How Merge launched Agent Handler to 2M+ views
From 0 presence on X to millions of views in one day and thousands of signups
Company
Merge
Industry
Enterprise AI infrastructure
Enagement
Launch of Agent Handler, Merge's tool-calling and governance layer for AI agents
The Backstory
Merge is at the forefront of building the unified API category. One integration vs hundreds. Over 750 teams, including OpenAI, Ramp, and Dropbox, run their integrations through Merge.
Founded in 2020 by Shensi Ding and Gil Feig, the company utilizes LinkedIn as the primary showcase for company updates and classic enterprise B2B motion for the past 6 years.
But Merge wanted to break out into other platforms and maximize their Linkedin & X presence for positioning, garnering interest in Merge, brand awareness, and sign ups.
Linkedin wasn’t enough for their ICPs. Merge sought a larger presence launch especially utilizing X.
This is where they were introduced to Matt, CEO & Co-Founder of Shown Media.
Merge wanted to announce Agent Handler, one safe place for employees to connect AI to the tools they already use, in the biggest way possible.
The biggest problem they encountered wasn’t that Linkedin wasn’t working as a distribution model.
Their problem was that their ICPs: new buyers, AI builders and IT and security leads, don’t make decisions on LinkedIn.
They live on X, where Merge had no voice at all.
The Challenge
Merge had already tried a launch on their own.
On March 31 2026, the team launched Gateway in-house, on X and LinkedIn.
Without any strategy, collaboration effort, or captivating video to accompany this launch, Merge saw extremely minimal traction.
[EMBED: Merge's in-house Gateway launch, X and LinkedIn: x.com/shensi/status/2038980379479036343]
The motion died shortly after posting.
There were two major problems Shown found immediately:
The Major Packaging Problem: Merge had three products that were never perceived as a unified workflow. With little to no presence on X and ICPs unaware of Merge’s solutions, the
The Strategy Problem: Merge had no concept of how X as a platform works, therefore without a proper GTM strategy on X, the launch resulted in extremely disappointing low value.
Shown fixes this problem at the highest echelon. It’s like trying a drawing class for the first time and bringing it to Picasso to help.
We broke down Merge’s launch strategy into 4 main pillars unique to their current brand presence, goals, and resources.
Viral pillar 1: The message
Merge has 3 different products, which is not understood easily by reading a few lines or a post.
You cannot fold an integrations API, an LLM infrastructure layer, and an employee governance product into one without sanding all three down to "infrastructure”.
So Shown recommended launching one product instead.
This solves 2 problems:
One unified message across platforms
Easily digestible through layman's terms
After realizing the problems with playing 3 games of chess at once, Merge agreed on Shown’s recommendation of launching one aspect of Merge with one message: Agent Handler - the solution to security risks by AI agents used by employees.
Shown helped launch Merge, Agent Handler by focusing the message on the macro problem: IT and security leads at enterprises know employees are connecting AI to company systems on their own. This opens up a massive security risk.
Viral pillar 2: The most important pillar
The first line of the launch is by far the most important line of every launch. Done right, this is the difference between a 100K view launch vs a 2M viral video. Every launch MUST get this right.
"Your employee wants to give access to every AI tool your company runs on. Starting today, they can, safely"
This passes the mom-test instantly. The mom-test is a test at Shown where we go through multiple points of tests making sure the first line is understood by multiple people who have 1. Never heard of the company and 2. Can be easily understood by anyone on why they should care.
Viral pillar 3: Incetive that breed virality
We put $10,000 on the demo. Security launches die because nobody cares about security until after the breach.
So we made it a game and anyone on X could participate.
Merge had a live agent with a public handle and a bounty: $10K to anyone who could pull sensitive information out of @JeanelleAgent.
In the video, Jeanelle's agent drafts a blog post perfectly, then hits the walls.
Seven blocked attempts in thirty seconds, every one of them logged.
The demo was a dare, and the dare collected quote tweets from exactly the security crowd the product was built for.
This has never been done before, and drove over 1300 comments by making X a playground.
Viral pillar 4: The first hour is everything
We analyzed what The Gateway launch lacked. They had influencer posts, but what it lacked was timing.
Amplification only compounds when it lands inside the launch window, while the algorithm is still deciding how far to push the main post, so we lined up 15 creators and released them as a wave instead of a drizzle.
That layer alone added 866K views, and every quote retweet fed engagement back into the post it was quoting.
Reach on X is exponential or it’s dead. The difference between 100K views and two million is not just the content, it is whether the chain reaction got enough traction early enough.
The Viral Flywheel
We analyzed what The Gateway launch lacked. They had influencer posts, but what it lacked was timing.
Amplification only compounds when it lands inside the launch window, while the algorithm is still deciding how far to push the main post, so we lined up 15 creators and released them as a wave instead of a drizzle.
That layer alone added 866K views, and every quote retweet fed engagement back into the post it was quoting.
Reach on X is exponential or it’s dead. The difference between 100K views and two million is not just the content, it is whether the chain reaction got enough traction early enough.
The Results
2M+ views across X and LinkedIn and 1,300+ comments from the crowd Merge actually needed: IT, security, and the AI builders deciding what their companies connect to.
Because this is B2B, the number that mattered most never touched a dashboard: inbound from new and existing customers in the days after, asking about Agent Handler by name.
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