Console’s Seed Round Signals the Death of Manual IT Support—Here’s What Enterprises Must Know

Michal Kosinski
Jun 21
5 min read

In today’s hyper-digital business environment, information technology departments are the silent engines that keep organizations running. Yet, as enterprises scale and hybrid work becomes the norm, IT teams are burdened with a growing backlog of mundane, repetitive support requests that slow innovation and impact employee productivity. Into this challenge steps a new wave of AI-native startups—most notably Console, a rising player that has secured $6.2 million in seed funding from Thrive Capital—aiming to automate IT support and reshape enterprise operations.

This article delves into the broader impact of AI-driven IT automation, using Console's strategic trajectory as a lens to explore how AI co-workers, streamlined deployment, and digital-first support models are shifting the future of work.

The State of IT Support: A Broken Backbone?

Across organizations of all sizes, IT help desks remain critical to maintaining secure and functional tech ecosystems. However, many teams are trapped in a loop of repetitive tasks that drain time and talent:

Password resets dominate the support queue.
Routine access provisioning for SaaS tools like Figma or Miro is manual and error-prone.
Basic device troubleshooting clogs bandwidth.
Security patches and compliance alerts are treated reactively.

According to industry benchmarks, over 60% of IT tickets are Level-1 issues that could be resolved with automation or self-service mechanisms. Yet most organizations still rely on legacy help desk systems, bogged down by complex integrations and siloed knowledge bases.

This mismatch between enterprise needs and available support infrastructure presents a powerful case for AI-native solutions.

Console: Building an AI Co-Worker for the Enterprise

Founded by Andrei Serban, a former product lead at Rippling and an MIT Media Lab alum, Console emerged in 2024 to simplify the IT support stack through AI. Serban’s vision was shaped by firsthand experience—having witnessed the friction and productivity losses caused by repetitive IT tasks during his tenure managing app integrations and security.

Console operates as an AI-powered Slack assistant, embedded within an enterprise's internal workflow, capable of:

Handling over 50% of help desk tasks autonomously.
Understanding contextual user data (laptop model, app permissions).
Providing immediate responses via natural language prompts.
Seamlessly looping in human agents for complex cases.

Unlike traditional help desk platforms that require months-long deployments and IT overhauls, Console prioritizes rapid integration, often going live in under two weeks—without displacing existing systems.

A Competitive Edge: Simplicity and Scale

Console enters a space previously dominated by legacy IT solutions and specialized platforms like Moveworks, recently acquired by ServiceNow for $2.85 billion. But where others demand complex orchestration and backend migration, Console differentiates itself through:

Frictionless integration via Slack, the most widely adopted enterprise messaging platform.
User-centric automation, where the AI learns from usage patterns and tailors its responses to individual employees.
Horizontal scalability, offering potential support not just for IT, but also for HR, finance, and legal departments in the near future.

Its client list—which already includes Scale AI, Flock Safety, and Calendly—validates Console’s demand in AI-forward environments that prioritize agility and efficiency.

Vince Hankes, Partner at Thrive Capital, shared:

“AI’s potential to reshape IT tasks was evident since ChatGPT’s breakout in 2022. Console exemplifies how quickly that potential can translate into indispensable enterprise systems.”

The Economics of AI-Driven Support

Let’s break down the economic rationale driving this shift.

Metric	Traditional IT Help Desk	Console AI Assistant
Avg. Time to Resolution	6–12 hours (depending on queue)	Instant for 50%+ tickets
Cost per Ticket	$15–$20 (Level 1)	< $2 with automation
Deployment Time	3–6 months	< 2 weeks
User Onboarding	Manual	Seamless via Slack
Knowledge Base Management	Siloed, manual updates	Self-updating with ML

These efficiency gains translate to not just cost savings, but also enhanced strategic capacity for IT professionals, who are freed from low-leverage tasks to focus on:

Infrastructure scaling.
Security upgrades.
Digital transformation roadmaps.
Cross-functional integrations.

AI Co-Workers, Not Replacements

A key philosophical shift in Console’s positioning is its “AI co-worker” model, rather than an AI replacement narrative. This approach eases change management anxiety within teams and empowers human agents to specialize further.

AI handles rote, frequent tasks (e.g., unlocking accounts, installing approved apps).
Human agents handle edge cases, escalations, and security workflows.
Together, they create a hybrid support architecture that is faster, safer, and more responsive.

This mirrors a broader trend in AI adoption—augmenting rather than automating away human expertise.

Expanding Horizons: From IT to Enterprise-Wide Support

Console’s roadmap reveals ambitions far beyond IT. With foundational AI capabilities in place, the company is exploring:

HR Automation: Answering employee benefits queries, processing leave requests, onboarding assistance.
Finance Operations: Expense report support, invoice tracking, budget approvals.
Legal Workflow Assistance: Contract routing, compliance Q&A, policy retrieval.

This enterprise-wide vision reflects a shift in how organizations view support: not as a series of departmental silos, but as a unified employee experience that should be fast, intuitive, and AI-enhanced.

The Investor Perspective: Betting on Vertical AI

Thrive Capital’s investment in Console underscores a growing trend in venture capital: the pivot from general AI infrastructure to verticalized, workflow-specific AI platforms.

Console joins a portfolio that includes OpenAI, Scale AI, and Cursor, signaling investor confidence in tools that:

Solve specific enterprise problems.
Are integrated into daily workflows.
Demonstrate rapid iteration and user feedback loops.
Improve exponentially with usage data.

This approach allows AI platforms like Console to evolve quickly and become indispensable before competitors can react.

Risk Factors and Strategic Challenges

Despite its promise, Console faces hurdles common to early-stage AI platforms:

Trust and Accuracy: Enterprises need assurance that AI won’t make errors in sensitive areas like permissions or security protocols.
Data Privacy & Compliance: Handling employee-specific data means Console must maintain airtight security and meet frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR.
Scaling Customization: Larger enterprises often require customized workflows, which could slow the frictionless promise of Console’s model.
Vendor Lock-in Resistance: Organizations wary of AI dependency may demand transparency and fallback mechanisms in case of outages or algorithmic drift.

These challenges will test Console’s ability to balance speed and scalability with trust, governance, and flexibility.

A Future Powered by Intelligent Enterprise Support

Console represents more than just another startup riding the AI hype wave. It signals a tectonic shift in how digital-first companies manage internal operations, optimize IT resources, and deliver seamless support to employees.

In a world where talent productivity, cybersecurity, and employee satisfaction are all mission-critical, AI-first IT support may not just be an upgrade—but a necessity.

The ability to deploy rapidly, resolve instantly, and adapt continuously positions Console and similar platforms as the new operating system of the digital enterprise.

To stay ahead of this paradigm shift and understand how advanced AI is redefining enterprise intelligence, explore more expert insights from Dr. Shahid Masood, founder of 1950.ai, a global think tank for emerging technologies.

Further Reading / External References