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Do More with Less: Modernizing the Cloud Contact Center
The Gist
- AI-powered assistance. Knowledge Agent listens to live calls and reads on-screen data simultaneously without requiring agents to manually prompt it.
- First in series. Cresta says this is the first in a planned series of agentic assistants.
- Single browser sidebar. The tool is designed to replace multi-system toggling by consolidating CRM data, knowledge bases and policies.
Cresta's new Knowledge Agent aims to solve a persistent contact center problem: agents juggling multiple systems while customers wait.
Launched March 17, the AI-powered assistant provides real-time answers to contact center agents during live customer interactions. The tool operates within agents' browser workflows, according to company officials, analyzing conversations and on-screen data to surface relevant guidance.
Knowledge Agent eliminates the friction of navigating CRMs, knowledge bases and internal tools by delivering cited answers directly within a persistent browser sidebar.
Table of Contents
- What Knowledge Agent Actually Does: Feature Breakdown
- Contact Center AI Crosses the Tipping Point
- The Productivity Payoff for Agents
- Augmentation Wins Over Automation
What Knowledge Agent Actually Does: Feature Breakdown
Cresta’s Knowledge Agent introduces several features designed to reduce manual searching and improve response accuracy.
| Feature | How It Works |
|---|---|
| Persistent Browser Sidebar | Unified interface stays visible as agents switch between tabs and tools |
| Context Fields | Automatically extracts CRM data like loyalty tier and account status |
| Ambient Listening | Analyzes live audio to detect customer intent without prompting |
| Proactive Answers | Surfaces relevant policies and guidance as conversations unfold |
| Cited Responses | Provides answers grounded in company knowledge documentation |
The system identifies customer intent from conversation audio while simultaneously reading on-screen data. The AI then combines these signals with company policies to determine which guidance applies to each scenario.
According to Cresta, Knowledge Agent represents the first in a series of agentic assistants designed to support human agents by understanding conversations, orchestrating guidance and taking action across tools.
Contact Center AI Crosses the Tipping Point
Contact center AI has moved well past the pilot stage. It’s now a core line item in enterprise technology budgets, and the numbers reflect that urgency.
The global call center AI market was valued at $2.41 billion in 2025, and is projected to reach $13.52 billion by 2034, growing at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 21%.
That growth is being driven not just by cost pressure, but by measurable operational outcomes. Benchmarks show that AI-assisted contact centers average a $3.50 return for every $1 invested, with top-performing organizations reporting returns as high as 8x.
The Productivity Payoff for Agents
For agents specifically, the productivity case is well-documented. Research from Nielsen Norman Group found that AI enables support agents to handle 13.8% more customer inquiries per hour — a meaningful gain in high-volume environments where handle time directly affects staffing costs.
Companies using generative AI tools are also 35% less likely to report that agents feel overwhelmed by information during live calls, according to Deloitte. That's the specific problem tools like Knowledge Agent are designed to address: reducing the cognitive load on agents who are expected to juggle CRM data, policy documentation and live conversation simultaneously.
Augmentation Wins Over Automation
The competitive landscape is intensifying as a result.
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Major players including NICE, Genesys and Google Cloud have all expanded their agent-assist capabilities in the past 12 months. Google Cloud significantly upgraded its Contact Center AI Platform in April 2025 by integrating its Gemini models to power new agent assist capabilities and enhanced customer self-service features.
The tension in the market, however, is less about whether to adopt AI and more about where it creates durable value.
Analysts predict that AI and conversational tools will save $80 billion in contact center labor costs by 2026 — but 75% of customers still prefer human agents for complex, sensitive or emotionally driven issues. That dynamic is pushing vendors toward augmentation over replacement: tools that make agents faster and better-informed rather than ones that remove them from the equation entirely.
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