Definition
Agent assist is software that helps a human customer support agent during a live call, by transcribing the conversation, suggesting answers, pulling up knowledge articles and filling in forms. A person still talks to the customer and makes the decisions.
How agent assist works
The call audio is streamed to a speech-to-text system while the call is in progress. Keeping the caller and the agent on separate audio channels makes it easier to know who said what. The transcript feeds an LLM that tracks what the caller wants, and several things can happen as the call goes on. The agent’s screen can show a suggested reply, a knowledge article or a policy snippet, or fill in fields such as the account number or the reason for the call. It can prompt a required disclosure that the agent has not yet read, or warn about a sentiment shift. After the call it can draft a summary and a disposition, which shortens the wrap-up. On an insurance claim call, it can prompt for the details a first notice of loss needs.
The suggestions are advice. The agent reads, edits or ignores them. Nothing is said to the customer unless the human says it.
Why it matters for voice agents
Agent assist and a voice agent use the same parts, speech recognition, an LLM and a knowledge source, but they differ in who is speaking. In agent assist, the human is the voice and the software is the prompt. In a voice agent, the software speaks and a human is the fallback. The choice changes the risk. A wrong suggestion on a screen can be caught by the agent before it reaches the customer. A wrong answer from a voice agent reaches the customer directly.
Timing is the other difference. Suggestions have to appear in the gap between the caller’s question and the agent’s reply, usually a few seconds, or the agent has already answered. Teams often start with agent assist because it needs little change to the call flow, and use what they learn about the common questions and the right answers to decide which calls a voice agent can take. The contact center automation guide lays out how these layers fit together, and the human in the loop term covers the handoff between them.
Example
An illustrative call. The caller says their order arrived damaged. The assist panel shows the order history and the returns policy within a second or two of the sentence ending, and suggests asking for a photo. The agent asks for the photo, issues the replacement, and accepts the draft summary after fixing one line.