Are AI Agents The Future Of Customer Service?

Forbes

5 days ago

If you've ever tried canceling an internet subscription or disputing an unexpected charge, you know the drill: Hold music, chatbot loops and long wait times. For consumers, it's often a friction-filled experience. For companies, it's both a cost center and a branding liability.
In 2024, Qualtrics XM Institute reported that poor customer experience was putting $3.7 trillion in global sales at risk. And while many companies have deployed AI assistants to handle routine tasks, those tools typically stop short of full resolution. A new generation of AI agents may finally change that — not just answering questions, but planning, executing and resolving complex, multi-step requests on a user's behalf. And that shift has real business implications.
From AI Chatbots To AI Agents
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are designed to assist with language — answering, summarizing, or completing tasks based on user prompts. But they depend on constant human input. AI agents, on the other hand, are built for autonomy. They can reason, plan and take action — from negotiating bills to rescheduling flights or resolving disputes — across multiple systems, often without further user guidance.
That distinction matters to experts like Stanley Wei, cofounder of Pine AI. 'We believe the future of customer service is fully autonomous,' told me. 'Our goal is to handle the details that matter most to users with minimal friction.'
Wei sees this evolution as more than just efficiency. 'The agent model is evolving quickly,' he said. 'What used to be script-driven bots are now systems that reason through ambiguous instructions, update actions in real time and learn from user feedback.'
Take Pine AI, for instance. Its system includes a planning agent, a task execution agent, and a user-facing agent that communicates across email, web, or phone. Wei says this modular approach allows each agent to specialize, similar to how enterprises separate front-office and back-office operations.
'We've found that agent specialization — instead of one monolithic system — leads to faster, more accurate outcomes,' he said.
Instead of reactive chat support, companies can now offer proactive AI agents that complete user objectives end-to-end and do it at scale.
The ROI Of Autonomy
Customer service doesn't just cost time; it costs money. For B2C brands, support operations often represent a major expense line, especially in industries with high churn or complex issue resolution. Gartner predicts that by 2030, AI agents will handle 80% of common customer service tasks and reduce operational costs by up to 30%.
That's not just a margin boost, but also a competitive advantage.
'We built our system to understand, plan and execute tasks in a way that mirrors human workflows, but with faster turnaround and greater consistency,' Wei said. Rather than depending solely on API integrations or rigid scripts, Pine AI's agents can interact directly with graphical user interfaces — logging into websites, filling out dynamic forms and navigating complex web environments much like a human would.
That capability matters in the real world, where many support processes still live behind inconsistent or third-party front ends. While automation works well for routine tasks, Wei explained that the hardest part is teaching agents to manage unexpected or complex situations. 'In customer service, the hardest 20% of tasks account for 80% of the frustration. The agent needs not just to act, but to know when to escalate or pause,' he said.
Several other companies are also pushing this frontier of agentic AI in the customer service world. Adept AI, for example, is building enterprise-wide agents that can operate software tools like a trained employee. Cognosys AI offers agents that manage everything from food orders to customer complaints, especially in hospitality and quick-service environments. While their target markets differ from company to company, they all have a similar thesis at their core: The notion that autonomous execution is the next evolution of AI productivity.
Turning AI Agents Into Revenue Engines
Beyond support cost reduction, AI agents also introduce a new kind of revenue opportunity. Companies that develop vertical-specific agents — for customer support, sales, travel, or billing — are already exploring monetization through subscription models, usage-based pricing, and white-labeled integrations.
In short, AI agents aren't just service tools; they're becoming business platforms. But while that potential is exciting, their success largely depends on trust and performance.
'Building an agent that can handle the diversity and complexity of real-world customer requests was our biggest challenge,' Wei said. Accuracy, memory and user context all matter, and users have little patience for hallucinations or missteps, especially during important interactions.
That means building not just smart agents, but accountable ones. Companies must ensure agents are equipped with ethical guardrails, fallback protocols and privacy-safe data practices. While AI agents can operate independently, human oversight is still essential — particularly in regulated or high-risk domains.
Forrester analysts Stephanie Liu and William McKeon-White advise enterprises to approach this shift strategically. 'The right approach to AI agents is to tune out the hype and start small,' they write. 'Instead of focusing entirely on outcomes, fine-tuning agent tasks and setting boundaries should be the immediate priority.'
When AI Works For You
Statista forecasts that by 2031, most consumers will prefer using AI agents over websites to complete tasks and access information. That signals a broader shift: Not just toward smarter systems, but toward systems that act on your behalf.
The stakes are high. In service-driven industries, responsiveness and resolution speed are critical to retention. While human workers can offer empathy and nuance, AI agents promise always-on execution — with consistent tone, full context recall and no wait times.
Wei believes the shift to AI agents is less about replacing websites and more about removing friction in decision-heavy interactions.
'The ideal experience is one where the system already knows what you need and takes care of it before you ask,' he said. 'That's where we see the opportunity: Not in mimicking humans, but in delivering outcomes with less effort from the user.'
Done right, agentic systems have the potential to transform how businesses interact with customers — not by replacing the human touch, but by reducing the burden of everyday digital friction. In a market where loyalty often comes down to ease, that transformation may prove more valuable than any product upgrade.