I think telnyx is a good product, with the only stain to its name being the supply chain attack on their python library.

But I don't feel like providing inference is a professional move, it feels like out of scope for a telephony IaaS company. Feels like a FOMO moment where a reputation of years is crashed in a couple of weekends of being drawn into a fad.

And the fact that it's a chinese model doesn't quite help? I guess it's on brand with the 'cheap' pay as you go brand telnyx might already be associated to.

But more so it reads like Telnyx is trying to 'jump' into the trend of the 'open weights' discussion to compete with closed source incumbents. But we are at the tail end of the boom, anti ai sentiment is ever growing, customers now despise AI, especially in support channels, which is presumably the hook that Telnyx would have into 'AI'(LLMs). At this stage any company or individual that tries to join into the buzzword fueled cycle will pay the full fixed cost reputational price, but only reap the leftover hay from when the sun shone.

AI(LLM) on support channels is essentially a decapitalization of a company/brand, the company has a reputation that customers value, and might be worth good money in the market, and by implementing AI (LLMs) on support, a lot of costs can be cut, while the brand loses value, not sustainable. And by Telnyx (or any B2B company)asking their clients to participate in this decapitalization move, they essentially gamble their reputation as well, albeit with better odds as shovel sellers.

Companies changing their scope or opening side products is not at all unusual. Microsoft is Windows, what's this Xbox thing? Google is search, why do they have email? Y Combinator is a startup accelerator, why'd they make their own Reddit?

Large profitable corporations with very poor customer support have existed long before AI, so why should it be different? Using AI to provide poor customer service is just an implementation detail.