Key takeaways from SIGNAL San Francisco 2026

Introduction and role overview

• 00:00 Nathaniel: Hey Harry, thank you for joining me for the inaugural episode of Twilio Talks on Air, the podcast where we talk all things customer experience. My name is Nathaniel and you are?

• 00:08 Harry: I'm Harry Bole, a senior customer success manager here at Twilio.

• 00:14 Nathaniel: Well, it's good to have you here. So, we're just both back from SIGNAL and we'll talk about that in just a moment, but first, what does a customer success manager actually do?

• 00:22 Harry: Right. Well, very good question. So a customer success manager, particularly in the realm of Twilio, my role is primarily focused around delivering customer value. Helping customers who are using different products amongst the Twilio suite like Segment CDP to unlock new use cases and drive return on investment and value from their spend with Twilio. In a nutshell, I'm working with customers to engage new contacts and essentially make sure that my accounts are as successful as possible using the Twilio suite.

SIGNAL San Francisco recap

• 01:00 Nathaniel: And so, I'm guessing you talk to customers all the time, and you probably talked to a lot of customers at SIGNAL San Francisco. We both just got back. It was a really great event. Did you enjoy it?

• 01:10 Harry: I loved it. Absolutely loved it. As I was saying, the jet lag takes a while to get used to, but absolutely worth it.

• 01:19 Nathaniel: 100% worth it. Okay, let's talk a little bit about SIGNAL. Each SIGNAL has a theme every year and last year it was all about "AI is coming" and this time it was like AI is moving from the lab into production. I'm curious what was your take on SIGNAL this year just overall top level.

• 01:41 Harry: Very interesting, Nathaniel. My overall take is that if 2025 was the year of "AI’s coming," 2026 is very much "AI’s landed." I think a huge theme that came up with customers is that AI without any context, without any proper guardrails and orchestration, it’s just noise. AI can often be very ineffective if it’s not used in an intentional manner. Twilio feels like a very confident company, and our customers feel confident about the direction Twilio is going in. They're very excited about Agentic AI. The whole event was really positive.

Key takeaways: The new console and personalisation

• 02:42 Nathaniel: Nice. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about some of your personal takeaways. What was yours from the conversations you had with some of your biggest customers?

• 02:56 Harry: Great question. I think one, the new Twilio console is what our customers want. It was extremely well-received with simplified billing, simplified debugging, and email all in one place.

• 03:15 Harry: Another thing that resonated is that if the customer experience is fragmented and siloed, you suffer as the consumer and then your customers suffer. It was clear to me that AI without the right guardrails would cause huge fragmentation. Customers want to go on this AI journey, but it needs to be used effectively.

• 04:02 Harry: For example, if you're booking a flight or GP appointment and there's no context on previous conversations, you end up repeating yourself. We want to evolve the customer experience beyond that. Lots of our customers want a solution they can build on top of with Twilio that allows for a single source of truth and isn't fragmented.

Addressing "agentic chaos"

• 04:46 Nathaniel: It really reminds me of the phrase "agentic chaos." We've seen so much demand from organisations for new agentic capabilities. How much are you seeing this turning into actual ways that people are taking and deploying these digital conversational workforces?

• 05:22 Harry: If a customer switches channels, they expect more than just going through a place where there's no context on any previous interactions. Conversations need to be three things: continuous, contextual, and personal. If you hit all three, you have the chance to make real impact in terms of ROI.

• 06:02 Harry: Agentic chaos is a real worry. Customers are worried about human-to-AI handoffs and when to orchestrate. Twilio's definitely thinking about solving that in the market.

Human productivity and Twilio AI results

• 07:02 Nathaniel: I think there's a lot of people listening who maybe are AI skeptics and want to invest more into humans being more productive. Can you talk a little bit about products that help people be more productive?

• 07:32 Harry: Absolutely. Forrester ran a report saying only 6% of brands who adopted AI in 2025 actually saw improvements to CSAT and customer experience scores. While there's appetite, people aren't necessarily applying it in the right ways.

• 08:15 Harry: Twilio itself "drinks their own champagne." About 80% of our inbound global support is now handled by Agentic AI, and we’ve seen our CSAT scores improve because the backbone behind that AI is conversational, personal, and has memory.

The "Switzerland" approach: model-agnostic

• 09:53 Nathaniel: I love that. Let's imagine I'm a CTO. I’m in charge of bringing AI dreams to life, but there's always a new model coming through. Do I really want to lock in to a specific provider? How does Twilio help me move fast when providers are constantly improving?

• 10:25 Harry: My answer is quite simple: no, you don't want to be locked in. They don't want to hedge their bets on a "walled garden" where they're trapped by technology that may not keep up with the pace of change.

• 10:58 Harry: That's the beauty with Twilio; it's model-agnostic. You can build on top of Twilio. It was designed intentionally to stop the risk of vendor lock-in, which is a genuine concern around AI governance. Twilio is builder-first, agnostic, flexible, and composable.

• 11:31 Nathaniel: Someone at SIGNAL said Twilio is like Switzerland—neutral, allowing you to bring your own tools to the table.

CFO perspective: ROI and results

• 12:27 Nathaniel: Now imagine I’m a CFO. I care about budget and return on investment. Are there any cases where people are seeing real ROI in the products they've started to use with Twilio?

• 13:18 Harry: Absolutely. One customer has seen a 70% deflection in CS cases to Twilio agents, freeing up human agent time for more valuable tasks.

• 14:18 Harry: They also saw a 25% increase in customer conversion rates and improvements in CSAT.

• 14:43 Harry: Everything within the new console can be tried for free, which is perfect for a CFO's "show me the money" conversation. Customers are seeing real reductions in technical issues and increases in new business acquisition.

New product launches: Twilio Conversation Orchestrator and Memory

• 16:08 Nathaniel: Show me the money! That's a nice answer for a CFO. Let's step out of the boardroom and talk about the builders. Let’s go through the top products launched at SIGNAL. What does Conversation Orchestrator do?

• 16:58 Harry: It allows for seamless handoff between agent and human and cross-channel integrations. It helps improve customer experience by knowing when to hand off in an intelligent way. It adds a lot of value for customer services, healthcare centers, or retail companies looking to upsell.

• 18:13 Nathaniel: Bringing all those conversations into one is hard, so having it out of the box is nice. What about Conversation Memory?

• 18:15 Harry: That’s probably my favorite. When the customer changes location, the context and memory of interactions stays with them. It complements our identity resolution within Segment. You can understand who the user is and what they’ve been doing historically to personalize the experience to a greater level. You always remember when a customer experience is bad, often because context is lost when moving channels. With Conversation Memory, you’re not going to be sent a dreaded upsell when you’re dealing with an issue.

Compliance, security, and product strategy

• 21:01 Nathaniel: Let's talk about the Chief Legal Officer who is worried about data stewardship and compliance. How does Twilio help people remain compliant and safe?

• 21:36 Harry: I support customers in EMEA where GDPR and HIPAA are top of mind. By providing context and reducing errors through orchestration, you're reducing operational risk. Conversation Intelligence can work in real time to reduce the chance of AI creating errors. We've made voice PCI compliant. With Agent Connect, you can secure AI across multiple channels like voice and messaging.

• 24:00 Nathaniel: Last but not least, the head of product. Will all this change blow up the work they're doing already?

• 24:14 Harry: Feedback I got at SIGNAL is that they see a greater risk in not adopting AI. Companies are having to think in a more agile way, working in two or three-week sprints instead of annual planning. You can always trial and test AI in certain areas. They’re happy they can build on top of Twilio and pivot away if something doesn't make incremental improvements.

Quickfire round and closing

• 31:00 Nathaniel: Quickfire questions now. What was the best demo at SIGNAL?

• 31:07 Harry: Vanessa Thompson’s demo of Issa—our Inbound Sales Agent. It’s been revolutionary for our lead qualification.

• 32:16 Harry: Favorite session was the keynote speech about adopting Agentic AI.

• 33:02 Harry: My favorite channel to be reached out to by a company? WhatsApp all the way.

• 33:35 Harry: Favorite non-session activity? The putting challenge for charity.

• 34:39 Harry: You can meet us at Virtual SIGNAL or catch the SIGNAL roadshow in Berlin, London, and Paris.

• 36:09 Nathaniel: Harry, thank you so much for your time. We'll catch you at the next one. Bye.