Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

To use or not to use? That is the question that keeps fueling debates across forums, blogs, newsletters, and social feeds. Since its official release in 2022, ChatGPT has made an impressive amount of noise in the digital space. It was a genuinely innovative step forward. And at the same time, a trigger for existential panic mixed with big, almost utopian hopes about the future.

‍ Government agencies face a fundamental question when choosing communication tools: who ultimately controls your data? For public sector organizations handling sensitive citizen information, classified communications, or cross-agency coordination, the answer matters enormously.

Europe has been pursuing a digitally sovereign strategy for many years. The strategy entered the limelight back in 2019 when Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President, called for Europe to “achieve technological sovereignty in some critical technology areas.” With war on the edge of the EU, and an apparent breakdown of the rules-based international order, European governments are seeking full control of their technology with ever more urgency.

Team communication tools have evolved significantly over the past decade. What began as simple chat applications designed to replace emails have now transformed into intelligent collaboration platforms capable of understanding context, predicting needs, and improving productivity at scale. At the center of this transformation is artificial intelligence (AI). AI is no longer an experimental feature in workplace tools. It is actively reshaping how teams communicate, collaborate, and make decisions.

If you have been involved with startups, then you have heard this story many times. A startup founder says, "We are building an easy-to-use messaging app." About six months later, you begin to see all the additional elements that have been added to the simple interface, such as feeds, like buttons, creators, advertisements, etc. Suddenly, it is no longer a simple messaging app; it becomes a social platform disguised as a chat app.

Cold outreach isn’t what it used to be. Inbox providers are stricter, prospects are more selective, and outreach teams are under pressure to book more meetings with fewer resources. This results in common frustrations for modern sales and growth teams—including low deliverability, poor reply rates, and unreliable data. Now that volume no longer delivers the results it used to, smart sending is what decides whether outreach efforts succeed or fail.

At FOSDEM 2026, the world’s largest open source conference, David Baker (Staff Software Engineer and the original author of Element Web) and Florian Duros (Senior Software Engineer) presented an inside look at Element Web - from its early days to the bold plans shaping its future. They shared how the team is modernising the platform to be faster, more reliable and more flexible - all while keeping the experience seamless for the millions of people who rely on it worldwide.