Refresh 2026: Unified data, agentic AI, and the agile enterprise

AI promises unprecedented speed, but for many enterprise IT teams, deploying it feels like adding another layer of complexity to an already tangled tech stack. 

At the Refresh 2026 Virtual Summit, Freshworks leaders and industry experts came together to showcase how agentic AI and unified data can break down these enterprise silos and scale IT operations without the bloat.

CEO Dennis Woodside set the stage by addressing how "agile enterprises"—companies that win on speed, flexibility, and nimbleness against larger, rigid competitors—can leverage this shift to stay ahead. 

Here are three highlights from the day:

1. Agile enterprises need product depth, scale, choice, ease, and trust to compete

To kick off the keynote, Woodside shared how Freshworks is evolving to support agile enterprises as they navigate the next era of business technology.

"These four beliefs—depth and scale, ease, modular platform choice, and trust through transparent governance—show up in every product decision we make," Woodside emphasized.

He explained that true business agility requires tools that scale effortlessly with growth while remaining easy to use. By focusing on a modular platform architecture, organizations can choose exactly what they need today and adapt tomorrow.

Read also: Build the future of AI-first service

2. Giving IT teams total visibility and no-code automation at scale

Bringing those product principles to life, Chief Product Officer Srini Raghavan unveiled major expansions within the Freshservice platform designed to reduce fragmented workflows.

To help IT leaders manage IT from a single pane of glass, Raghavan introduced a newly unified Freshservice platform that brings together IT services, IT assets, and IT operations. With this, IT teams gain complete visibility across their infrastructure, speeding up incident resolution and preventing downtime.

The biggest product announcement of the day was the launch of AI Agent Studio. This no-code environment allows customers to deploy, build, and manage specialized autonomous agents in minutes. 

“We’ve made it very easy to customize agents in AI Agent Studio. You can build your own skills, your own integration. It’s a very flexible environment,” Raghavan said.

Read also: Building with AI

3. What it takes to shift from operational efficiency to true business transformation

To close out the event, Chief Marketing Officer Kady Srinivasan hosted a panel discussion featuring Julie Mohr, principal analyst at Forrester, and Pete Petrocelli, head of technology & AI at Ashley Furniture. The conversation focused on the cultural and strategic shifts required to make AI successful in the workplace.

The panel agreed that rethinking business processes, rather than just making them more efficient, is critical to success with AI.

Mohr noted transformation “isn’t about making what we do today operationally more efficient. It’s about looking at our operational models, at the way we do business, and saying ‘how can we transform.’ That’s where the real innovation, creativity, and capabilities are going to land.”

Petrocelli also highlighted the important role of people and change management. “Everyone has to be bought into it and aligned in terms of where the value needs to be and why we’re going in this direction.”

To catch the full keynote, check out the on-demand Virtual Summit replay and watch a clip from the keynote below