AI is no longer in a hype cycle: Freshworks CTO Murali Swaminathan
In an exclusive interview with YourStory, Freshworks CTO Murali Swaminathan discusses his plans for the Nasdaq-listed company, outlining how it intends to expand its product suite in both the customer experience and employee experience spheres with AI’s push.
AI agents—autonomous bots that can learn from their environment—are the latest trend in the SaaS sphere. The possibilities, according to industry watchers, are many and range from predicting market trends in trading to providing 24-hour customer support.
And, every company in the SaaS segment wants a piece of this AI agentic pie.
For Murali Swaminathan, who joined as CTO of last September, this trend presents unique challenges as well as an opportunity to scale the Chennai-based company.
In an exclusive interview with YourStory, Swaminathan discusses his plans for the Nasdaq-listed firm, explains why AI is not in a hype cycle, and outlines how its AI agent solution tool—Freddy AI—is proving to be a gamechanger.
Freddy AI, launched mid-February last year, has roped in over 1,700 paying customers as of Q3 FY24.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
YourStory (YS): You’ve just stepped into the role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Freshworks. What are your top tech priorities for the firm?
Murali Swaminatha (MS): I joined Freshworks in September last year, so it's been four-plus months here. I've spent about 25-plus years in the industry, working for different companies. Most recently, I was with ServiceNow, leading the flagship ITSM portfolio for ServiceNow, along with a few other products.
When I considered Freshworks, the main reason was the potential in the market for us to go big. Freshworks started in the SME space and is now moving up the chain—into the mid-market and enterprise. A lot of things we tried and tested, along with lessons learned, can be applied back to Freshworks. That’s how I made the choice to join the firm.
As a company, we are already doing well in the SMB and commercial space, but as we move into enterprises, we need to strengthen our enterprise readiness. Teams need to focus on quality, predictability, delivery, road mapping, sharing what's coming, and involving customers in what we’re doing—seeking feedback throughout the journey.
Of course, the whole AI journey is a journey by itself. It’s no longer just a hype cycle—it’s becoming real. Customers now ask, “How can I benefit from AI? What is the ROI?” It’s about showing them how AI saves time, resources, or makes employees more productive, such as deflecting support issues or helping agents solve problems faster.
It’s a combination of all these factors—it’s an “and,” not an “or.”
These are the areas that CIOs and customer service leaders are looking at. Lastly, we’re expanding our global footprint. Freshworks operates in 120 countries across five regions, and as we enter enterprises, we must support their presence across continents. That includes providing bilingual support and ensuring data remains within regions due to compliance requirements.
YS: Could you mention a few key geographies for the company?
MS: We are already in North America, Europe, and APAC. We’re growing more in the Middle East and the MEA region. Last year, we set up a data centre in Dubai to support the Middle East. Some customers have data residency requirements, so having specific regional infrastructure is crucial.
We have data centers in India, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and the US. We’re also looking at the UK and Latin America as potential expansion areas. We’re partnering with AWS, which provides GTM (go-to-market) support through programs like the Passport Program.
This partnership helps us scale in these markets. We’re also collaborating with Microsoft Azure to ensure our AI features operate across regions while maintaining data residency compliance.
YS: Many firms are focusing on AI agents now. What’s your take on this trend?
MS: Agents are a broader evolution from traditional bots, which were purpose-driven. But if you have to build more intelligence into the whole system, where you try to use it for reasoning, planning, and execution — that’s when Agents come into play.
Initially, large language models (LLMs) focused on text-based responses without reasoning. AI agents are providing that superpower to the LLMs to reason and then do a considered number of tasks without you having to think about.
For instance, if an employee wants to check vacation days and log a request, an agent can manage this end-to-end—fetching data, validating availability, and processing the request.
YS: Are there any upcoming products in the pipeline for 2025 or beyond?
MS: We have the Freddy AI agent, which provides a self-service experience for employees or customers to get queries answered or tasks completed. Then we have the Freddy Copilot, which supports the agent persona. Additionally, we’re releasing Freddy Insights, a tool designed to analyse what went wrong and provide proactive insights.
Most of the time, teams identify issues only after they occur—like realising they handled more cases than expected last week and need to plan for more agents in the future. Freddy Insights identifies anomalies early, such as an unexpected spike in cases, highlights the root causes, and even suggests actions.
We’ve already released the first stage of Insights in beta, gathered feedback, and recently launched a private beta with root cause analysis capabilities. It now helps customers understand how anomalies occurred and provides recommendations to address them.
YS: Freshworks has a strong mid-market presence and is also growing within enterprise markets. What are some key considerations to ensure your products scale to large enterprises?
MS: Freshworks has already established a strong brand, with over 70,000 customers across small, medium, and large businesses. When we engage with enterprises, they often ask about scalability, availability, and SLAs. We’re explicit about these aspects, showcasing our capabilities.
In recent months, several customers have switched from competitors to Freshworks – all because they see the confidence in what we have done. For example, Freshservice offers a more integrated experience than some of our peers. Our AI capabilities are included in enterprise packages, so customers don’t have to buy separate AI tools or hire developers to configure our no-code platform.
We are a multi-tenant business running on AWS, ensuring top-notch performance and scalability, which means I never lose sleep over infrastructure concerns. Instead, we focus on solving our customers’ business problems, ensuring they see ROI and value in our offerings.
We are now 700 plus million dollars in revenue – the more customers you have, the more business problems you're solving. The more businesses we are reaching out to and they are then solving the needs of the market. We are supporting enterprises to run their business better.
YS: How is Freshworks leveraging India’s market potential and talent pool to drive innovation in customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX)?
MS: India has always been a key market for Freshworks. We have a lot more big brand names using our products, including Freshdesk and Freshservice.
The AI wave is catching up in India, and we want to continue to leverage the strength of the talent pool in the market. Our entire engineering team and AI Center of Excellence are based in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The talent pool here is incredible, and we’re actively developing and executing plans for 2025 with them.
Indian customers are willing to try AI in their workflows, even if they’re cautious about using it for critical tasks. That’s giving us an advantage to work with those customers to show them what’s possible with our AI capabilities.
Edited by Affirunisa Kankudti
