SIGNAL Singapore 2024: From Communications to Connections

As a developer, events like SIGNAL are always a highlight of the year. SIGNAL is Twilio’s annual flagship conference, which brings together developers, businesses, and thought leaders from around the world to showcase the latest innovations in customer engagement technology. What makes this year even more special is that SIGNAL went global, with regional events across different parts of the world, including São Paulo, Singapore, and London.

When over 500 total attendees (86 of whom were developers) joined us in Singapore on 22 October 2024 at The Fairmont, it highlighted the community’s excitement for Twilio’s platform. It was a chance to dive deep into what’s new, learn from other developers, and get hands-on with the tools that are pushing boundaries in communication and customer engagement.

The theme for this year, “ From Communications to Connections,” couldn’t have come at a better time. In an era where we’re more digitally connected than ever, many of us still feel disconnected on a personal level. Twilio is addressing this by enabling developers to create personalised, human-centered experiences at scale. The mission is clear: we’re not just communicating, we’re creating real connections.

Key announcements for Developers

At the heart of SIGNAL Singapore were exciting new announcements and product updates designed to make our jobs as developers easier and more impactful. Just as we saw at SIGNAL São Paulo earlier this year, Twilio continues to push boundaries on what's possible in the customer engagement space.

Personalisation at Scale

The ability to automate customer engagement with such a high degree of personalisation is something we, as developers, have been striving for.

In the past, scaling personalisation meant sacrificing quality or increasing complexity. For instance, managing customized experiences for millions often led to tangled backend systems, performance issues, and slow delivery times. Alternatively, using generic templates compromised the personalised experience, making interactions feel impersonal.

Segment is a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that helps businesses unify and activate their customer data for personalised experiences. Features like Segment Unify allow developers to consolidate customer data across multiple sources into a single, comprehensive profile. This profile acts as the heartbeat of personalisation, combining each consumer’s real-time history, behaviour, and preferences. With this unified view, developers can deliver highly tailored, relevant experiences at scale using the most up-to-date data.

Linked Audiences and Generative Audiences take this further, enabling more precise audience targeting and the ability to generate new, highly personalised audience segments based on real-time data and machine learning. These tools provide the flexibility to deliver hyper-relevant messaging without the usual trade-offs in complexity or performance.

Rich Communication Services

Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a protocol for Programmable Messaging that elevates the traditional SMS experience by adding more dynamic communications. With RCS, businesses can engage in richer conversations that include multimedia content, read receipts, branded sender IDs, rich media, and interactive content that significantly enhance engagement. RCS Business Messaging is set to expand to Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Japan, and South Korea in 2025.

Twilio Flex Enhancements

Twilio Flex, the customizable contact center platform, is getting even more powerful. Whether you're building customer support systems or sales outreach programs, Flex's expanded capabilities are a game-changer, offering highly personalised experiences at every touchpoint.

One of these features is Unified Profiles on Flex. It consolidates real-time data from multiple systems to provide a comprehensive view of each customer. Your agents can view this detailed information for each customer before accepting a task and while helping the customer.

Another feature is the Agent Copilot, which leverages AI to enhance agent interactions during and after customer conversations. By utilizing structured customer data, it aids agents in understanding their customers better and streamlines the wrap-up process.

Twilio's emphasis on personalisation doesn't stop at customer interaction—it extends to how we, as developers, can craft these experiences. Think: more control, more customization, and more options to integrate with the tools we already love.

CustomerAI's Expanding Role

Since its launch, Twilio CustomerAI has been a hot topic, and SIGNAL Singapore gave us a deeper look into its future. The potential for AI-driven personalisation is no longer theoretical. Twilio is delivering it today, allowing us to integrate advanced analytics and machine learning into our communication flows effortlessly.

The most exciting part? The ability to tap into rich, contextual customer data to craft messages that feel truly human, even when automated. Imagine sending the right message, at the right time, to the right person—every single time. Twilio's AI tools are making that a reality, allowing developers like us to focus on building seamless, meaningful customer journeys rather than worrying about the complexity behind them.

Genuine connections

Twilio is transforming communication into genuine connection, a theme evident in every keynote and demo on stage. Developers are at the forefront, crafting solutions that turn disconnected interactions into cohesive, personalised experiences.

During the event, there were a multitude of engaging demos, each highlighting the capabilities of Twilio. Among these, two presentations showcased their unique AI integrations. In a session I ( Anthony) led, I showed the integration of OpenAI’s Realtime API with Twilio Media Streams. This demo featured an AI-powered customer support agent capable of engaging in real-time conversations with customers calling about their flight booking. The AI agent efficiently answered questions, demonstrating how airlines can leverage AI to scale their customer service operations by handling multiple calls simultaneously.

In a separate demo, Marius presented an AI chatbot integration with WhatsApp, designed to streamline a car rental experience. Attendees observed how users could text the chatbot with details about their car rental and make modifications to their booking, such as selecting a vehicle that accommodates six passengers.

In the final developer session, Kaelyn demoed the capabilities of the Voice React Native SDK in conjunction with Segment and Flex to build a personalised voice experience. By leveraging user preferences and historical interactions, calls can be tailored to deliver a seamless VoIP experience.

The Community Hall served as a showcase for engaging demos created by our Developer Relations team. This space allowed attendees to immerse themselves in interactive experiences that highlighted the potential of Twilio’s platform. Highlights included the AI Calling experience, where interactive phone booths allowed attendees to talk with AI to explore Singapore. Additionally, a magician used Programmable Messaging to guess attendees cards. And a Verify Escape game challenged participants to solve puzzles to rescue their phones from OTP madness. The experiences were great ways to see the creativity of our developer community.

Wrapping up SIGNAL Singapore 2024

As SIGNAL Singapore 2024 wrapped up, attendees and developers alike walked away with a firsthand look at how Twilio is transforming communication into connection. The tools that developers are building with Twilio are not just lines of code, they’re the foundation of meaningful connections.

SIGNAL London is right around the corner . Register now and join developers from around the world in discovering the future of communication and connection.