Our website chat and incoming enquiries now run through an open-source system, hosted on Hetzner infrastructure in Germany and Finland. The conversations themselves are still handled by people on our team.
We have moved from Zendesk to FreeScout, an open-source help desk and shared inbox. We run it ourselves rather than through a closed platform, which gives us more direct control over access, configuration and integrations. The underlying infrastructure is Hetzner's; the environment on top of it is one we manage.
The conversation remains human
FreeScout is the route through which website messages reach us. It is not an AI chatbot. Outside business hours you may get an automatic message confirming that your enquiry has arrived, but the reply itself comes from a member of the EDC4IT team. A confirmation of receipt is not the same as a machine holding a conversation with you, and the new EU rules draw that same line.
People should know what they are interacting with
That distinction matters more from now on. Since 2 August 2026, Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires providers of directly interactive AI systems to make sure people are told, from the start of their first interaction, that they are dealing with AI, unless that is already obvious.
We think the principle behind it is sound. Nobody should have to guess whether a reply comes from a person, an automated process or an AI system.
We do not use an AI assistant on our website today. If that changes, it will say so at the start, and there will always be a clear route to a member of our team.
This is not an argument against AI. We use it where it adds real value. What we will not do is let a machine leave the impression that it is a person.
The move to FreeScout comes down to two things we care about. We want real control over the systems our support runs on. And anyone who contacts us should know exactly who, or what, is answering.