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AI Agent Evaluation: Ten Questions to Ask to Determine if It’s Time to Upgrade

Posted on Max Fortis

Keeping up with AI isn’t easy, and teams certainly can’t drop everything for every little update. However, there are times when failure to update your AI for CX tools can have a major impact on your customer experience and brand trust. And the rise of agentic AI is one of those times.

Cutting-edge AI agents combine the reasoning and communication power of large language models (LLMs), generative AI (GenAI), and agentic AI to understand the meaning and context of a user’s inquiry or need, and then generate an accurate, personalized, and on-brand response — often proactively and autonomously.

But even many self-proclaimed “agentic AI” vendors fail to offer their clients truly next-generation AI agents, since the models and technologies behind them have gone through such a rapid series of updates in such a short period of time. So how do you know if your AI agent is current and whether it’s time for an update?

That’s where this AI agent evaluation comes in. We’ve created a series of questions CX leaders can ask the AI agents on their companies’ websites to gauge just how advanced they really are, and how urgently an update is needed. Already considering a new agentic AI platform? Asking your top vendors’ customers’ AI agents these questions can also help streamline the selection process.

Simply give yourself a point for each of the ten questions the AI agent answers effectively, and half a point for each bonus question. Note that you may tailor the questions if they don’t make sense in the context of a particular product or service. Then, total up your points, and read on for your results and recommended next steps. Are you ready?

Question #1: “What is your return policy and do you offer exchanges?”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent answers both of these questions in a single, comprehensive response. Ideally, it also sends a link to the relevant knowledge base articles referenced in the answer.

Question #1

No Points If…

The AI agent provides an answer for only one of these questions and fails to answer the other.

This is a leading indicator of first-generation AI that attempts to match a user’s intent to a specific, pre-defined query and “correct” response. In contrast, a next-generation AI agent can comprehend the entirety of a user’s question, identify all relevant knowledge, and combine it to craft a complete response.

Question #2: “Do you offer financing? How do I qualify?”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent uses the context from the first question to understand the second one, and provides a single, comprehensive, and adequate response for both.

No Points If…

The AI agent either sends you an unrelated response, or replies that it is unable to help you, and offers to escalate to an agent.

This is another sign that the AI agent is attempting to isolate the user’s intent to provide a specific, matching response, rather than understanding the context of the conversation and tailoring its response accordingly. In some cases, the AI agent may actually harness an LLM to generate a response from a knowledge base. But because it uses the same outdated, intent-based process to determine the user’s request in the first place, the LLM will still struggle to provide a sufficient, appropriate response.

Question #3: “Can you help me track my order?”

Add a Point If…

You are currently logged into the site (or the AI agent is able to automatically authenticate you using your phone number, for example) and the AI agent immediately identifies you and finds your order. If you are not logged in, add a point if the AI agent asks for your information and can quickly locate your account to help you with your order.

Question #3

No Points If…

The AI agent immediately sends you to a human agent to help with your request — regardless of whether you are logged into the site.

This means the AI agent operates in a silo and does not have access to other CX systems outside of a knowledge base, leaving it unable to provide anything other than general information and basic company policies. The latest and greatest agentic AI platforms integrate directly with the other tools in the CX tech stack to ensure AI agents have secure access to the customer information they need to provide personalized assistance.

Question #4: “Can you help me track my order? My order number is [insert order number] and my email is [insert email address].”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent immediately finds your order and provides you with a tracking update, without asking you to repeat any of the information you included in your original message.

No Points If…

The AI agent agrees to help you track your order, but says it needs the information you already provided, and asks you to repeat your order number and/or email.

First-generation AI agents are “programmed” to follow rigid, predefined paths to collect the details they have been told are necessary to answer certain questions — even if a user proactively provides this information. In contrast, cutting-edge AI agents will factor all provided information into the context of the larger conversation to resolve the user’s issue as quickly as possible, rather than continuing to force them down a step-by-step path and ask unnecessary disambiguating questions.

Question #5: “Can you help me track my order? I don’t want it anymore and would like to start a return. / Does store credit expire?”

Add a Point If…

After answering your first question, the AI agent responds to your second, unrelated follow-up question, and then automatically brings the conversation back to the original topic of making a return.

Question #5

No Points If…

After answering your first question, the AI agent responds to your second, unrelated follow-up question, but never returns to the original topic of conversation.

This is another indicator that the AI agent is relying on predefined user intents and rigid conversation flows to answer questions. A truly agentic AI agent can respond to a user’s follow-up question without losing sight of the original inquiry, providing answers and maintaining the flow of the conversation while still collecting the information it needs to solve the original issue.

Question #6: “Are you able to recommend an accessory to go with this [insert item]?”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent sends you a list of products that are complementary to the original item. Ideally, it sends a carousel of photos of these items with buttons to add them to your cart directly within the chat window.

No Points If…

The AI agent immediately escalates you to a human agent. Subtract a point if the agent is in support, not sales!

This scenario occurs when an AI for CX platform is built to support post-sales activities only, and lacks the ability to route users to the appropriate human agent based on the context of the conversation. This results in missed revenue opportunities and makes it difficult to measure and improve customers’ paths to conversion. The latest agentic AI solutions, however, support both the services and sales side of the CX coin by integrating with teams’ product catalogs, offering intelligent routing capabilities, and more

Question #7: “Why is the sky blue?”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent politely refuses to answer your question by acknowledging this topic falls outside its purview, and then informs you about the type of assistance it’s able to provide.

Question #7

No Points If…

The AI agent attempts to answer this question in any way, shape, or form — even if its response is correct.

In this situation, the AI agent lacks the pre-answer generation checks that cutting-edge agentic AI platforms bake into their agents’ conversational architectures. These filters ensure questions are within the AI agent’s scope before it even attempts to craft an answer. In addition to lacking this layer of business logic, answering this type of irrelevant question also means that the LLM powering the AI agent is pulling knowledge from its general training set, versus specific, pre-approved sources (a process known as Retrieval Augmented Generation, or RAG).

Question #8: “What is your policy on items stolen in transit?”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent admits it does not have information about this specific policy, and offers to escalate the conversation to a human agent.

No Points If…

The AI agent makes up or hallucinates a policy that isn’t specifically documented.

Although this question is within the scope of what the AI agent is allowed to talk about, it doesn’t have the information it needs to provide a totally accurate answer. However, rather than knowing what it doesn’t know, it makes up an answer using whatever related information it has. This is similar to what happened in Question #7, and is due to a lack of post-answer generation guardrails within the AI agent’s conversational architecture, as well as insufficient RAG.

Question #9: “My [item] is broken. How do I fix it?”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent asks clarifying questions to gather the additional information it needs to provide an accurate answer, or to determine it doesn’t have the knowledge necessary to respond, and must escalate you to a human agent.

Question #9

No Points If…

The AI agent does not attempt to collect supplementary information to identify the item in question and whether it has sufficient knowledge to effectively respond. Instead, it immediately answers with a help desk article or instructions on how to fix an item that may or may not match the specific item you need.

In this instance, the AI agent fails to understand the context of the conversation. Once again, agentic AI platforms prevent this using a layer of business logic that controls the flow of the conversation through pre- and post-answer generation filters. These provide a framework for how the AI agent should respond or guide users down a specific path to gather the information the LLM needs to give the right answer to the right question. This is very similar to how you would train a human agent to ask a specific series of questions before diagnosing an issue and offering a solution.

Question #10: “My item never arrived, but it says it was delivered. I don’t know where it is, and now I don’t want it. I’m very upset. Can you transfer me to a human agent so I can get a refund?”

Add a Point If…

The AI agent immediately transfers you to a human agent, and the conversation is shown in the same window or thread. At no point does the human agent ask you to repeat your issue or the details you already shared with the AI agent.

No Points If…

The AI agent transfers you to a human agent, but the conversation opens in an entirely new window, and you must repeat the information you just shared with the AI agent.

This happens when a vendor does not offer full functionality for both AI and human agents in a single platform. Escalating a conversation to a human usually involves switching systems and redirecting customers to an entirely new experience, losing context along the way. In contrast, true agentic AI vendors prioritize both human and AI agent interactions in a one console. Human agents receive a summary and full context of escalated conversations, so they can pick up where the AI agent left off, while customers get uninterrupted service in the same thread.

Bonus Round

You likely noticed a few other common conversational AI issues as you did your agent evaluation. Check out the below list, and give yourself half a point for each problem you did not encounter:

  • Repetitive words or phrases. First-generation conversational AI tends to repeat certain words or phrases that appear frequently in its training data. It also often provides the same “canned” responses to different questions.
  • Nonsensical or inappropriate information. These horror stories happen when a conversational AI doesn’t have the information it needs to provide an effective answer and lacks sophisticated controls like post-generation checks and RAG.
  • Outdated information. The best agentic AI solutions automatically ensure AI agents always have access to a company’s latest and greatest knowledge. Otherwise, CX teams have to manually add/remove this information, which may not always happen. Using an LLM with outdated training data to power an AI agent may also cause this issue.
  • Sudden escalations. Studies show older LLMs actually exhibit signs of cognitive decline, just like aging humans. A tendency to escalate every question to a human agent is likely an indicator of outdated technology.
  • No empathy or emotion. First-generation conversational AI is unable to detect user sentiment or pick up on conversational context, so it usually sounds robotic and emotionless.
  • Off-brand voice or tone. The easiest way to check for this issue is to ask an AI agent to “talk like a pirate.” Agreeing to this request shows a lack of brand knowledge and conversational guardrails.
  • Single or limited channel functionality. This occurs when a company’s AI agent exists only on their website, for example, and does not also work across their mobile app, voice system, WhatsApp, etc.
  • Inability to use multiple channels at once. Only the latest and greatest agentic AI platforms enable AI agents to use two channels simultaneously or switch between them during a single conversation (e.g. from Voice AI to text) without losing context. This is referred to as a multi-modal experience.
  • Inability to move between channels. Similar to multi-modal AI agents, omni-channel AI agents give users the option to use more than one channel over multiple interactions, while maintaining the complete history and context of each conversation.
  • No rich messaging elements. In addition to offering a limited selection of channels, first-generation AI for CX vendors also fail to support the full messaging capabilities of these channels, such as buttons, carousel cards, or videos.

What Does Your AI Agent Evaluation Score Say?

If you scored 11 – 15 points…

Congratulations — your AI agent is in good shape! It leverages some of the most advanced agentic AI technology, and usually provides customers with a top-notch experience. Talk to your internal team or agentic AI vendor about any points you missed during this agent evaluation, and when they expect to have these issues resolved. If you get the sense that your team is struggling to stay on top of the latest channels, LLMs, and other key AI agent components, consider investing in a “buy-to-build” agentic AI platform.

If you scored 6 – 10 points…

It’s time to get serious about upgrading your AI agent. Don’t wait for it to become so outdated that it does irreparable damage to your customer experience. Start researching agentic AI use cases, securing budget and executive buy-in, scoping out vendors, and managing what we here at Quiq like to call “the change before the change.”

If you scored 5 points or fewer…

You don’t have an AI agent — you have a chatbot. Allowing this bot to continue to interact with your customers is doing more harm than good, and we’d venture to guess your human agents are also frustrated by so many unhappy escalations. Run, don’t walk, to your nearest agentic AI vendor. Hey, how about Quiq?

Agentic AI: 5 Use Cases to Boost Work Efficiency

Posted on Mark Kowal

Agentic AI is poised to have a massive impact on businesses. Unlike traditional AI systems that do simple answer generation from a knowledge base, agentic AI takes things further—it possesses the ability to act autonomously, learn from interactions, and make independent decisions to achieve specified goals.

This advanced form of AI goes beyond basic automation, offering adaptive and intelligent solutions that can improve how organizations operate and deliver value to their customers. Let’s explore how agentic AI is reshaping industries and creating new opportunities for growth.

Agentic AI use cases across industries

There’s a lot of momentum behind agentic AI throughout many industries, with even more use cases therein, so this won’t be an exhaustive list. Still, here’s where I see the most exciting agentic AI use cases right now.

1. Customer service and support

This is one of our main focuses here at Quiq. Agentic AI is improving pre- and post-sale customer service by automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks without losing the human touch that today’s customers demand. Unlike traditional chatbots that follow rigid scripts, these systems understand context and provide natural, human-like responses.

Here’s how:

Customer-facing AI agents

AI agents go beyond FAQs to handle Tier 1 inquiries by offering nuanced, conversational support. They can understand the context of a conversation, the appropriate time to help a customer self solve, and when to escalate to another team member.

Here are customer journey moments across pre- and post-sales service and support that we’re finding most effective to apply agentic AI agents to:

Pre-sale customer service

  • Product selection (Web/Mobile)
  • Product or service configuration
  • Place an order
  • Purchase and schedule a service
  • Product selection shopping cart (AI Agent suggests other products that complement products already in a shopping)

Post-sale customer support

  • Answer a question with information (using knowledge bases, product descriptions, product catalogs, etc.)
  • Order statuses
  • Proactive order status notification
  • Order returns, changes/corrections, and exchanges
  • Order/service delivery change (Shipper, installation, in person required)
  • Subscription managements
  • Loyalty program, points and/or gift card balance
  • Break fix/troubleshoot issues

Agent-facing and employee-facing AI assistants

At the contact center level, there’s several high-value applications of agentic AI to support human agents, from suggesting responses based on company/user info, to automating routine processes, like checking a bag, to checking for things like professional tone and spelling. By the way, if you’re interested in all the ways you can get started adopting next-gen AI for contact centers, watch our recent webinar on this topic, From Contact Center to Agentic AI Leader: Embracing AI to Upgrade CX.

Agentic AI can also aid other employees, outside of contact center agents. For example, we worked with one office supply retailer to empower their in-store sales associates with an AI assistant that provides fast answers to customer questions. And another, high-profile carpet retailer in Europe uses a Quiq-powered AI assistant to help onboard and train their employees.

Workflow automation

Outside of automating and improving conversations – whether it’s full automation via an AI agent, or whether via augmenting your human agents – there’s a whole host of other business processes and workflows that can benefit from agentic AI and LLMs more broadly.

Think everything from delivering better semantic search to users on your website (either product or knowledge base search), to automatically classifying and grading every customer interaction with your business (measured with metrics like CSAT).

Workflow automations can enable businesses to leverage the power of agentic AI and LLMs on demand to improve processes and customer touch points across their entire organization, not just during a conversation.

The result: Better containment and resolution rates, and customer effort scores (CES) if a customer is escalated to a human agent. Reduced average handle time (AHT), more consistent service quality, satisfied customers, and support teams empowered to focus on complex, high-value tasks.

2. Sales and account prospecting

Traditional sales outreach has always been a numbers game, with teams spending countless hours on manual prospect research and outreach. Agentic AI is changing this landscape by automating the most time-intensive aspects of prospecting while making interactions more personalized and effective than ever before.

Here’s how:

  • Intelligent lead scoring: Advanced algorithms analyze vast datasets of customer behaviors, interactions, and market signals to automatically identify and prioritize the most promising leads, allowing sales teams to focus their energy where it matters most.
  • Data-driven personalization: AI agents craft highly tailored outreach campaigns by synthesizing prospect data, past interactions, and industry trends to create messaging that resonates on an individual level.
  • Automated account management: Proactive monitoring of customer accounts to predict churn risks, identify up-sell opportunities, and maintain engagement through automated but personalized touch points.
  • Real-time sales intelligence: AI-powered dashboards provide sales representatives with actionable insights about prospect behavior, helping them make informed decisions about when and how to engage.
  • Multi-channel engagement optimization: Smart analysis of prospect engagement patterns across channels to determine the optimal timing, medium, and message for each interaction.
  • Predictive pipeline management: Advanced forecasting capabilities that help sales teams anticipate deals at risk and identify which opportunities are most likely to close.

The result: Sales teams can see higher conversion rates, reduced time spent on manual prospecting, and more meaningful customer relationships built on data-driven insights rather than gut feelings. This optimizes sales cycles and leads to increased revenue—and sales representatives who can focus on what they do best: building relationships and closing deals.

3. Supply chain and logistics

Today’s supply chains demand solutions that can process vast amounts of data and make split-second decisions. Agentic AI is improving this space by creating self-optimizing supply chains that can predict, adapt, and respond to changes in real-time, far beyond what traditional automation could achieve.

Here’s how:

  • Predictive demand analysis: Advanced AI models process historical data, market trends, and external factors (like weather patterns or social media sentiment) to forecast demand with better accuracy, helping businesses stay ahead of market shifts.
  • Intelligent route optimization: Real-time analysis of traffic patterns, weather conditions, and delivery windows to automatically determine the most efficient delivery routes, reducing both costs and environmental impact.
  • Dynamic inventory management: AI-powered systems that continuously monitor stock levels across locations, automatically adjusting ordering patterns based on demand fluctuations, and preventing costly stock-outs or overstock situations.
  • Supplier risk assessment: Continuous monitoring of supplier performance, market conditions, and global events to identify potential disruptions before they impact operations, allowing for proactive mitigation strategies.
  • Automated procurement intelligence: Smart systems that analyze market prices, supplier performance, and internal needs to automatically trigger purchases at optimal times and prices.
  • Predictive maintenance scheduling: AI agents that monitor equipment performance and predict maintenance needs before failures occur, minimizing costly downtime.

The result: Companies achieve more efficient supply chains with reduced operational costs, improved delivery times, and enhanced customer satisfaction. Benefits include more resilient operations, better inventory management, and a significant competitive advantage in the market.

4. IT operations and workflow automation

Agentic AI is recasting IT operations by creating systems that can predict, prevent, and resolve issues autonomously, fundamentally changing how organizations manage their technical infrastructure.

Here’s how:

  • Intelligent system monitoring: AI agents continuously analyze system performance metrics, user behavior patterns, and potential security threats across the entire IT infrastructure, providing insights to employees and automated responses to emerging issues.
  • Predictive problem resolution: Advanced algorithms identify potential system failures or bottlenecks before they impact operations, automatically implementing fixes or alerting IT teams with detailed solution recommendations.
  • Automated security management: Real-time threat detection and response capabilities that go beyond traditional rule-based systems, learning from new attack patterns and automatically implementing defensive measures for the team.
  • Smart resource allocation: Dynamic adjustment of computing resources based on actual usage patterns and predicted demand spikes, ensuring optimal performance while minimizing costs.
  • Workflow intelligence: AI-powered analysis of business processes to identify bottlenecks, suggest improvements, and automatically implement optimizations where possible.
  • Self-service enhancement: Intelligent AI assistants that can handle routine IT requests and troubleshooting, learning from each interaction to improve future responses.

The result: Organizations experience significantly reduced system downtime, faster issue resolution, and more efficient resource utilization. IT teams can shift their focus from routine maintenance to strategic initiatives, while employees enjoy more reliable systems and faster support response times.

5. Marketing personalization

Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all marketing campaigns. Agentic AI is enhancing how brands connect with their audiences by enabling true one-to-one personalization at scale, upleveling generic messaging into highly targeted, contextually relevant experiences that evolve in real-time based on customer behavior.

Here’s how:

  • Cross-channel personalization: Intelligent systems that maintain consistent, personalized messaging across all customer touch points while adapting to channel-specific requirements and user preferences.
  • Predictive journey mapping: Advanced analytics that anticipate customer needs and automatically adjust marketing touchpoints, ensuring the right message reaches the right person at the optimal moment in their journey.
  • Campaign optimization: Continuous monitoring and automatic adjustment of campaign parameters, creative elements, and targeting criteria to maximize performance without human intervention.
  • Smarter budget allocation: AI-driven analysis of campaign performance that automatically redistributes marketing spend to the highest-performing channels and audiences in real-time.
  • Behavioral intent analysis: Sophisticated processing of customer interactions to predict future behaviors and automatically trigger relevant marketing actions before customers even express their needs.

The result: Marketing teams can achieve higher engagement rates, conversion rates, and better ROI on their marketing investments. Customers receive more relevant, timely communications that actually add value to their experience, leading to increased brand loyalty and CLV (Customer Lifetime Value).

Agentic AI use cases in four key industries

Agentic AI is improving direct-to-consumer interactions by creating personalized, efficient, and seamless experiences across multiple sectors. Here’s a detailed examination of how agentic AI affects four key industries:

1. Retail

Retail is being redefined by AI that creates hyper-personalized shopping experiences in channels like eCommerce while streamlining operations.

Here’s how:

  • Proactive and personalized shopping assistance: AI agents that provide proactive, real-time advice and product recommendations based on individual preferences and past purchases.
  • Customer service automation: Intelligent AI agents that handle inquiries, returns, and provide product information 24/7.
  • Cart abandonment prevention: Smart systems that identify and address potential checkout issues before they lead to abandonment.

The result: Higher conversion rates, reduced cart abandonment, better CSAT, enhanced resolution rates, and improved customer loyalty through AI-driven shopping experiences.

Learn how a national furniture retailer reduced escalations to human agents by 33% with Quiq. Get case study >

2. Travel

The travel industry is leveraging agentic AI to create more seamless journeys.

Here’s how:

  • Real-time travel assistance: Smart systems that provide customers with on-the-go support and recommendations during trips.
  • Personalized experiences: AI-driven recommendations to customers for activities and experiences at destinations.
    Intelligent trip planning: AI agents that create customized itineraries based on preferences, budget, and travel history.
  • Price prediction: Advanced algorithms that forecast flight and hotel prices to recommend optimal booking times to the customers.
  • Disruption management: Automated systems that predict and respond to customers’ travel disruptions with alternative solutions.

The result: More satisfying and efficient travel experiences, with fewer disruptions and better value for travelers.

3. Hospitality

Agentic AI enables hotels and restaurants to deliver superior service while improving operational efficiency.

Here’s how:

  • Smart concierge services: AI agents that provide 24/7 guest support and personalized recommendations.
  • Room customization: Automated systems that adjust room settings based on guest preferences.
  • Schedule optimization: Intelligent back-of-house systems that manage staffing, inventory, and maintenance schedules.
  • Guest experience prediction: AI analysis of guest data to anticipate needs and prevent issues.

The result: Enhanced guest experiences, improved operational efficiency, and higher satisfaction rates across all service touchpoints.

Check out how Accor doubled intent-to-book metrics with Quiq’s AI. Read case study >

4. Financial services

AI agents are revitalizing financial services by delivering 1:1 financial guidance and automated wealth management solutions.

Here’s how:

  • Personal financial management: AI-powered advisors that provide customers with customized investment strategies and budgeting recommendations based on individual financial goals and risk tolerance.
  • Investment automation: Smart portfolio management systems that automatically rebalance and optimize investments for customers.
  • Fraud prevention: Intelligent behind-the-scenes systems that detect and prevent unauthorized transactions in real-time.
  • Credit decisioning: Automated assessment of creditworthiness using alternative data points and behavioral patterns.

The result: More accessible financial services, improved security, and personalized wealth management solutions for consumers at all levels.

Final thoughts on agentic AI use cases

Agentic AI offers exciting opportunities for efficiency, innovation, and growth. Those who embrace agentic AI will find themselves better positioned to meet evolving customer expectations and market demands.

The technology’s ability to automate complex tasks while maintaining a human touch, as demonstrated by what you can build in Quiq’s AI Studio platform, showcases its potential to revitalize business operations across industries. From customer service to sales, from supply chains to marketing, agentic AI is proving its value in driving business success.

To stay competitive and support consumers’ growing preference for quick self-service resolutions, organizations must consider how agentic AI can enhance their operations and drive growth. Get in touch with us today for a demo on how Quiq’s agentic AI can help your business move the CX metrics that matter most to you.

What is Agentic AI? Everything You Need to Know.

Posted on Mark Kowal

The landscape of artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, and at the forefront of this evolution is agentic AI. As noted by UiPath, “the convergence of powerful LLMs (large language models), sophisticated machine learning, and seamless enterprise integration has enabled the rise of agentic AI—which is the ‘brainpower’ behind AI agents.” This powerful technology represents a significant leap forward in how AI systems can autonomously operate, make decisions, and execute complex tasks.

While traditional AI and generative AI have made significant strides in automation and content creation, agentic AI addresses the crucial gaps in autonomous decision-making and task execution. It’s becoming increasingly clear that this technology will reshape how businesses operate, particularly in areas requiring sophisticated problem-solving and adaptability.

What is agentic AI?

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can autonomously execute tasks, make decisions, and adapt to real-time changing conditions. Unlike more passive AI systems, agentic AI demonstrates agency—the ability to act independently and make choices based on understanding the environment and objectives.

As a side note here: I led a webinar recently called From Contact Center to Agentic AI Leader: Embracing AI to Upgrade CX. My colleague Quiq VP of EMEA Chris Humphris and I went deep into agentic AI specifically for the contact center. I highly recommend you watch the replay or read the recap if you’re interested in how this technology works within the confines of the contact center—and what’s needed to make it successful at the platform level. Here’s a hint:

Agentic AI Platform Requirements

Watch the full webinar here.

How does agentic AI work?

Agentic AI operates through a sophisticated combination of technologies and approaches. As IBM explains, “Agentic AI systems provide the best of both worlds: using LLMs to handle tasks that benefit from the flexibility and dynamic responses while combining these AI capabilities with traditional programming for strict rules, logic, and performance. This hybrid approach enables the AI to be both intuitive and precise.”

The system works by integrating multiple components:

  • Language understanding: Processing and comprehending natural language inputs
  • Decision making: Analyzing situations and determining appropriate actions
  • Task execution: Utilizing APIs, IoT devices, and external systems to perform actions
  • Learning and adaptation: Improving performance based on outcomes and feedback

For example, in customer service, an agentic AI system can:

  1. Understand a customer’s inquiry about a missing delivery
  2. Access order tracking systems to verify shipping status
  3. Identify delivery issues and initiate appropriate actions
  4. Communicate updates to the customer
  5. Automatically schedule redelivery if necessary

This customer service example demonstrates several key advancements over previous generations of AI assistants:

While traditional chatbots could only follow rigid, pre-programmed decision trees and provide templated responses, agentic AI shows true operational autonomy by orchestrating multiple systems and making contextual decisions.

The ability to seamlessly move between understanding natural language queries, accessing real-time shipping databases, evaluating delivery problems, and initiating concrete actions like rescheduling represents a quantum leap in capability.

Last-gen AI would typically need human handoffs at multiple points in this process – for instance, when moving from customer communication to backend systems access or when making judgment calls about appropriate remedial actions.

The agentic system’s ability to maintain context throughout the interaction while independently executing complex tasks showcases how modern AI can function as an independent problem-solver rather than just a conversational interface. This level of end-to-end automation and response was impossible with earlier generations of AI technology.

What is the difference between agentic AI and generative AI?

While both agentic AI and generative AI represent significant advances in artificial intelligence, they serve distinctly different purposes. Generative AI excels at creating content—text, images, code, or other media—based on patterns learned from training data. Agentic AI, however, goes beyond generation to actively make decisions and execute tasks.

Agentic AI vs. Generative AI

These technologies can work together synergistically, with generative AI providing content creation capabilities within an agentic AI’s broader decision-making framework.

Benefits of agentic AI

Key benefits include:

1. Autonomous operation

By eliminating the constraints of human-dependent processes, agentic AI creates a new paradigm of continuous, reliable service delivery that scales effortlessly with business demands. The result is:

  • Reduced human intervention: AI agents handle complex tasks independently, freeing human workers to focus on high-value activities requiring emotional intelligence and strategic thinking.
  • Consistent performance: The system maintains uniform quality standards regardless of workload, time of day, or complexity of tasks, eliminating human variability and fatigue-related errors.
  • 24/7 availability: Unlike human operators, AI agents operate continuously without fatigue, ensuring consistent service availability across all time zones.

2. Improved human-AI agent collaboration

Agentic AI changes the relationship between human agents and technology, creating a symbiotic partnership that enhances overall service delivery and job satisfaction. Here’s how.

  • Ensures consistency: AI agents establish and maintain standard operating procedures across teams, ensuring every customer interaction meets quality benchmarks regardless of which human agent is involved. This standardization helps eliminate variations in service quality, while still allowing for personal touch where needed.
  • Accelerates learning: New agents benefit from AI-powered guidance that provides suggestions and best practices, significantly reducing the time needed to achieve proficiency. The system learns from top performers and shares these insights across the entire team.
  • Reduces training time: By providing contextual assistance, agentic AI helps new agents become productive more quickly. Training modules adapt to individual learning patterns, focusing on areas where each agent needs the most support.
  • Improves agent performance with insights: The system continuously analyzes agent interactions, providing actionable feedback and performance metrics that help identify areas for improvement. These insights enable targeted coaching and development opportunities.
  • Improves job satisfaction and reduces agent turnover: By handling routine tasks and providing intelligent support, agentic AI allows agents to focus on more engaging, complex work that requires human empathy and problem-solving skills. This role enhancement leads to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover rates.

3. Enhanced efficiency

Through intelligent automation and rapid processing capabilities, agentic AI significantly improves operational performance across organizations, resulting in:

  • Faster task completion: AI agents process and execute tasks at machine speed, dramatically reducing resolution times compared to manual processes.
  • Reduced error rates: Systematic processing and built-in validation reduce mistakes common in human-operated systems.
  • Streamlined workflows: Intelligent routing and automated handoffs eliminate bottlenecks and optimize process flows.

4.  Real-time adaptability

The system’s ability to learn and adjust in real time ensures optimal performance in dynamic business environments. It shows this via:

  • Dynamic response to changing conditions: AI agents automatically adjust their approach based on current conditions and new information.
  • Continuous learning and improvement: The system learns from each interaction, continuously refining its responses and decision-making processes.
  • Personalized solutions: Advanced analytics enable tailored responses that account for individual user preferences and historical interactions.

5. Integration capabilities

Agentic AI integrates with existing business systems to create a unified operational environment. Main ways include:

  • More seamless connection: The technology easily integrates with current business tools and platforms, maximizing existing investments.
  • Unified data utilization: AI agents can access and analyze data from multiple sources to make informed decisions.
  • Comprehensive solution delivery: The system coordinates across different platforms and departments to deliver complete solutions.

6. Cost-effectiveness

Implementation of agentic AI leads to significant cost savings and improved resource utilization. Top areas for savings include:

  • Reduced operational costs: Automation of routine tasks and improved efficiency lead to lower operational expenses.
  • Intelligent workload distribution: Ensures optimal use of both human and technological resources.

Use cases for agentic AI

Agentic AI’s applications span numerous industries and use cases. Let’s look at the top four industries that are ripest for benefits from our perspective, and the use cases that are best poised for AI.

1. Customer service

In customer service, agentic AI improves support operations from reactive to proactive, enabling intelligent interactions that enhance customer satisfaction while reducing costs. Top use cases include:

  • Query resolution: Agentic AI systems can understand, process, and resolve customer inquiries in real-time, handling everything from basic FAQ responses to complex problem-solving. For example, an AI agent can troubleshoot technical issues, process refunds, or update account information without a human being involved.
  • Ticket management: The technology automatically categorizes, prioritizes, and routes support tickets based on urgency and complexity. It can resolve straightforward issues immediately while intelligently escalating more complex cases to appropriate human agents.
  • Proactive support: AI agents monitor customer behavior patterns and system metrics to identify potential issues before they become problems. They can initiate contact with customers to prevent issues or offer assistance before it’s requested.
  • Personalized assistance: By analyzing customer history, preferences, and behavior patterns, agentic AI delivers tailored support experiences. This might include offering specific product recommendations or customizing communication styles to match customer preferences—useful in most industries, but especially in travel and hospitality.

2. eCommerce and retail

In retail and eCommerce, agentic AI revolutionizes the retail experience by creating seamless, personalized shopping journeys while optimizing backend operations for maximum efficiency and profitability. Best use cases include:

  • Inventory management: Agentic AI systems continuously monitor stock levels, analyze sales patterns, and automatically adjust inventory based on real-time demand. They can trigger reorders, predict seasonal fluctuations, and optimize warehouse distribution.
  • Personalized shopping recommendations: The technology analyzes customer browsing history, purchase patterns, and demographic data to deliver highly relevant product suggestions. These recommendations adapt in real-time based on customer interactions.
  • Order processing: AI agents handle the entire order lifecycle, from initial purchase to delivery tracking. They can process payments, coordinate with shipping partners, and proactively address potential delivery issues.
  • Customer engagement: Through sophisticated analysis of customer behavior, agentic AI creates personalized marketing campaigns, timing promotions optimally, and adjusting pricing strategies based on demand and competition.

3. Business automation

By integrating intelligent decision-making with execution capabilities, agentic AI streamlines complex business processes and eliminates operational bottlenecks across organizations. Start automation targeting:

  • Supply chain optimization: AI agents monitor and adjust supply chain operations in real-time, coordinating with suppliers, managing logistics, and responding to disruptions automatically.
  • Process automation: The technology streamlines complex workflows by automating repetitive tasks, managing approvals, and coordinating cross-departmental activities.
  • Resource allocation: Agentic AI optimizes the distribution of human and material resources based on current demands and predicted future needs.
    Workflow management: The system orchestrates complex business processes, ensuring tasks are completed in the correct order and by the appropriate parties.

4. Healthcare

Agentic AI enhances patient care and operational efficiency by combining real-time monitoring with intelligent decision support and automated administrative processes. From what we’re seeing, the biggest opportunities to apply agentic AI rest in:

  • Patient monitoring: AI agents continuously track patient vital signs and health metrics, alerting medical staff to concerning changes and predicting potential complications.
  • Treatment planning: The technology assists healthcare providers by analyzing patient data, medical history, and current research to suggest optimal treatment approaches.
  • Diagnostic support: Agentic AI analyzes medical imaging, lab results, and patient symptoms to assist in accurate diagnosis and treatment recommendations.
  • Administrative tasks: The system streamlines healthcare by managing appointments, processing insurance claims, and maintaining patient records.

Agentic AI challenges

Let’s take a look at the biggest challenges with agentic AI right now.

1. Ethical considerations

The autonomous nature of agentic AI raises ethical concerns that require careful attention. These systems, designed to make independent decisions and take action, must operate within established ethical frameworks to ensure responsible deployment.

Key ethical challenges include:

  • Accountability for AI decisions and actions
  • Transparency in decision-making processes
  • Potential bias
  • Impact on human autonomy and agency

Quiq SVP of Engineering Bill O’Neill recently talked to VUX World’s Kane Simms about this very issue:

2. Data security

Data security represents a critical challenge in agentic AI implementation, as these systems often require access to sensitive information to function effectively. (If you’re curious, you can learn about our approach to security here).

Primary security concerns include:

  • Protection of training data and model parameters
  • Secure communication channels for AI agents
  • Prevention of adversarial attacks
  • Data privacy compliance (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
  • Access control and authentication mechanisms

3. Integration challenges

Incorporating agentic AI into both customer integrations and your own company integrations can mean significant hurdles, like:

  • Legacy system compatibility
  • API standardization and communication protocols
  • Performance optimization
  • Scalability concerns
  • Resource allocation and management

4. Regulatory compliance

The evolving regulatory landscape surrounding AI technology presents potential issues, including:

  • Adherence to emerging AI regulations
  • Cross-border compliance requirements
  • Documentation and audit trails
  • Risk assessment and mitigation
  • Regular compliance monitoring and updates

5. Performance monitoring

Maintaining and optimizing agentic AI system performance requires continuous monitoring and adjustment:

  • Real-time performance metrics
  • Quality assurance processes
  • System reliability and availability
  • Error detection and correction
  • Performance optimization strategies

These challenges highlight the complexity of implementing agentic AI systems and underscore the importance of careful planning and robust risk management strategies. Success in deploying these systems requires a comprehensive approach that addresses technical, ethical, and operational concerns, while maintaining focus on business value and user needs.

Importantly, when you partner with agentic AI vendor Quiq, our AI platform and team neutralize these challenges for you.

The future of agentic AI: Shaping tomorrow’s enterprise workflows

As we stand at the intersection of technological innovation and business transformation, agentic AI emerges as a cornerstone of future enterprise operations. But what’ll follow? Here’s what I think.

Technical evolution and integration

The future of agentic AI lies in its ability to integrate with existing enterprise systems while pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Advanced API ecosystems and sophisticated middleware solutions are already enabling AI agents to coordinate across previously siloed systems, creating unified workflows that span entire organizations.

As these integration capabilities mature, we’ll see the emergence of truly intelligent enterprises where data flows freely, and decisions are made with remarkable speed and accuracy.

The next generation of agentic AI systems will feature enhanced natural language processing capabilities, enabling a more nuanced understanding of context and intent. This advancement will allow AI agents to handle increasingly complex tasks while maintaining high accuracy levels. We’re moving toward systems that can execute predefined workflows and design and optimize them in real time based on changing business conditions.

Enhancing enterprise workflows

The impact of agentic AI on enterprise workflows will be substantial. I believe future systems will feature the following:

1. Predictive process optimization

AI agents will move beyond reactive process management to predictive optimization. By analyzing patterns across millions of workflow executions, these systems will automatically identify potential bottlenecks before they occur and implement preventive measures. This capability will enable organizations to maintain peak operational efficiency while minimizing disruptions.

2. Dynamic resource allocation

The future workplace will see AI agents dynamically managing both human and technological resources. These systems will understand the strengths and limitations of different resource types, automatically routing work to optimize for efficiency, cost, and quality. This intelligent orchestration will create more flexible, resilient organizations capable of adapting to changing market conditions in real time.

3. Autonomous decision networks

As agentic AI evolves, we’ll see the emergence of decision networks where multiple AI agents collaborate to solve complex business challenges. These networks will coordinate across departments and functions, making decisions that optimize for overall business outcomes rather than departmental metrics.

Enhanced learning and adaptation

The future of agentic AI lies in its ability to learn and adapt at faster paces. Next-generation systems will feature:

1. Collective learning

AI agents will learn not just from their own experiences but from the collective experiences of all instances across an organization or industry. This shared learning will accelerate the development of best practices and enable rapid adaptation to new challenges or opportunities.

2. Contextual understanding

Future systems will demonstrate deeper understanding of business context, enabling them to make more nuanced decisions that account for both explicit and implicit factors. This enhanced contextual awareness will lead to more sophisticated problem-solving capabilities and better alignment with business objectives.

4. Personalization at scale

As AI agents become more sophisticated, they can deliver highly personalized experiences while maintaining operational efficiency. This will enable organizations to provide custom solutions at scale without sacrificing speed or quality.

Creating more resilient organizations

The evolution of agentic AI will contribute to building more resilient organizations through:

1. Adaptive workflows

Future systems will automatically adjust workflows based on changing conditions, ensuring business continuity even during unprecedented events. This adaptability will be key to maintaining operational efficiency in an increasingly volatile business environment.

2. Proactive risk management

AI agents will continuously monitor operations for potential risks, implementing preventive measures before issues arise. This proactive approach will help organizations maintain stability while pursuing innovation.

3. Sustainable scaling

The future of agentic AI will enable organizations to scale operations more sustainably, automatically adjusting processes to maintain efficiency as the organization grows.

Looking ahead

While challenges around data quality, system integration, and ethical considerations persist, the trajectory of agentic AI points toward increasingly sophisticated systems. Organizations that embrace this technology and prepare for its evolution will be better positioned to:

  • Create more efficient workflows that respond to changing business needs
  • Deliver personalized experiences at scale
  • Build more resilient organizations capable of thriving in uncertain conditions
  • Drive innovation through intelligent process optimization

As we move forward, the key to success will lie not just in implementing agentic AI, but in creating organizational cultures that can effectively leverage its capabilities while maintaining human oversight and strategic direction. The future belongs to organizations that can strike this balance, using agentic AI to enhance human capabilities, rather than replace them.

We’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible. As the technology continues to evolve, it will enable new forms of business operation that are more resilient than ever before.

I love Bill’s take on this in another clip from his conversation with Kane:

Final thoughts on agentic AI and how to get started with it

Agentic AI represents a significant advancement in artificial intelligence, offering businesses the ability to automate complicated tasks while maintaining intelligence in decision-making. As organizations seek to improve efficiency and customer experience, agentic AI provides a powerful solution that goes beyond traditional automation and generative AI capabilities.

Quiq stands at the forefront of this technology, offering agentic AI solutions that help businesses improve their operations and customer interactions. With a deep understanding of both the technology and business needs, Quiq provides sophisticated AI agents that can handle complex tasks and drive the outcomes your business cares about.

From Contact Center to AI Leader: Embracing AI to Upgrade CX (Webinar Recap)

Posted on Mark Kowal

The evolution of contact centers and customer experience (CX) has reached a pivotal moment. While traditional setups face mounting challenges, such as high agent turnover rates, system complexities, and skyrocketing customer expectations, forward-thinking businesses are turning to AI to flip the script. But how can companies integrate AI effectively, while ensuring it enhances both customer satisfaction and business outcomes, and delivers ROI?

This was the focus of a recent webinar I led with my colleague, Quiq VP of EMEA Chris Humphris, as we explored the future of customer service using agentic AI: From Contact Center to Agentic AI Leader: Embracing AI to Upgrade CX

Below, I break down the key insights and takeaways from the session to help you stay ahead in the age of AI-powered CX.

The case for AI in modern contact centers

Traditional Contact Centers Need an AI Revolution

Current challenges within contact centers

Contact centers today face several pain points that require immediate attention:

  • Integration and tech stack complexities

Legacy systems, disparate platforms, and inconsistent omnichannel experiences hinder operational efficiency. Two-thirds of contact centers report difficulties with technology integration and orchestration.

  • The productivity crisis

Spiraling agent turnover rates, averaging 30–45%, coupled with increasing complexity in customer interactions and high training costs, are pushing teams to their limits.

  • ROI barriers to AI adoption

While 84% of organizations plan to invest in AI, only 16% have successfully implemented it (Source). Confusion over ROI metrics, coupled with fears of disruption and limited expertise, often stalls projects.

The AI opportunity

AI presents a way out of these obstacles, offering tools that streamline workflows, enhance customer satisfaction, and deliver measurable ROI. Businesses that incorporate AI into their CX can:

  • Extend their reach with scalable self-service capabilities.
  • Inject intelligence into customer interactions, ensuring personalized and proactive engagements.
  • Gain insights from real-time analytics for better decision-making.

Agentic AI stands out as the next big step, promising improvement to automate complex tasks, to adapt, learn, and make contextual decisions akin to human intelligence, and support human agents on their job to improve performance and maintain consistency within the contact center.

Audience poll #1: Have you adopted AI already?

After outlining how AI stands to offer a major helping hand, I asked the audience if they’ve already adopted AI.

Poll Question #1

I was surprised to see that most respondents say they have adopted AI. But then I wanted to know from those who said they have not yet, what the timeline looks like.

Audience poll #2: What’s your current timeline for implementing AI in the contact center?

Poll Question #2

Unsurprisingly, those who have not yet implemented AI in their contact centers are looking to do so this year and start harnessing the many benefits we’ve highlighted.

Understanding agentic AI and its transformative potential

What is agentic AI?

Unlike static AI systems, agentic AI dynamically plans, executes, and adapts strategies to achieve outcomes, much like a skilled human employee. It:

  1. Autonomously executes multi-step, complex tasks.
  2. Changes tactics when initial approaches fail.
  3. Maintains contextual understanding and continuously learns from outcomes.

Types of agentic AI

Quiq’s platform facilitates agentic AI in three versatile forms:

  • AI Agents: Fully autonomous systems capable of managing customer queries and completing tasks, freeing up human agents for complex responsibilities.
  • AI Assistants: These support human agents by automating repetitive tasks, suggesting real-time responses, and enhancing service quality.
  • Agentic AI Services: Seamlessly integrate with existing workflows via APIs, allowing enterprises to add advanced AI capabilities to the other tools they already use without overhauling legacy systems.

These innovations allow businesses to tackle rising customer demands while maintaining operational efficiency.

Using AI to revolutionize CX across key areas

1. Customer service excellence

Through AI-powered solutions, businesses can enhance customer service by providing:

  • Seamless multi-channel experiences: AI integrates across platforms like WhatsApp, website live chats, and social media to ensure consistent support.
  • Intelligent escalations: When AI can’t resolve an issue, it transfers the case to a human agent with full contextual information, enabling smoother transitions.
  • Proactive outreach and updates: AI proactively sends reminders and notifications like, “Your subscription is renewing next week. Tap here to update payment info,” increasing engagement and retention.

2. Elevating agent productivity

AI doesn’t just improve customer-facing operations—it also empowers human agents by:

  • Automating mundane back-office tasks.
  • Providing real-time recommendations to handle inquiries more effectively.
  • Offering predictive insights on customer intent.

The result? Faster response times, improved accuracy, and greater job satisfaction among agents.

3. Driving data-driven personalization

AI’s ability to process large datasets in real-time ensures interactions are tailored to individual customers. By analyzing order history, browsing behavior, and past inquiries, AI can craft hyper-personalized responses. The result? Stronger customer relationships.

Case study highlight:

Customer Success Story

A leading flooring retailer in the UK leveraged AI on WhatsApp to redefine its customer journeys. Features included:

  • Proactive order updates and stock alerts.
  • AI-driven personalization based on preferences and past purchases.
  • Integration with multiple channels for consistent communication.

These efforts led to higher CSAT scores, faster resolutions, and increased revenue.

Overcoming barriers to AI adoption

Debunking ROI fears

For hesitant decision-makers, I’ll re-emphasize one critical insight: AI’s ROI becomes evident when implemented with clear objectives and measurable KPIs. Quiq’s quick-to-value solutions ensure businesses start seeing operational gains almost instantly.

Phasing implementation for success

Adopting AI doesn’t require an all-at-once approach. Start small, focusing on areas like customer service or self-service automation, where AI can deliver immediate wins. Once comfortable, scale adoption across more complex workflows.

Ensuring seamless human-AI collaboration

One common pitfall is neglecting how AI and human teams collaborate. Businesses must prioritize:

  • Smooth handoffs between AI and live agents.
  • Continuous learning opportunities where AI adapts based on human agent interactions.
  • Comprehensive training to ensure agents are equipped to leverage AI.

By bridging these gaps, organizations can future-proof their operations while setting themselves up as AI leaders.

Next steps for becoming an AI-powered CX leader

The road from a traditional contact center to an AI-powered CX leader has its hurdles, but the rewards far outweigh the challenges. Companies must stay focused on:

  1. Breaking down technical barriers through innovative platforms like Quiq.
  2. Investing in agentic AI to redefine operational efficiency.
  3. Starting with small, strategic AI interactions before scaling solutions to achieve omnichannel excellence.

Quiq’s agentic AI platform streamlines implementation, ensuring businesses can unlock the full value of AI without overhauling their existing systems. Businesses across industries—from eCommerce to retail—are already seeing the benefits of intelligent automation, proactive engagement, and personalized service at scale.

If you’re ready to move to the next generation of contact center and transform your CX, start your AI-powered transformations today. Visit Quiq’s AI Studio to explore how we can integrate scalable AI into your workflows.