endpoint. The example demonstrates three rail types: regex filtering for jailbreak patterns, content safety classification against S1-S13 categories, and topic safety to keep the agent within a banking domain, with optional tracing using MLflow and OpenTelemetry. Rails execute sequentially, with the first failure short-circuiting the chain, and the separation lets safety policy be owned by guardrails while the agent handles reasoning and tools.

• Cloudflare

  Everything we launched during Birthday Week 2026

  Cloudflare marked its 16th Birthday Week with 46 announcements spanning open source, application security, AI agent economics, and developer platform upgrades. The week began with a new agentic CLI called cf, an open-source generation pipeline called Forge, and EmDash, a serverless CMS with sandboxed plugins. Tuesday focused on Cloudflare’s intention to become a public certificate authority and post-quantum security tools. Wednesday introduced Pay Per Use and the Monetization Gateway, creating an economic model for AI agents to pay creators when using their content. The week closed with features for faster connectivity and broader accessibility.

• Cloudflare

  One year later: the power of 1.1.1.1 interns

  Cloudflare’s internship program, announced a year ago with a goal of 1,111 interns, has hosted 750 interns across 48 teams in nine offices worldwide, including Austin, San Francisco, and London. Interns shipped Cache Transcoding, compressing assets to a third of their on-disk size with Zstandard; CryptoLabe, an internal AI tool for cryptography mapping; and post-quantum visibility in Logpush. AI tools helped interns learn codebases faster and prototype ideas, but managers and mentors remained essential; Iliana measured BGP ORIGIN rewriting on 70% of paths and publicly advocated for removing ORIGIN from route selection. Several Birthday Week launches included intern-authored work, such as Protected Quick Tunnels and native Rust in Workers. The program continues hiring, with many interns returning full-time, aiming to build a new generation of builders.

• Jetbrains

  TeamCity 2026.2.1 and 2026.1.5 Are Out

  JetBrains has released TeamCity 2026.2.1 and 2026.1.5, two bug-fix updates for the On-Premises versions of TeamCity that address more than 40 security vulnerabilities combined. These updates also resolve specific regressions including TFS projects failing to display diffs, YAML configuration import issues from a main repository branch, and MSBuild tools not being detected after the Visual Studio Build Tools 2026 September update. In addition to the numerous security fixes, these releases deliver performance improvements, better compatibility with integrations, and faster, more stable builds for users. A key compatibility feature allows upgrades or downgrades within the same major version without requiring backup restoration because bug-fix releases share a common data format. Users can upgrade via automatic update within TeamCity, direct download from the JetBrains website, or by pulling the updated Docker image from Docker Hub.

• Jetbrains

  Discontinuing Swift Language IDE Support in the Kotlin Multiplatform Plugin

  JetBrains is discontinuing Swift language IDE features in the Kotlin Multiplatform plugin starting with IntelliJ IDEA 2026.3 and Android Studio Rabbit 2 | 2026.2.2, including editing, syntax highlighting, and navigation within Swift files and between Swift and Kotlin. Running iOS applications and debugging Kotlin code on iOS will remain fully supported, and Kotlin/Native functionality such as Swift Export is unaffected. The existing Swift functionality will remain available in earlier versions of IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio, and the KMP plugin, though these older versions will not receive further updates. The decision follows analysis showing limited and declining usage, with most iOS developers on KMP projects preferring Xcode for Swift development. The Swift support, originally developed for AppCode, required substantial effort to stay compatible with changes in Swift, Xcode, and the IntelliJ Platform.

• Twilio

  Twilio Reaches Branded Calling Milestone Across AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Networks

  Consumers rarely answer unknown numbers, causing legitimate business calls from pharmacies, banks, and delivery drivers to be ignored. Branded Calling addresses this by displaying a verified brand name, logo, and call reason on the recipient’s device to establish trust before the recipient decides to pick up. Twilio expanded Branded Calling to include AT&T (in pilot) alongside T-Mobile and Verizon, building on work since 2021 when they executed the first wireless call using Rich Call Data (RCD) over the PSTN authenticated with STIR/SHAKEN, and later documented the approach and brought the feature to general availability. Customer CareSignal, a healthcare engagement platform, saw a 21% increase in call answer rates. Twilio emphasizes that trust must extend beyond voice to channels like RCS, WhatsApp, Email, and Apple Messages for Business, so the same verified brand carries through every step.