Five9 AI Agents blend AI models to automate self-service while giving businesses greater control, flexibility, and trust

Next-Gen Intelligent Virtual Agents combined with Generative AI to reduce interactions that need to be routed to human agents

BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2024-- Five9 CX Summit --Five9 (NASDAQ: FIVN), provider of the Intelligent CX Platform, today announced the expansion of its Five9 Genius AI suite with the launch of Five9 AI Agents, the next-generation of Five9 Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) which incorporates Generative AI. Five9 AI Agents empower businesses to create chat and voice bots that combine the conversational abilities of a human with the speed and extensive knowledge of AI. This will enable businesses to reduce the need for live agent interactions. Five9 AI Agents provides a conceptual dial-of-trust that allows businesses to balance flexibility and control to meet customers’ needs by blending generative AI with traditional pre-defined AI in the same conversation.

Consumers increasingly expect personalized, human-like interactions, even with automated systems. A recent Five9 survey of 4,000 US and UK consumers found that 56% are still frustrated by self-service chatbots. Traditional chatbots often rely on rigid, scripted responses and lack comprehensive, real-time enterprise knowledge access, limiting their ability to handle complex, fuzzy, and dynamic requests. They fail to meet individual needs, resulting in poor experiences and the need for human intervention. Five9 AI Agents allow customers to combine a mix of generative AI, conversational AI, and NLP in a single AI agent. This allows responses to be scripted when they need to be, or flexible depending on the needs of the customer. As opposed to traditional bots, AI Agents’ new descriptive design paradigm significantly reduces complexity and cost of implementing self-service solutions. More businesses can now rapidly power personalized self-service experiences tailored to their unique use cases.

“Five9 AI Agents has been in development for a while now, and we are excited to bring this capability to our customers,” said Jonathan Rosenberg, CTO and Head of AI, Five9. “We've invested significant energy in taking the appeal of Gen AI, such as highly conversational bots, and making them enterprise-grade with controls, data integrations and our dial-of-trust. By utilizing AI Agents, businesses can easily scale personalized customer interactions, optimize self-service and reduce reliance on human agents.”

Uncover Customer Intent, Deliver Contextual Knowledge-Based Answers

Gen AI enables AI Agents to understand complex language patterns, recognize context, and generate more nuanced and human-like responses. This allows for higher accuracy in understanding customer intents and reduces the need for human intervention.

AI Agents are designed to work effortlessly with the full Five9 Genius AI Suite, including AI Knowledge, Agent Assist, and GenAI Studio, giving a unified, efficient, and scalable solution for all self-service needs. Five9 AI Agents don’t answer questions generically, they provide responses based on the personalized context of the customer. For example, a customer asks an airline company’s AI Agent, "How many miles do I need to reach gold loyalty status?” Instead of responding with a generic statement like "25,000 miles are needed for gold loyalty status,” an AI Agents will use contextual data to respond, "With 19,000 miles in your account, you only need 6,000 more to reach gold loyalty status."

In addition, AI Agents ensure smooth collaboration between AI and human agents by automatically summarizing customer interactions across voice and digital channels. These summaries can elevate experiences by aiding live agents with rich context from previous interactions, transforming agents from a reactive customer service role to a more proactive advisory role. For example, an agent can greet a customer with, "I see you're just 6,000 miles away from reaching the next status level—would you like me to grant an exception and upgrade you now as a token of our appreciation?"

Increase AI Autonomy Based on Level of Trust

Five9’s blended AI approach gives businesses full control over the level of autonomy and the exact behavior of AI Agents. Maintain full control over when, where, and how generative AI is applied in customer interactions. The level of autonomy can be dialed up or down from “No Trust” to “High Trust,” selecting from a wide range of conversations, including pre-scripted, dynamic, and complex language constructs.

When trust in generative AI is low, or when companies operate in highly regulated industries like banking and healthcare that require precise and legally compliant messaging, every aspect of the dialogue flow is carefully scripted to ensure full control over interactions. As trust in AI increases, companies can begin to allow large language models (LLMs) to handle intent recognition and manage multi-step conversations while maintaining tight control over fulfillment to ensure accuracy. With a high level of trust, LLMs can take on additional responsibilities, autonomously managing conversations and utilizing APIs to perform necessary actions.

“AI agents have the potential to transform customer interactions, but to be truly effective, they must be designed with the consumer in mind,” said Patrick Watson, Head of Research, Cavell Group. “Cavell research has shown that consumer perception of automated customer experience systems is generally negative at the moment. So, finding a balance between rigid, scripted bots and more flexible, dynamic AI is key to improving consumer perception, while ensuring data transparency and user control. Five9's commitment to safeguarding data privacy and maintaining accuracy through its platform’s granular approach helps build trust, giving both consumers and businesses confidence in AI-driven solutions.”

Five9 AI Agents will be available for beta worldwide in Q1'25. For more information, please visit our website, as well as register for the webinar.

About Five9

The Five9 Intelligent CX Platform, powered by Five9 Genius AI, provides a comprehensive suite of solutions to power AI-elevated customer experiences that deliver better business outcomes and Bring Joy to CX™. Our unified cloud-native offering enables hyper-personalized customer experiences and more empowered employees, making every customer interaction more connected, effortless, and personal. Trusted by 2,500+ customers and 1,400+ partners globally, Five9 brings together the power of AI, our platform, and our people to drive AI-elevated CX.

For more information, visit www.five9.com.

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Hannah Blackington
Corporate Communications Director, Five9
Press@five9.com

Source: Five9