How we built an AI-first culture at Ably

Ably has embraced an "AI-first" culture by integrating artificial intelligence into every aspect of its operations, from engineering and marketing to sales and finance. This transformation was driven by a company-wide mandate to explore AI's potential to enhance effectiveness and uncover new possibilities, resulting in a shift from asking if AI can help to assuming it can. The integration is built on three pillars: internal AI adoption to automate tasks and enhance productivity, improving the AI developer experience to make Ably's platform more accessible, and proactive AI product enhancement to meet real customer needs. A crucial development in this transition is the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which links over 140 tools, allowing seamless access to shared data and context for various tasks, thus eliminating repetitive context-switching. Teams have adopted Claude as the primary AI tool, while workflow automation is managed by Relay, but flexibility in tool choice is encouraged to maintain infrastructure compatibility with any AI provider. The cultural shift has resulted in increased productivity and creativity across teams, with AI being used for everything from coding and marketing analysis to sales lead generation and financial reconciliation, all while fostering a mindset of continuous improvement and problem-solving through AI.