slack-support
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Thena
The B2B support desk quietly moved into Slack. Thena is the company betting the whole ticketing stack should move with it.
Plain
The AI support stack built for B2B teams. Composable infrastructure that gives you complete flexibility to build a support motion that grows with your business.
Plain and Gladly Are Both Trying to Kill the Support Ticket
Two startups, two very different customers, one shared enemy. Plain wants developers to forget the inbox; Gladly wants retailers to forget the case number. Here is what the end of the ticket actually looks like.
The Support Ticket Is Dying and Slack Is Holding the Knife
A new class of B2B support tools - Plain, Front, TeamSupport - is betting customers never wanted a help desk. They wanted an answer in the channel they were already in, and the old guard from BMC to USU is scrambling to catch up.
Thena Bets B2B Support Belongs in Slack, Not a Portal
A Mountain View startup thinks the support ticket is the wrong shape for B2B, and it is squaring up against ServiceNow, HubSpot and SAP to prove customers would rather get help where they already talk.
Why Customer Support Software Is Having an Identity Crisis
SAP, ServiceNow, Gorgias, Kayako, Supportbench and Thena are all chasing the same promise - support that resolves itself. Here is who is actually building it, and who is just bolting AI onto an old inbox.
Atlas
Atlas is an AI-first customer support platform that pitches itself as a modern replacement for Intercom and Zendesk. It combines ticketing, an omnichannel inbox (chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, Slack Connect, Discord), session recording, customer timelines, a help center and AI agents (Autopilot and Copilot) so support teams can resolve issues faster by understanding customers more completely. Founded in 2021 by Jon O'Bryan and Rahul Asati and backed by Y Combinator (W22), Atlas is built around the idea that great support drives growth rather than being a cost center.
Robert Eng
Robert Eng is Co-Founder and CPO of Pylon, the AI-native B2B customer support platform built for how enterprise teams actually communicate. A Caltech computer science and history double major who cut his teeth at Facebook, DoorDash, and Affinity, he co-founded Pylon in November 2022 with Advith Chelikani and Marty Kausas. The company - backed by $51M from a16z, Bain Capital Ventures, General Catalyst, and Y Combinator - has grown to 750+ customers including Together AI, Cognition, and AssemblyAI with 5x+ year-over-year revenue growth for two consecutive years.