Podcast
Originally aired
22 minutes
ClueCon Weekly with Brian West: Your Prompt Isn't the Problem. Your Architecture Is
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This week on ClueCon Weekly, host Jon Gray sits down with Brian West — Director of Developer Experience at SignalWire and co-founder of FreeSWITCH — to talk about one of the most common mistakes in Voice AI development: prompt stuffing.
Brian breaks down why "prompt and pray" fails in production, how programmatic governed inference (PGI) lets your code drive the conversation instead of the LLM, and why thin prompts with scoped tools consistently outperform massive prompt engineering.
Also covered:
Latency budgets, and where they actually get blown
SignalWire's observability tooling
How to preload context smartly without overloading your agent
Why the SignalWire AI Gateway (SWAIG) can make a 10-second tool call feel seamless to a caller
If you're building voice AI and wondering why it works perfectly when you demo it but falls apart with real users — this episode is for you.
Speakers
What is RCS messaging?
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is the next generation of mobile messaging, designed to replace SMS and MMS. It supports high-quality images and video, verified sender identities, read receipts, typing indicators, and interactive elements like carousels and quick replies, all within the phone's native messaging app.
What is RCS Business Messaging (RBM)?
RCS Business Messaging (RBM) applies RCS capabilities to brand-to-consumer communication. It lets businesses message customers from a verified brand identity instead of a phone number, share rich media and documents, offer quick replies and CTAs, and handle actions like appointment confirmations and payments without the customer leaving the chat.
Is RCS replacing SMS?
RCS is positioned as the successor to SMS, but the transition is gradual. Businesses should adopt RCS where supported while keeping SMS and MMS as fallback channels for devices and networks that don't yet support it.
Does iPhone support RCS?
Yes. Apple added RCS support starting with iOS 18, with RCS Business Messaging support arriving in iOS 18.1. Combined with existing Android support, this brings RCS to the large majority of smartphones in the US.
Is RCS more effective than SMS for customer engagement?
Yes. Nearly 80% of consumers say RCS makes them more likely to engage with a brand, and RCS campaigns can achieve click-through rates up to 7x higher than SMS thanks to rich media, interactivity, and verified sender trust.
ow do businesses start sending RCS messages?
Businesses must first register an RCS agent, an approval process involving Google, aggregators, and mobile operators. From there, they can define use cases like marketing, customer service, or appointment reminders. SignalWire guides businesses through registration and campaign planning.
Which industries benefit most from RCS?
Retail, finance, and healthcare are early leaders. Retailers use RCS for in-chat purchases and product carousels, financial institutions use it for secure verified messaging and account alerts, and healthcare providers use it for appointment scheduling and reminders.
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