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Contact centers are always trying to accomplish two seemingly contradictory things: scale their ability to handle customer requests and do more with less.
With AI, they can do both.
It’s happening as you read this at a Fortune 100 insurance company. One AI Agent is trained for a specific high-volume, low-complexity task: identify and verify the caller, determine their intent and transfer the call with full context to the agent most qualified to solve the issue.
This AI agent handles 20 million calls a year. And it does so with a 95% Identify and Verify (ID&V) automation rate, reducing Average Handle Time (AHT) by 1.5 minutes per call — a 27% improvement! Even further, the AI agent does so without replacing any human agents. Rather, by taking the low-level work, this AI agent increases job satisfaction by saving human agents for more complex challenges.
Let’s explore how AI agents make it happen.
AI Agents: What They Are
An AI Agent is simply a useful metaphor for a cutting-edge AI-based software solution. They are designed to interact with customers and human agents in a natural, human-like manner and ultimately get things done. They can handle data and queries at a scale humans can't replicate — hence our 20 million call-handling powerhouse from earlier. By handling low-level tasks, AI Agents free your human agents to focus on high-value customers and complex challenges.
AI Agents consist of two main components: Conversational and Generative AI.
Think of Conversational AI like a waiter at a restaurant. The first part of its job is understanding human language, or rather what the person wants. That is Natural Language Understanding. However useful understanding your order is, that won’t fill your belly. The second half of Conversational AI is the ability to model, automate and orchestrate business processes. That’s when our metaphorical waiter heads to the kitchen and submits your order; your future meal goes through the various preparation steps and finally is delivered to your table.
Thus, AI Agents can engage with users in real-time using natural dialogue, can understand and process user inputs and respond to queries in a way that mimics human conversation. Conversational AI understands context, manages multi-turn conversations, provides service across multiple channels in the same conversation and offers relevant responses. Since it’s integrated into your backend systems (like the kitchen in our restaurant metaphor), the AI Agent can carry out service processes (either partially or end-to-end).
Then, we have Generative AI. Where Conversational AI provides the business logic, structure and guardrails, Generative AI produces unique, contextually relevant content in real time. Early AI solutions were limited to pre-programmed responses, but not so with Generative AI. It can generate answers, solutions or even content.
With Conversational AI serving as the initial customer point of contact, Generative AI brings an entirely new level of agility and contextual, human-like responses. Without Generative AI, your waiter would be a touchscreen at a fast-food restaurant. With Generative AI, it becomes a professional waiter at a three-starred Michelin restaurant.
Behind the scenes, you can carefully select and tailor responses using precise prompt templates. (This process ensures the Language Model (LLM) performs reliably without encountering issues such as hallucinations or other risks — things customers are concerned about when they interact with AI.)
Together, these technologies empower the AI Agent to deliver a seamless user experience for both customers and human agents. Whether answering queries, supporting agents through sentiment analysis and agent assistance or performing ID&V tasks, an AI Agent powered by Conversational and Generative AI can deliver seamless interactions that are nearly indistinguishable from human ones.
AI Agents: What They Do
The possibilities are nearly endless when exploring how AI Agents can help your business. Perhaps you need to provide agents with extra support to close staffing gaps. Maybe specific and repetitive tasks can be delegated to your AI Agents, reducing attrition among your human agents who will have more interesting work to perform as a result. Can Tier 1 calls be handled by an AI Agent? Certainly. Can Tier 1 calls be escalated to a human agent when needed? Also yes.
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Consider all your use cases. Our previously mentioned insurance firm uses AI Agents for ID&V. Other use cases include collecting E-signatures, conversational IVR and intelligent routing, dealing with policy changes (such as upgrades or cancellations), document collection and many, many others.
Your AI Agents can perform all these tasks without requiring benefits, days off or expensive training. However, AI Agents also won’t replace your human agents. AI is designed to augment, not replace. Your high-value customers will still need humans to handle their specific, possibly complex challenges. AI can handle the repetition and a few curve balls, but when a bespoke customer solution is required, you’ll still need a human.
Conclusion
Whether you’re in insurance or a different industry, you might feel overwhelmed by regulation and compliance, lagging legacy systems or strict security policies. Your current service processes might have limited automation capabilities Perhaps your contact center is challenged by the constant need to find, train and retain staff (just in time to start from the beginning again).
But none of the above challenges are excuses for inaction. Digital transformation is neither avoidable nor insurmountable, but it does require thoughtful action to be successful.
In today's fast-paced world, AI Agents bridge the gap between legacy challenges and modern customer expectations. These agents, powered by Conversational and Generative AI, both streamline specific tasks and enhance both the customer and human agent experiences. Embracing AI Agents will be pivotal for companies aiming to stay ahead, ensuring efficient, personalized and cost-effective service delivery.
Let Cognigy design and train AI Agents on your specific needs and use cases. Learn more at cognigy.com.
