Effiqo AI, a Bellevue, Washington-based company building AI phone agents for service businesses such as HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical and auto repair shops, announced on November 11, 2026, that Antonio Akins has joined as Fractional Chief Technology Officer. Akins spent nearly 16 years at Salesforce, most recently as Senior Vice President of Engineering, and before that nearly 14 years at Microsoft, where he led quality for Bing Mobile and MSN Mobile. He is a Vanderbilt University computer science graduate from the class of 1996.
The appointment matters because Effiqo is trying to solve a costly and familiar problem for small service shops: missed calls. When an owner is under a sink, up a ladder or across the counter from a customer, the phone often goes unanswered. The caller gives up and dials the next shop, and the job is lost. Effiqo's two AI agents, Elise and Xavier, are designed to prevent that. Elise answers calls in a calm, friendly voice at any hour, listens to what the caller needs, answers questions and books the job directly onto the schedule. Xavier handles the after-hours office work, calling back open estimates so a maybe becomes a yes or no, and reaching out to past customers to bring back work the shop had already earned.
Akins will oversee how Elise and Xavier are built, how customer details are kept safe and what capabilities they develop next. His stated focus is reliability: answering right, booking right and following up right. The company says that if a caller asks for a person, either agent connects them straight to a human in the shop's own office, so the business stays in charge of its customers.
In a statement, Akins said he has spent his career building software people can count on without having to think about it. He said a small shop should get that same peace of mind, and that when a homeowner calls in the middle of the night with no heat, someone should answer, and answer well, every time. Barbara Saunders, founder of Effiqo AI, said she knows the life of a shop owner from the inside, adding that owners did not start their businesses to live on the phone or carry the office home in their heads every night.
The hire signals that Effiqo is investing in engineering depth as it competes in a growing market for AI-powered customer service tools aimed at small businesses. For service-shop owners, the practical impact could be fewer lost jobs and less unpaid administrative work after a full day in the field. For the broader industry, the move reflects a push to make AI agents dependable enough for high-stakes, revenue-generating phone calls rather than simple automated menus. More information about the company and its agents is available at www.effiqo.ai.
