Ask what agent assist is and vendors describe a copilot that listens to every call, suggests the next line and writes the notes. Ask the companies running one and the answer is narrower. The work they credit is the paperwork around a conversation and finding the right article, and several run the version that came with a system their agents already use. Plenty more are planning it, so it matters which accounts are live and which are hopes.
What is agent assist software?
Agent assist software is AI that helps human service representatives handle conversations and the work around them. It can suggest replies, surface knowledge articles, recommend next steps and guide a representative live during a call or chat. It can also summarize the contact, draft the follow-up and complete the notes afterwards. Not every product does every one of these jobs, and not all of it runs in real time. Vendors also call it an agent copilot, AI assistance or real-time guidance.
It is sold by specialists such as Cresta, Observe.AI, Balto and Level AI, and as a feature of contact center platforms, helpdesks and CRMs: Salesforce, Zendesk, Intercom, Kustomer and Amazon Connect all market a version. The human representative remains responsible for the interaction and decides how to use what it suggests. Some of the same platforms also sell separate customer-facing AI agents, which handle conversations on their own and often hand off to a person.
What the interviews add is where it earns its keep, and where it comes from:
Where it is live in these interviews, buyers credit it first with the work around a conversation: notes, summaries, drafted replies and finding the right article. Live guidance during a call appears in a few accounts, a hotel group's and a telecoms company's among them, and otherwise in plans.
In several live accounts it is built into the platform agents already work in, with Cresta the specialist that recurs. That is the reverse of customer-facing AI agents, which companies on contact center platforms more often take from a specialist or build. Where buyers complain, the complaint is accuracy and trust rather than missing features.
What is the difference between agent assist and an AI agent?
An AI agent answers the customer on its own; agent assist helps a human agent who stays in the conversation and stays responsible for the reply. The two use much of the same technology, read the same knowledge base and are often sold by the same vendors. Cresta, Observe.AI and Balto all list customer-facing voice or chat agents beside their agent assist products, and helpdesks such as Zendesk and Intercom sell an AI agent and a separate agent copilot.
The practical difference is who is accountable for what the customer hears. With agent assist, a wrong suggestion reaches a person who can ignore it. With an AI agent, it reaches the customer. That is why buyers judge the first on whether agents trust it and the second on whether contacts are resolved.
Buyers see the two as stages. A direct-to-consumer brand's head of customer experience says the biggest change is “moving from the agent assistance towards actual resolution”, with people handling the outliers. A consumer-electronics brand wants one platform for both: “having the same platform across your AI chat, agent co-pilot, and your chat platform for agents would be helpful.”
Against quality monitoring, the line is purpose
Agent assist primarily helps the representative handle the interaction. Conversation intelligence and automated quality assurance primarily evaluate what happened: they score contacts, find patterns and support coaching and compliance. The two overlap, since assist writes summaries after a contact and a coaching tool can run live, as the first quote below says, so the line is what the output is for and who acts on it. A large online retailer says its AI coaching platform is “not real-time at this moment, but can be real-time if we want to”, and a networking-hardware company says plainly, “We don't have a live system that captures and flags anything while the agent is on the phone with the customer.” Both describe those companies' own setups, not the limits of the category.
The same vendor can do both jobs. Cresta's own site lists real-time assist beside conversation intelligence and automated quality management, and a US insurance seller chose Cresta for call recording, transcription and compliance scoring, not for live assist, while the hotel group and the telecoms company below bought it for assist.
Who buys agent assist software?
Mostly large service operations: hotel groups, telecoms companies, airlines, banks and big retailers. About six in ten of the companies here that run, chose or plan agent assist have at least 10,000 employees, against under three in ten across our interviews. That is the same size band as companies running a dedicated contact center platform, where much of this demand sits.
The owner is a customer-care or operations leader, working with IT. A global healthcare company's customer-operations director names the decision-makers as “Myself and the Director of IT.” The case they make is about agents more than tools: handling more volume without more headcount, and getting newer staff productive sooner. A US specialty retailer evaluating real-time guidance says it would “significantly speed us up in our peak season when we're onboarding seasonal team members.”
Smaller teams meet it differently, as a feature of the helpdesk they already pay for. A direct-to-consumer brand uses its helpdesk's AI to help agents triage, and a payments company lists AI-suggested responses among its helpdesk's strengths. Neither describes buying agent assist as a separate product.
What do buyers use agent assist for?
Four jobs come up. Under each, the live accounts come first and plans and evaluations are named as such:
- Writing the notes and the summary
- Finding the right knowledge article
- Drafting replies and scripts
- Guiding the agent live, including next-best offers
Each job can come from a different product, so name the job before comparing tools.
Write the notes and the summary
The job buyers describe most concretely is the one at the end of the contact: transcribing it, summarizing it and filing it. A US telecoms company credits Cresta in its sales operation with cutting after-call work, among other gains. A US consumer bank runs its own AI over every transcribed contact and is now building live assist on the same tools. Others are on the way: a convenience-store operator chose NICE, including agent assist that will “document and summarize all the conversations with live agents”, and has not gone live; a luxury fashion house is testing transcription and believes AI summaries would beat its current notes.
The bank describes its build plainly: “It is used to drive AI summarization, dispositions, and things like that for all the interactions that come in that are transcribed.”
Find the right article while the customer waits
Surfacing knowledge draws both the strongest wishes and the sharpest complaints. A global hotel group running Cresta values the ability to “pull up hints based on the conversation and find out which article to use”, especially for newer agents. Where knowledge surfacing disappoints, buyers blame relevance. An international airline rates its CRM's knowledge base 4/10: it surfaces articles in context during calls, but agents do not trust what comes up.
The airline: “Sometimes it's pulling up incorrect articles during an interaction, forcing the agent to search for something else.” The US consumer bank above says the same of its CRM's search and states what it wants instead: “I want information proactively popping in front of our agents in real time to assist customers.” Both describe their deployment and its knowledge base, not what the product can do in every configuration.
Draft the reply or the script
On email and chat, assist writes the first draft. A global beauty group uses its Service Cloud AI to draft email replies for a defined set of simple, common questions. A US fashion-accessories company says “Agentforce also creates scripts for our customer care team as well”, and that its handling time is down about 10% through its new Agentforce workflows, a figure that covers its bot workflows too, so it cannot be credited to the scripts alone. It rates Agentforce 7/10 because “It's a lot of tweaking upfront.” An online marketplace chose Fin partly because “we wanted robust agent assist tooling” and has only started implementation. A global healthcare company wants assist over its email queue and has no budget for it yet.
The beauty group's result, by its own measure: “We have seen that bring down time from 10 minutes to write up an email and sending it out, to one minute”.
Guide the agent live
Real-time guidance is the job vendors lead with; a few live accounts describe it, and the rest is plans. The US telecoms company uses Cresta to steer agents through a complicated sales talk track and credits it with higher attach rates and lower handle time; the person interviewed is not a user and is reporting the sales team's results. The hotel group describes “having a scorecard pop up instantaneously while you talk”. A large North American retailer has run Google's contact center AI for agent assist, knowledge assist and next-best action for about five years. Everything else here is a plan: an Asian airline is looking for an agent copilot partner, and a North American pet retailer wants a live response produced for agents so care staff can sell.
The telecoms company names the cost: “the time it takes to get your frontline teams trusting the new AI tool”.
A pilot also ended. A consumer-electronics brand tried Salesforce's agent copilot and dropped it: “We were using the AgentForce co-pilot for our agents and tried that out for a little bit, but we had some issues with that.” That was one early deployment, and it does not show what the product does today. The brand already runs Fin for chat and likes the idea of one platform for both, but does not expect to make that move this year.
Which agent assist tools do buyers use?
Cresta is the specialist most clearly represented. The hotel group and the telecoms company describe live assistance. The insurance seller selected it for recording, transcription and compliance scoring rather than live guidance, and it also appears in evaluations of customer-facing AI agents, banks' among them, which is a different use case. The other examples are capabilities built into contact-center, CRM or helpdesk platforms, at different stages: live, selected, piloted or planned. The retailer on Google's contact center AI says it chose it because the company already runs on Google Cloud, and is candid about the product: “They don't particularly stand out against other vendors that provide this kind of a capability.”
Observe.AI and Level AI come up here for call analysis and quality, not live assist, although both now sell real-time assist. Balto, which sells real-time guidance and live summaries, does not come up in these interviews. Too few buyers rated any dedicated agent assist tool to publish a figure. A restaurant chain running Talkdesk's agent assist, in May 2025, wanted “a better functioning of the existing use cases”.
Built into contact-center, CRM or helpdesk platforms
Google contact center AI · Salesforce Service Cloud and Agentforce · NICE · Talkdesk · Kustomer · Zendesk · Intercom · Oracle Service Cloud
Specialists and in-house builds
Cresta · Observe.AI · Level AI · KMS Lighthouse · in-house tools, such as the US consumer bank's
These are the products and platform families that appear in buyer accounts here, not confirmed agent assist deployments. Some are live, others selected, piloted or planned, and some buyers use only another capability from the same vendor, such as quality monitoring or a customer-facing AI agent. Intercom, for one, sells Fin AI Agent to answer customers and Copilot to support human representatives in the inbox, so a mention of one is not a mention of the other.
The pricing units differ, which matters before comparing quotes. On their own sites in November 2026, Zendesk includes a limited set of Copilot features on eligible plans, with usage pooled across agents up to a monthly cap, and sells the full Copilot add-on for the whole account, covering every agent seat rather than selected agents. Intercom gives each teammate a small monthly Copilot allowance of up to ten conversations or tickets, and lets an admin switch on unlimited use, at extra cost, for selected teammates with a full seat. Amazon Connect says all of its AI capabilities, real-time agent assist and post-contact summaries among them, are included in its channel price, billed by the minute for voice and by the message or email for written channels, with standard telephony rates applying to voice. These units are not interchangeable. Compare how many agents need assistance, how much contact volume they handle, which features and how much usage are included, and what other channel or service charges apply.
How do buyers measure agent assist?
On handle time and after-call work first, then on whether agents use it and trust it. The telecoms company, the beauty group and the fashion-accessories company all lead with time saved per contact, and the Asian airline's hope is the same: “We hope that it could lower the handle time.” Adoption comes next. The hotel group reports that most agents who received Cresta use it daily, by its own count, and rates it on their satisfaction rather than its own.
Accuracy is where the accounts turn critical. The airline's agents distrust the articles it surfaces. The direct-to-consumer brand rates its helpdesk AI 4/10 and says “The tone of voice ends up being all over the map.” A parcel-delivery company planning assist names the consistency and accuracy of the AI as its first challenge.
The honest limit is attribution. Every result on this page is the buyer's own reading, usually without a control group, and the fashion-accessories company's handle-time figure mixes assist with automation. The telecoms company reports satisfaction scores rising since it adopted Cresta, which is a before-and-after reading rather than a test. No buyer here describes a controlled comparison.
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Get mine →Should you buy agent assist from your platform or a specialist?
It depends on the job you need done and on where your agents already work. Buyers on platform versions emphasize integration and keeping agents in one system. Those on a specialist emphasize deeper live guidance on complex calls. Accounts on both sides describe the first months going into setup and earning agents' trust.
What the evidence does not show matters as much. These interviews do not rank the tools, do not show that a specialist outperforms a platform's own assist, and do not establish savings beyond each buyer's reading. Live accounts are still few. A complaint here describes that buyer's deployment, plan and date, not what a product can do today.
Our recommendation, not a practice buyers describe, is a short test before any contract. Name the job first: notes and summaries, knowledge, drafting or live guidance. Fix your knowledge base before you judge any tool on it, since the sharpest complaints here are about the articles, not the AI. Run each candidate on your own recorded calls and tickets, with new and experienced agents. Measure suggestion accuracy, how often agents edit or ignore drafts, adoption, handle time and after-call work, quality scores, repeat contacts and satisfaction, against a group of agents without the tool over the same period. Then price equivalent scope: which agents need access, whether every seat must be licensed or only selected users, which features are included, what counts toward usage limits, channel, implementation and other service charges, and the work of preparing the knowledge base and connecting the tool to the workspace agents use.
For the platforms around it, see what is contact center software. For the customer-facing side, see Sierra vs. Decagon, and for helpdesk AI, Intercom vs. Zendesk.
Common questions
What is agent assist software?
Agent assist software is AI that helps human service representatives handle conversations and the work around them. It can suggest replies, surface knowledge articles, recommend next steps and guide a representative live during a call or chat, and it can summarize the contact, draft the follow-up and complete the notes afterwards. Not every product does every one of these jobs or runs in real time, and the representative stays responsible for the interaction. It is sold by specialists such as Cresta, Observe.AI, Balto and Level AI, and as a feature of contact center platforms, helpdesks and CRMs.
What is the difference between agent assist and an AI agent?
An AI agent answers the customer on its own; agent assist helps a human agent who stays in the conversation and stays responsible for the reply. Several vendors sell both, and some buyers describe the market moving from assisting agents toward AI that resolves simple contacts end to end, with people handling the rest. Many companies will run both, so treat them as two decisions with different tests.
Is agent assist the same as conversation intelligence or QA software?
No. Agent assist primarily helps the representative handle the interaction. Conversation intelligence and automated quality assurance primarily evaluate what happened, find patterns and support coaching and compliance, for supervisors, coaches and analysts. The two overlap, so the line is what the output is for and who acts on it. The same vendor can sell both, and buyers in these interviews chose Cresta for agent assist in some companies and for quality assurance in another, so check which job a quote covers.
Who uses agent assist software?
In these interviews, mostly large service operations such as hotel groups, telecoms companies, airlines, banks and big retailers. About six in ten of the companies that run, chose or plan agent assist have at least 10,000 employees, against under three in ten across all our interviews. Customer-care and operations leaders drive it in these interviews, with IT. Smaller teams here meet it as a feature of their helpdesk.
Which agent assist tools do companies use?
Cresta is the specialist most clearly represented in these interviews, with live assistance at a hotel group and a telecoms company; an insurance seller chose it for quality scoring instead. Other live accounts use the version built into a platform their agents already work in: Google's contact center AI, Salesforce Service Cloud and Agentforce, Kustomer, Talkdesk and Zendesk among them. Observe.AI and Level AI come up mainly for call analysis and quality rather than live assist. A vendor named in an interview has not necessarily deployed its agent assist product there. Too few buyers rated a dedicated tool to publish a figure.
How do you measure agent assist?
Buyers in these interviews measure handle time and after-call work first, then whether agents actually use it and trust what it suggests. Reported results, such as lower handle time or faster email replies, are each company's own reading, usually without a control group. Our suggestion is to add suggestion accuracy, how often agents edit drafts, quality scores, repeat contacts and satisfaction, compared against agents without the tool.
Should you buy agent assist from your contact center platform or a specialist?
It depends on the job and on where your agents already work. Buyers using platform versions emphasize integration and having one system; those using a specialist emphasize deeper live guidance. The interviews do not rank the tools or prove savings. Our suggestion is to test each candidate on your own recorded contacts with new and experienced agents, check your knowledge base first, and compare full cost on equivalent scope.
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