In our recent fireside chat, we delved into the transformative potential of AI agents across multiple industries. These business areas include customer service, IT support, and internal business support. The discussion, titled “Rise of the AI Agents,” brought together industry experts across several fields. These included transportation, public sector, legal, media, and executive search. The panel explored how AI is reshaping customer and consumer interactions and discussed enhancing efficiency and driving more inclusive interactions.

Introduction to AI Agents

We kicked off the session our fireside chat by setting the scene. We highlighted the traditional challenges faced in contact centers. These include long hold times and inefficient call transfers between chat bots and human agents. Here we agreed on these and but also the importance of not just jumping on “injecting ChatGPT” into workflows, but instead discussed the advent and value of generative AI and human-like conversation across chat and AI-Voice and how these rapid technology advancements have the potential to revolutionise these experiences.

AI agents, leveraging large language models like, are now capable of understanding context, handling a wide range of queries, and providing personalized responses and we are seeing Contact Center solutions such as Cisco Webex, starting to infuse this technology to assist end-to-end in the Human-to AI, Human-to-AI-to-Human, and Human-to-Human conversation.

AI agents leverage advanced technologies like large language models (LLMs) and machine learning to provide more dynamic and context-aware interactions. AI agents can understand and generate natural language. This ability allows them to handle a wider range of queries. They also provide more personalised responses. They can learn from data and feedback, improving their performance over time without needing manual updates.

AI agents can also integrate with various data sources and systems, enabling them to provide more comprehensive and accurate information.

• Autonomous Agents can operate entirely independently, without human intervention. They can handle multi-step tasks, make decisions based on pre-programmed logic, and adapt to new situations using advanced AI techniques like reinforcement learning. These agents are ideal for environments where human input is minimal or impractical.
• Semi-Autonomous Agents on the other hand, still involve a “human in the loop.” While they can perform many tasks independently, they require human input for certain decisions or actions. This hybrid approach combines the efficiency of automation with the oversight of human expertise, ensuring accuracy and reliability.

The example below is a recent marketing video from Cisco introducing their new AI agent in Webex Contact Centre.

AI Agent – Use Cases

Through the discussion, the panel agreed on several key areas in which AI assisted agents could add value.

• Customer Support: Investing (or extending existing platform) in AI agents can help multiple lines of business better and more efficiently handle routine customer inquiries, such as changing addresses, booking or changing appointments, and freeing up human agents to work on less trivial customer requests or more complex issues. 
• Sales Assistance: Another area discussed, was where AI can assist human agents (for example in sales or customer service), by providing real-time information and suggestions during human customer interactions, improving the chances of successful sales conversations, such as overcoming objections or asking for more technical information about a product or service.
• Customer Service and Complaints: helping agents improve their interaction with their customers, such as making agents aware of similar problems, outages or similar calls that led to successful outcomes or helping explain something better or in a different way to their customer.
• Training and Development: AI can be used to train new agents by simulating customer interactions and providing feedback, helping them improve their skills more quickly. This can be used for onboarding fresh staff, running different customer scenarios or reviewing previous calls for improvement
• Sentiment Analysis: Using AI to analyse customer sentiment during interactions, allowing agents to adjust their approach and improve customer satisfaction as well as flagging to supervisors early where interaction or training may be needed.

AI Agent Value and Applications

Driving efficiency and improving satisfaction

Darren Everden (London Borough of Hillingdon) shared his insights on how local authorities are looking at utilising AI to improve resident interactions. David emphasised the importance of channel shift and transformation in the public sector, driven by funding reductions and the need for more cost-effective solutions that also improve the resident experience and resolution rate. Darren highlighted the evolution of chatbots, which can now use natural language processing to understand and respond to resident queries more effectively. He also discussed the potential of integrating AI into voice channels, enhancing accessibility and providing a more natural interaction experience making it almost impossible to differentiate from human voice. Interactions are far more natural than ever, and this continues to evolve and improve with models such as ChatGPT-4o.

Inclusivity and Accessibility

Ken Dickie from Leathwaite Executive Search, discussed the role of AI in promoting and improving inclusivity and accessibility. He pointed out that AI agents are far better at being able to adapt to the needs of users with disabilities, such as dyslexia, by adjusting text spacing or providing audio responses something human only operated agents simply cannot easily do This real-time adaptability empowers individuals to engage with systems more effectively. Ken also mentioned the global reach of AI, enabling organisations to provide support in multiple languages, thus breaking down communication barriers.

Enhancing Agent Efficiency

Aidan Shanahan from Govia Thameslink Railway discussed the benefits of AI in assisting human agents. He discussed his view on where AI can provide real-time guidance and sentiment analysis, helping agents handle customer interactions more effectively. The panel here discussed the role AI as an human assistant (An Agent to the Agent) being particularly valuable in high-stress situations, such as handling complaints, where AI can suggest appropriate responses based on the customer’s tone. Aidan also highlighted the potential for AI to improve internal processes, such as IT support, by automating routine tasks and reducing response times, replacing laboreous processes with natural language requests.

Jas Bassi from Gately highlighted the potential applications of AI in the legal sector. While acknowledging the generational differences in adopting new technologies, Jas emphasized the need for a multi-channel approach that includes both human and AI interactions. He pointed out that AI can deliver efficiency gains in transactional activities, ensuring faster and more consistent service delivery. However, he also raised concerns about biases in AI training and the risk of deep fakes, underscoring the importance of maintaining a balance between automation and human oversight.

Low cost of entry and ease of Proof of Concept

Alex Taylor from Awin shared his experience with implementing AI agents internally at Awin. He mentioned that this is no longer about one off business cases and specific dictated expensive systems. He shared that he is seeing huge interest in the use of AI agents across various departments, such as InfoSec and marketing, in leveraging AI to not only automate and ease customer interactions but also going beyond this and automating processes and improving efficiency. He emphasised the importance of extending this value by connecting backend systems (which also involved in many cases minimising diserpate vendrs) and ensuring they are “compatible” to maximize their effectiveness with automation and semi-automatic interactions. He realised examples, of automatically logging tickets, providing simple answers to issues and even liaising with other systems or processes.

Finally Alex and Ken agreed that the bar to entry is much lower, with a similar approach,. bring able to serve multiple departments, handle thousands of enquiries and not only reduce the cost, but truely delivery faster, more inclusive and international support even for organisations that don’t have global offices.

Conclusion: The Value and Opportunities of AI Agents

Our fireside chat concluded that there were several key value points when it comes to the use and exploration of AI agents across customer and employee focused formal contact centers but also across more adhoc and internal communications within and across business, from website chat to internal IT support.

• Enhanced Customer Interaction: AI agents can provide more efficient and personalized customer service, reducing wait times and improving satisfaction
• Cost-Effective Solutions: The low cost of entry and easy of deployment (compared to the previous laborious process of programming conversational paths), enables organisations to handle a higher volume of interactions without significantly increasing costs, making it a viable option for sectors with budget constraints and most importantly without a huge development and support burden.
• Inclusivity and Accessibility: AI agents can adapt to the needs of diverse user groups, promoting inclusivity and breaking down language barriers both with end customers and with human-agents.
• Supporting the Human Agents: AI assists can act as a huge support for human agents by providing real-time guidance, sentiment analysis, and automating routine tasks, enhancing overall efficiency and can even help handle delicate situations, detect agent stress and suggest rest-bites and training to supervisors based on AI assisted analysis.
• Internal Process Optimisation: Used effectively, this can extend way beyond the conversation, streamlining internal workflows, reducing response times and improving productivity across various departments.

Missed the fireside chat? Catch up on demand here