Integrations have always been necessary for B2B software, and their importance has increased significantly in recent years. Today, customers demand seamless out-of-the-box connectivity, as AI features rely on rapid and reliable data flows across systems. For many SaaS teams, the problem is managing increased complexity.
We spoke with Tanner Burson, CTO at Prismatic, about why integrations have become a growth and AI readiness challenge for software companies, how teams can design scalable integration strategies, and what metrics best capture their business impact.
BN: Why have integrations become one of the biggest growth constraints for B2B software companies?
TB: Integrations were once thought of as technical check boxes that a team built because a customer asked for them. That approach doesn’t apply anymore. For many SaaS products, integrations help shape how customers use the product on a day-to-day basis. They influence buying decisions, time to onboard, and long-term retention.
The issue is that many companies still treat integrations as standalone engineering tasks. Each piece adds code, infrastructure, and maintenance costs that add up over time to slow product velocity and create hidden costs across teams. Even if integrations have become a central part of growth, organizations still manage integrations with processes and tools designed for side projects.
BN: What integration challenges most often stall deals or slow product velocity?
TB: The biggest slowdown happens when integrations are custom-built for every new customer or use case. That leads to long implementation cycles and unpredictable timelines. It also limits the number of integrations a team can maintain.
Another issue is visibility. Many organizations lack a clear understanding of which integrations exist, how they’re performing, or when they fail. That lack of observability causes sales teams to hesitate when a new customer asks for a connection because they know it might consume months of engineering time. Integration success depends on predictability, with teams able to commit confidently and deliver within clear, defined constraints.
BN: How can companies design an integration strategy that scales with their customers and product?
TB: The key is to treat integrations as product features rather than one-off projects. That allows you to plan, resource, and measure them like any other part of the road map.
A scalable approach begins with reusable components and a consistent life cycle that includes building, deploying, monitoring, and updating. Each new integration should contribute to a shared foundation rather than creating another branch of technical debt. Product and customer-facing teams need common visibility into that life cycle so they can coordinate sales commitments, onboarding timelines, and support responses.
When integrations are standardized and transparent, they become part of the company’s operating rhythm. That alignment removes the friction between engineering, sales, and customer success, which is where most integration delays originate.
BN: What defines an ‘AI-ready’ integration architecture, and how does it enable better data flow and reliability?
TB: AI readiness is really about data quality and consistency. You can’t train, reason, or automate effectively without reliable, timely data from every system your product touches. AI features amplify weaknesses in integration architecture — such as latency, missing fields, and schema mismatches — because the models depend on those data flows to function.
An AI-ready architecture focuses on observability, error handling, and scalability. It ensures that integrations can recover gracefully from external API changes or rate limits, and that teams can monitor data movement end-to-end. It also supports various working styles: developers who want to code, non-developers who require low-code options, and AI teams that require structured inputs. When data flows are stable and transparent, AI development accelerates instead of stalling.
BN: How can teams eliminate integration tech debt while keeping engineers focused on core product innovation?
TB: Integration tech debt accumulates when teams keep solving the same problems in different ways. The goal is to reduce redundancy and maintenance. This means standardizing how integrations are built and managed, adopting frameworks that address common concerns such as authentication, scaling, and error recovery, and prioritizing reusability.
Teams also need to define ownership clearly. Integration maintenance often lives in a gray area between product, engineering, and customer success. Establishing a dedicated integration function or platform team helps prevent drift. Engineers can focus on core product logic while the integration team ensures reliability, performance, and compliance.
BN: What role do integration marketplaces and self-service tools play in improving customer experience and retention?
TB: Customers increasingly expect to discover and enable integrations the same way they turn on product features. A marketplace or catalog of available integrations makes that possible. It shortens the time-to-value because customers can see what’s available and activate what they need without waiting for custom work.
Self-service also helps support teams. When customers can configure integrations, view logs, and troubleshoot with clear feedback, support requests drop and satisfaction rises. The product becomes part of the customer’s operational fabric. That kind of embeddedness is what drives retention in B2B software.
BN: How should leaders measure the ROI of their integration strategy?
TB: The simplest measure is the number of deals won or retained because of integrations, but ROI goes deeper. Consider metrics such as integration adoption rates, customer time-to-value, and the ratio of integration maintenance hours to new development hours. Improvements there directly correlate with revenue growth and lower churn.
At the executive level, the conversation should move from, “How many integrations do we support?” to “How efficiently do we deliver and maintain them?” and “How much customer value do they generate?” When integrations function as strategic assets, they generate faster sales, higher renewal rates, and a stronger product ecosystem.
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