Key takeaways:

• Despite increased investments in digital customer engagement, most customers still experience poor-quality interactions with brands.
• Properly designed and deployed AI agents can enhance customer engagement, reducing the need for human intervention and boosting self-service and employee experience.
• As part of a broader ecosystem, AI agents can redefine customer engagement and predict customer needs, leading to organizational AGI.

The ongoing relationships customers have with businesses feel stuck in a grim sort of limbo, providing lackluster results for both parties. Despite companies spending more money than ever on customer engagement—a Twilio survey from 2023 found that 87% increased their investments in digital customer engagement—most customer experiences still lack the core components of quality engagement, like anticipating customer needs and being available across channels.

In the bestselling book, Age of Invisible Machines, Robb Wilson, CEO and Co-Founder of OneReach.ai, and Josh Tyson sum up the predicament this way: “It’s always been frustrating for us to watch organizations invest heavily in marketing to get customers in the door and then invest more money in call centers to get them out the door.” 

Brand engagement and ongoing relationships between customers and organizations can be more fluid, and therefore will become expected in the fast changing market.. We’re in a moment where organizations can significantly close this gap using AI agents that support employees and customers across channels. By pairing these powerful new tools with the right deployment strategy, literally every interaction with a customer becomes an opportunity to create a pleasant and fruitful experience. 

Transforming Deeply Fragmented Customer Engagement

You don’t have to look very far online to find accounts like this one of purgatorial and confounding interactions with major global enterprises. This isn’t all that surprising. Siloed departments and obtuse legacy systems make it incredibly difficult to connect relevant data across an already broken framework. 

When properly designed and deployed AI agents can meet these challenges, decluttering engagement and streamlining interactions with customers. Using the OneReach.ai platform and cognitive architecture we created an AI agent ecosystem for a leading global education company that effectively orchestrates technologies including generative AI, Text-to-Speech (TTS), Speech-to-Text (STT), intent recognition, and a native voice stack, supplemented by conversational reporting and analytics. After the initial rollout, the business measured a 37% reduction in chats transferred to agents, a 26% increase in self-service, and a 10% improvement in deflection.

The expansion of this customer solution included omnichannel functionalities, connecting to phone systems and additional entry points for messaging channels. The customized dashboards for analytics and reporting are integrated with the Salesforce agent UI and their CRM system, making it easier to identify high-value conversations with customers and fine-tune to accelerate resolution time. 

We also worked with a Fortune 500 retail giant that had no centralized customer contact center and a disjointed customer experience. Over the course of a year, their solution included over 350 individual production releases across store locations nationwide. The initial pilot in 2022 led to an initial $3 million increase in gross profit, with an increase of $80 million. The solutions reduced calls to stores by 47% and achieved an NPS score of 65%. Through seamless integration with legacy technology and the retirement of technical debt, this company is in a position to future-proof their operations, organization-wide.

On the Road to Organizational AGI

Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, refers to an AI system that meets or surpasses human capabilities across a whole range of cognitive tasks. General intelligence is what enables humans to adapt and even thrive in a wide variety of harsh environments here on Earth. The term AGI is often thrown around where AI is discussed, but it’s not really a practical business endeavor. Replicating something as shifty and gargantuan as human general intelligence is incredibly daunting.

The level of general intelligence it takes to run vast portions of a business is much narrower and far more feasible. Enter organizational artificial general intelligence, or OAGI. But, how does this relate to customer engagement? Most of the information about the real nature of a business engagement with customers is hiding in plain sight. Previously locked away in unstructured data like emails and recorded calls, this information can now be mined by properly tuned and trained LLMs orchestrated by our platform, whether it’s OpenAI, Anthropic or Cohere models, or proprietary models.

AI agents can become part of a broader ecosystem where generative tools and relational databases give the context needed for them to execute a wide range of skills. This puts AI agents in a position to do real work while also building an awareness of how an organization functions, creating vast opportunities to provide customers and employees with personalized, more efficient experiences that meet their needs across any communication channel. 

This is a big shift because a business that’s “self-aware” can begin to predict customer needs, meeting them with solutions before they even have to ask for help. In that sense, AI agents can go well beyond simply repairing customer engagement. With the right deployment strategy, AI agents can redefine customer engagement.  

The real magic happens when AI agents are combined with a strategic approach, connectivity across channels, and a no-code platform. This democratizes collaboration within your teams, turning isolated data into actionable insights and personalized customer experiences. Embrace this transformation and redefine what exceptional customer engagement truly means.

AI Agents: Revolutionizing Customer Interactions

In a world where customer interactions often feel routine and uninspired, AI agents are emerging as true game-changers. Every customer touchpoint becomes an opportunity to captivate and engage. By integrating AI agents into your operations, you’re not just addressing fragmented customer engagement—you’re fostering a dynamic and ongoing relationship with your customers. 

The Agentic Approach to Automation