When IT Infrastructure Doesn't Exist, You Build It and Then You Automate It

Martha Perez, VP of IT at iQor, spoke at Freshworks Refresh 2026 in New York City alongside Freshworks Chief Product Officer Srini Raghavan about how iQor's IT team integrated two acquired companies into a unified platform while keeping operations running without interruption.

The conversation covered ground that most AI discussions skip entirely: what happens when one of your acquired companies has no ticketing system, no change management process, and no operational baseline to build on. iQor's IT team didn't pause operations to address it. They built the infrastructure while everything else kept running, then used that foundation to layer in asset management, change management, and AI-driven automation.

Ticket volume dropped 39% through chatbot and orchestration workflows, SLAs tightened, and CSAT scores moved in the right direction, all while the team kept pace with an expanding operational scope.

What stood out in Perez's remarks at Refresh 2026 was not the technology itself. It was the people operating it. Her team's initial hesitation gave way to something more durable: the recognition that their roles were expanding rather than disappearing. As Perez put it, they went from handling tickets to becoming AI automators.

Her advice to other IT leaders evaluating their AI strategy: start with a real, high-volume problem. Solve it completely, measure what changes for the people on both sides of the interaction, and build from there.

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