The AI pilot worked. The demo impressed everyone. So why is the rollout stalling eight months later? Most companies answer with a purchase order – a bigger model, a second vendor. This talk makes the opposite case. A stalled pilot has already proved the technology; what’s left to fix is the organization, and no purchase fixes that.
Mirza Besirovic scaled Zendesk’s AI agents from pilot to past $100M ARR and has seen the stall from both sides, as the vendor and as the operator whose own org had to change. He shows the costs that stayed invisible for 18 months, and the organizational redesign that did more than any model upgrade.
AI Product Leader. Ex-Zendesk.
Mirza Beširović is an AI product leader and speaker. Most recently he ran product for Zendesk AI Agents, the company’s flagship AI automation platform, where he and his team scaled it to $100M+ ARR, automating 80%+ of customer interactions for brands including Netflix, Vimeo, Levi’s, and Reddit. He also helped shape its commercial model, making Zendesk the first CX vendor to price AI per automated resolution. He started his career as a translator and interpreter, writes the newsletter You Are The Product, and speaks about AI-native leadership and what product management becomes in the agentic era. He lives in Berlin.
