At Freshworks Refresh, leaders from Freshworks and Forrester explored why many enterprises are struggling to move AI initiatives from experimentation into meaningful production deployment. According to the discussion, successful AI transformation requires organizations to operate at two distinct speeds simultaneously: a deliberate pace for redesigning core business processes and a faster, experimental pace for testing and learning in real-world environments. In this interview, Freshworks CMO Kady Srinivasan and Forrester principal analyst Julie Mohr explain how traditional IT service metrics are becoming increasingly outdated in the AI era. The conversation examines why organizations are shifting from service-level agreements (SLAs) focused on ticket closure speed toward experience-level agreements (XLAs) that measure employee productivity, sentiment, and operational outcomes instead of simple throughput. The discussion also highlights the growing importance of unified operational context for agentic AI systems. Freshworks shares how its evolving architecture combines asset, incident, and employee data into a consolidated foundation designed to support AI agents at enterprise scale. The interview provides insight into how organizations can balance governance, experimentation, and operational modernization while building AI-ready service management environments.
