Nuance Communications announced a new technology bundle that supposedly helps enterprises with Agent AI – uniting human agents and artificial intelligence to enhance customer experiences.

Nuance's approach to Agent AI aims to enable contact centre agents to be more productive by giving them easier access to information with relevant, real-time insights, visibility into active conversations, and proactive recommendations.

Consumers are demanding personalised, efficient conversations with brands – whether through a virtual or a live agent – and organisations who do not deliver risk losing business and damaging reputation.

A recent study by Frost and Sullivan commissioned by Nuance found a single frustrating interaction with an agent triggered the desire to switch service providers in 77% of customers, and the majority of consumers say interactions with agents impact brand perception significantly.

With 95% of US consumers using at least three channels and/or devices to engage with customer service today and only 8.4% of organisations having those channels connected, delivering a unified and personalised experience can prove challenging.

Nuance supposedly gives agents access to its best-of-breed biometric, analytics and intelligent customer engagement technologies to help solve this problem, empowering them with real-time insights to not only more efficiently validate a given customer's identity and understand past interactions the organisation has had with that person, but also more quickly get to a resolution by having access to their company's latest information and programs.

Nuance Enterprise Division ANZ director Robert Schwarz says, “Too often when AI in the contact centre is discussed, there is a concern that it will take jobs away from humans when in reality the most successful customer engagement strategies include a blended approach between customer service professionals and AI.

“Agent AI is not about replacing humans. Instead, it is about strengthening the confidence of agents. By leveraging AI, we are actually empowering agents to succeed and enabling them to deliver the best experience possible with less frustration for both them and the customer they are serving.

Built to scale and taking advantage of the same AI that is driving IVRs and virtual assistants, the Agent AI aims to let organisations maximise agent efficiency.