Observe.AI is rolling out new features that will enable companies to create artificial intelligence agents for their contact centers.

The startup debuted its VoiceAI agents, as the feature set is called, today. The capabilities will become available in Observe.AI’s namesake software platform, which promises to help companies operate their contact centers more efficiently. It automates tasks such as measuring customer sentient during support calls and finding areas for improvement.

Observe.AI says that its platform has been adopted by more than 350 organizations. The software maker, which is incorporated as Z21 Labs Inc., has also raised more than $210 million in funding from Softbank Vision Fund 2 and other backers.

The new VoiceAI agents can field customer service calls to save time for contact center teams. The agents are capable of answering product questions and other common inquiries. According to Observe.AI, its software can also perform more complex tasks such as booking a flight or renewing a subscription.

“Unlike traditional systems, our agents deliver personalized and contextually aware interactions,” Kolin Koehl, Observe.AI’s vice president of product, wrote in a blog post today. “They handle everything from straightforward FAQs to sophisticated, multi-turn conversations.”

Under the hood, the company’s VoiceAI agents run on a mix of custom and third-party AI models. Several of those models are reportedly “smaller” neural networks optimized for narrow tasks. One is built for entity detection, the task of identifying when a customer mentions a competitor’s product or another item of interest during a call. Another AI model helps VoiceAI agents accurately log numbers such as a subscription expiration date.

Observe.AI says that competing contact center automation tools can require months of work to set up. The company’s VoiceAI agents, in contrast, take a few days to deploy.

During the setup process, organizations can fine-tune a VoiceAI agent’s output by providing it with access to past customer interactions. It’s also possible to connect the AI to external systems such as a company’s customer relationship management platform and help desk software. Observe.AI says its platform includes more than 200 prepackaged connectors for third-party tools.

Once a VoiceAI agent is up and running, it scans data provided by customers for sensitive items such as personally identifiable information. Such items are deleted before the data is stored. For added measure, Observe.AI provides the ability to deploy its software in private instances with improved security. 

The company says its VoiceAI agents can cut contact center costs by up to 80% in some cases. Additionally, the software reduces wait times for customers because the underlying AI models respond to questions near-instantaneously. 

Image: Observe.AI