The $10M Bet That Help Desk Workers Might Become Obsolete

At payroll company Gusto, something remarkable happened: 60% of their help desk tickets simply vanished. Not because customers stopped having problems, but because an AI called Risotto started solving them first.

This small experiment is now shaking up a billion-dollar industry. While giants like Zendesk, ServiceNow, and Freshworks have dominated help desk automation for years, AI-powered startups are betting they can completely reshape how technical support works.

The $10M Gamble on Autonomous Support

Risotto announced Tuesday it raised a $10 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures, with participation from 645 Ventures, Y Combinator, and others. The startup's premise sounds simple: let AI autonomously resolve help desk tickets without human intervention.

But the technology underneath is anything but simple. Risotto sits between ticket management systems like Jira and the complex internal tools needed to actually fix problems. While built on third-party AI models, CEO Aron Solberg says the real value lies in the infrastructure that keeps AI's unpredictable nature in check.

"Our special sauce is the prompt libraries, the eval suites, and the thousands of real-world examples that the AI gets trained on to ensure it actually does what it's expected to do," Solberg told TechCrunch.

When Managing Software Becomes a Full-Time Job

One of Risotto's customers employs *four full-time workers just to manage Jira*. Not to implement AI or innovate—simply to wrangle the platform itself. This reality highlights why companies are desperately seeking automation solutions.

The pain points are universal. Every enterprise, from Fortune 500 companies to fast-growing startups, struggles with the same fundamental challenge: IT systems have become so complex that managing them requires dedicated teams. Meanwhile, employees still need their password resets, software installations, and access permissions—preferably without waiting hours for a response.

Traditional help desk software tried to solve this by making ticketing systems more organized. AI automation promises something different: eliminating the need for many tickets altogether.

The Bigger Shift: AI as the New Interface

What makes Risotto particularly interesting isn't just its current success, but where it's positioning for the future. Solberg sees a fundamental shift coming in how businesses interact with technology.

"With 95% of our customers, humans still solve tickets the traditional way," he explains. "But we see newer companies shifting to have the primary interface between humans and technology be an LLM."

This means tasks would be managed through tools like ChatGPT for Enterprise, which coordinate help desk tickets alongside other professional tasks. Risotto has already built integrations with ChatGPT for Enterprise and Gemini, connecting over MCP (Model Context Protocol).

If this approach becomes mainstream, it would fundamentally change how we think about enterprise software. Instead of human-friendly interfaces, the focus shifts to reliability and context management. AI becomes the central coordinator, calling specialized tools as needed.

The Human Element Question

But this raises uncomfortable questions about the future of technical support roles. If AI can handle 60% of tickets today, what happens when that number reaches 80% or 90%?

The optimistic view suggests human workers will focus on more complex, creative problem-solving. The pessimistic view sees widespread job displacement in an industry that employs millions worldwide.

Solberg seems aware of this tension. Rather than positioning Risotto as a job-killer, he frames it as a tool that frees humans from repetitive tasks. Whether that distinction matters to displaced workers remains to be seen.