Introduction
ThinkOwl lets you automate on your terms. Go fully autonomous with OwlForce, or enhance human performance with OwlDesk. Either way, you get full flexibility — and a platform designed to grow with you.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally transforming every domain in which it is implemented. Look at any major sector or aspect of daily life, and you will find evidence of AI integration. Customer service is no exception. AI is proving to be a game-changer for support centers as well. Why? There are many reasons — but we are focusing on two of the most critical and indispensable applications in this article: the AI Agent (the decider) and the AI Assistant (the supporter).
AI agents are proactive systems capable of autonomously performing tasks in a personalized and highly accurate manner. AI assistants, on the other hand, are reactive systems that handle repetitive and complex customer queries in a smart and conversational way.
Reasons why your contact center needs an AI agent
- AI makes real-time decisions with minimal human touch — total autonomy.
- Conversational bots handle query surges across channels — instant resolution.
- AI grasps context and intent fast — seamless, consistent support.
- RPA automates repetitive work flawlessly — zero errors, lower costs.
Reasons why your contact center needs an AI assistant
- AI guides agents with smart suggestions and next best actions — enhanced efficiency.
- AI reads and summarizes lengthy customer messages — instant clarity, zero effort.
- AI-driven automation takes over repetitive tasks — no manual work, no delays.
- AI standardizes service quality across teams — consistent performance, every time.
There are various ways businesses can put AI to work. In this blog, we are focusing on how these two AI systems (AI Agents & AI Assistants) can be implemented in customer support and adopted by businesses based on their purposes.
What are AI agents?
AI agents are virtual service agents that are capable of interacting with customers and performing a wide range of tasks autonomously. They can resolve customer tickets, have a two-way communication with people, analyze sentiments and emotions, provide personalized experiences, and execute end-to-end automation of processes. AI agents are trained on specific data, which enables them to provide expected outcomes with higher accuracy.
What are AI assistants?
AI Assistants are intelligent, agent-facing tools that help support teams excel at their jobs. They boost productivity through automated workflows, contextual recommendations, and smart next-step suggestions. Its primary function is to augment human performance and reduce agent workload, which they do by understanding commands and providing relevant, contextual support.
Core differences between ThinkOwl’s AI agents and AI assistants
ThinkOwl, an AI-powered customer service platform, enables contact centers to choose an AI solution that perfectly fits their business requirements. OwlForce — fully autonomous AI agents, and OwlDesk — smart agent assist tools — are two solutions with unique features that can be tailored based on an organization’s customer service strategy. Let us look at how they differ from each other and the areas where they truly excel.
Primary audience
AI Agent ➡️ The end customer
AI Assistant ➡️ Support agent
Business impact
AI Agent ➡️ Drives operational transformation
AI Assistant ➡️ Improves agent productivity
What it solves
AI Agent ➡️ End-to-end automation of standard, repetitive tasks
AI Assistant ➡️ Reduce handling time and boost service quality
Autonomy
AI Agent ➡️ Operates independently once given a goal
AI Assistant ➡️ Requires input after every action
Human oversight
AI Agent ➡️ Optional human intervention, AI handles the rest
AI Assistant ➡️ Agents remain in charge; AI supports but does not decide
Best for these scenarios
AI Agent ➡️ Highly standardized environment with predictable workflows
AI Assistant ➡️ High-volume, complex, or exception-based service requests
Typical applications
AI Agent ➡️ Contact inquiring, callback scheduling, status tracking, and form processing
AI Assistant ➡️ Expert inquiries, follow-up questions, individual case decisions, and quality assurance
Supported channels
AI Agent ➡️ AI bots provide 24/7 automation across all communication channels
AI Assistant ➡️ All digital touchpoints including emails, chat, WhatsApp, phone, etc.
How much can be automated
AI Agent ➡️ Fully automated (up to 95%) - minimal to no agent interaction
AI Assistant ➡️ Partial automation (up to 70%) - always under agent supervision
How it gets smarter over time
AI Agent ➡️ Improves autonomously from closed cases and feedback
AI Assistant ➡️ Learns from agent feedback to improve suggestions
Blend AI agents and AI assistants to maximize efficiency and CX quality
ThinkOwl makes AI-powered customer support possible with intelligent productivity and automation tools. Below listed are the platform’s AI features that aid in personalizing service and boosting customer satisfaction.
- Conversational AI: A modern conversational bot powered by Generative AI that understands natural language and communicates through personalized responses. It effortlessly integrates with multiple channels and provides instant support across them without human intervention.
- AI-driven ticket management: AI analyzes relevant data in every customer ticket to categorize and prioritize cases based on the context and sentiment of messages. AI case summarizer saves hours of manual work by shortening lengthy conversations for quick and clear actionable insights.
- Intelligent document processing: Manual data entry is eliminated with intelligent document recognition, which uses AI to extract data, captures information with optical character recognition (OCR), and transfers files into business systems or processes.
- Robotic process automation: RPA technology allows businesses to automate their business processes and workflows without making any modifications to existing applications. Repetitive tasks can be automated with precision, freeing employees from mundane tasks.
- Multilingual AI and real-time translation: AI-based translations make global communication simple. It learns from past messages, understands the context, and adapts as languages evolve. Businesses can now translate and respond in over 18 languages.
- Sentiment and emotion tracking: Customer sentiment and emotions can be analyzed through the tone and vocabulary in voice transcripts as well. AI-powered analytics give support teams insights into customer interactions, highlighting customer satisfaction scores, engagement rates, and sentiment analysis.
Steps to implement AI agents and AI assistants in customer service
Implementing AI in customer service should be aligned with particular business goals, and so, we have listed down some steps businesses should follow to get the most of their AI investment.
- Identify business needs: Pinpoint the challenges your business is facing in customer service. Think about which tools can empower your support agents or which customer service processes can benefit from automation.
- Set clear goals and quantifiable KPIs: Once the customer service pain points have been identified, setting measurable goals and KPIs will allow you to make continuous improvements and focus on areas where AI can deliver tangible results.
- Choose between AI agents or AI assistants: Determine if your priority is front-line automation (agents) or back-office human efficiency (assistants).
- Define the roles: Clearly define what the AI systems will help your support teams achieve in terms of streamlining routine tasks or managing complex workflows.
- Training the AI models: Feeding accurate and historical data to the AI models and fine-tuning them on relevant datasets enables the models to provide required outcomes.
- Train human agents: To get a deeper understanding of AI tools, support teams should practice working with AI in real-world scenarios and continuously evolve with the technology to effectively collaborate with AI.
- Maximizing AI effectiveness with monitoring: Once the preferred AI system is implemented, the way to fully benefit from AI in customer service is by continuously identifying areas of improvement and optimizing the AI to adapt to evolving business needs.
- Establish a governance framework: Put in place a human-in-the-loop to maintain accuracy of outputs and prioritize data privacy to protect sensitive customer data in the event of data breaches.
The future of customer support is human and AI collaboration
Striking the right balance between AI’s advanced capabilities and human touch unlocks unique benefits for customer support teams. AI assistants and AI agents complement human agents rather than replacing them. In the ever-evolving customer service landscape, AI’s accuracy and a human agent’s problem-solving capability can deliver high-quality support even in complex scenarios.
Human-AI collaboration is shaping the future of CX and should be prioritized today by businesses looking to get the best of both worlds. Be it an AI assistant or an AI agent, when support teams use and evolve with these systems, they are well positioned to improve customer satisfaction due to AI proficiency.
Industries that must adopt AI for customer support
Leading companies across industries are increasingly adopting AI for their customer support processes. They have recognized how easy it is to handle high volumes of queries, automate repetitive tasks, and provide a consistent customer experience across all channels.
E-commerce and retail businesses are using AI agents to provide round-the-clock services to customers for order cancellation, refund initiation, and checking shipment statuses. In the hospitality sector, AI assistants manage everything from hotel bookings to itinerary updates. They ensure travelers receive real-time assistance, reminders, and support at every step of their journey.
In the telecommunications industry, AI agents handle large volumes of customer requests such as billing queries, plan upgrades, and network troubleshooting. In the logistics and supply chain industry, AI agents monitor shipments in real time, handle order tracking requests, and proactively alert customers or partners about delays — helping companies maintain transparency and trust across operations. Similarly, the insurance industry can accelerate the claims process and leverage AI assistants to suggest agents the clauses and policy coverage details while responding to a query regarding coverage.
Conclusion
The strategic adoption of AI assistants or AI agents in customer service gives contact centers unique abilities to achieve their CX goals. ThinkOwl’s AI-powered OwlForce and OwlDesk allow organizations to strategically deploy AI to drastically increase their agents’ efficiency and provide a superior CX. These intelligent solutions ensure where a support agent needs quick assistance and where exactly a human touch matters the most. Explore ThinkOwl’s capabilities by signing up for a free demo!
