Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Drew Baumann won Twilio's very first hackathon in 2010 — and he hasn't stopped building with it since. In this interview recorded at Twilio SIGNAL, we sit down with Drew, a Twilio Champion and Staff Engineer at Goody, to talk about integrating AI into customer experiences, building with Twilio APIs, and the very real risks of deploying AI without guardrails.
Drew breaks down how he combined classic Twilio SMS and voice APIs with modern text-to-speech AI to build a fully functional, AI-powered phone line for Goody's gifting platform — a real-world example of using Twilio to improve customer experience with minimal overhead.
We also get into the honest truth about AI agents in software development: what's actually saving engineers hours each week, what's sending customers to stores that don't exist (yes, really), and which AI trends deserve the eye-roll they're getting.
Whether you're a developer exploring Twilio integrations, building AI-powered customer communications, or just trying to figure out how to responsibly use AI in your product — this one's for you.
What we cover:
- How Drew went from winning the first Twilio Hackathon to Staff Engineer
- Building an AI voice experience on top of Twilio's voice and SMS APIs
- Using AI agents across the full software development lifecycle
- Real-world AI failure: bad data, broken guardrails, and an empty parking lot
- How to responsibly integrate AI into customer-facing workflows
- One key tip for getting started with AI in your customer experience
Chapters:
00:00 – Meet Drew Baumann, Twilio Champion & Staff Engineer at Goody
00:30 – Winning the first Twilio Hackathon in 2010
01:01 – Building an AI-powered voice line with Twilio APIs
02:47 – Using AI agents in the software development workflow
03:33 – When AI guardrails fail: a cautionary tale
05:55 – AI trends that are missing the mark
07:14 – One tip for integrating AI into your customer experience
Connect with Drew: linkedin.com/in/drewbaumann
Learn more about Goody: ongoody.com
Sign up for a Twilio account here: twil.io/trytwilio-yt
Subscribe for more Twilio updates: twil.io/sub-twiliodevs
#Twilio #TwilioSIGNAL #TwilioChampion #AIIntegration #DeveloperTools #TwilioAPI #AIAgents #CustomerExperience #SoftwareEngineering #TextToSpeech #VoiceAI #AIInDevelopment #TwilioSMS #BuildWithTwilio #TechInterview #DevConversations
Drew Baumann won Twilio's very first hackathon in 2010 — and he hasn't stopped building with it since. In this interview recorded at Twilio SIGNAL, we sit down with Drew, a Twilio Champion and Staff Engineer at Goody, to talk about integrating AI into customer experiences, building with Twilio APIs, and the very real risks of deploying AI without guardrails.
Drew breaks down how he combined classic Twilio SMS and voice APIs with modern text-to-speech AI to build a fully functional, AI-powered phone line for Goody's gifting platform — a real-world example of using Twilio to improve customer experience with minimal overhead.
We also get into the honest truth about AI agents in software development: what's actually saving engineers hours each week, what's sending customers to stores that don't exist (yes, really), and which AI trends deserve the eye-roll they're getting.
Whether you're a developer exploring Twilio integrations, building AI-powered customer communications, or just trying to figure out how to responsibly use AI in your product — this one's for you.
What we cover:
- How Drew went from winning the first Twilio Hackathon to Staff Engineer
- Building an AI voice experience on top of Twilio's voice and SMS APIs
- Using AI agents across the full software development lifecycle
- Real-world AI failure: bad data, broken guardrails, and an empty parking lot
- How to responsibly integrate AI into customer-facing workflows
- One key tip for getting started with AI in your customer experience
Chapters:
00:00 – Meet Drew Baumann, Twilio Champion & Staff Engineer at Goody
00:30 – Winning the first Twilio Hackathon in 2010
01:01 – Building an AI-powered voice line with Twilio APIs
02:47 – Using AI agents in the software development workflow
03:33 – When AI guardrails fail: a cautionary tale
05:55 – AI trends that are missing the mark
07:14 – One tip for integrating AI into your customer experience
Connect with Drew: linkedin.com/in/drewbaumann
Learn more about Goody: ongoody.com
Sign up for a Twilio account here: twil.io/trytwilio-yt
Subscribe for more Twilio updates: twil.io/sub-twiliodevs
#Twilio #TwilioSIGNAL #TwilioChampion #AIIntegration #DeveloperTools #TwilioAPI #AIAgents #CustomerExperience #SoftwareEngineering #TextToSpeech #VoiceAI #AIInDevelopment #TwilioSMS #BuildWithTwilio #TechInterview #DevConversations
