Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

AI is changing how engineering teams work faster than most organizations can adapt. Coding assistants are now part of the daily workflow, agents are starting to own tasks end-to-end, and the way we deliver software is being redefined in real time. With that shift, engineering leaders are facing a new set of questions. Are these tools actually improving outcomes? Where are they falling short? Which teams are seeing value, and which aren’t?

AI agents are only as good as what they know. Right now, most don’t know enough. Not because the AI is broken, but because the data is. Information is scattered across tools, siloed by department, stripped of the human context that makes it useful. Agents guess. They hallucinate. Teams splinter around different versions of the truth. Context isn’t a file or a ticket. It’s the space in between: why a decision was made, who owns it now, what broke last time.

More than half of IC professionals use gen AI multiple times a week, with a considerable impact on productivity. They turn to AI to research information, take notes, and generate content. The tools are open in the background. The habit is formed. But routine use and strategic use are different things.

Operations teams are drowning in work that shouldn't require a human brain. Status updates. Resource shuffling. Chasing down project data that lives in six different tools. I spent years managing client delivery for agency teams before joining Teamwork.com, and the pattern I kept seeing was the same: smart people spending their best hours on administrative work instead of strategy. Now, with the emergence of practical AI and automation, we finally have the tools to do something about it.

A conversation with Freshworks Chief Product Officer Srini Raghavan.

AI tools are everywhere in agencies today. Upto 78% of organizations globally are already using AI in at least one business function. Many agencies are using ChatGPT for content, Midjourney for design, SurferSEO for optimization, and dozens of other tools to work faster and deliver more. But here’s the problem: While AI is speeding up execution, most agencies still lack visibility into how these tools are actually impacting productivity, billable work, and team performance.