
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.

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.

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.

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.