AI agent for first line contact centre service

Airbnb runs an AI assistant as the first line of customer support for guests and hosts. It was expanded to all US users in 2025 and then rolled out to more countries and languages, reaching more than 50 languages by mid 2026. Airbnb reports the share of issues resolved without a human agent in each quarterly letter and links part of the fall in support cost per booking to the assistant; it plans an AI voice assistant.

• Containment rate: about 45%, Q2 2026, issues that begin with the AI assistant

  "Nearly 45 percent of issues that begin with our AI assistant are now resolved without a human agent, up from Q1, while delivering much faster resolution times."

  Claimed by: organization
• Cost reduction: about 16%, Q2 2026 year on year, customer support cost per booking

  "In Q2, our customer support related cost per booking declined approximately 16 percent year-over-year, driven in part by improvements to our AI assistant."

  Claimed by: organization

Erica, launched in 2018, is Bank of America's virtual financial assistant in its Mobile Banking app. Beyond answering questions it delivers proactive, personalized insights: BankAmeriDeals cash back deals based on the client's spending, where balances are trending over the next seven days and eligibility for the Preferred Rewards program. It also gives guidance on investment topics for Merrill clients and hands off to people by scheduling appointments. The bank reports that clients have received and interacted with more than 1.7 billion of these insights, and that most users find the information they need, which it links to lower call centre volume. Bank of America says Erica selects answers from a predefined set and does not use generative AI or large language models.

• Users served: about 50 million, since launch in 2018, as of August 2025

  "assisting nearly 50 million users since launch, surpassing 3 billion client interactions, and now averaging more than 58 million interactions per month"

  Claimed by: organization
• Interactions handled: at least 3 billion, client interactions since launch in 2018, as of August 2025

  "surpassing 3 billion client interactions"

  Claimed by: organization

Bank of the Philippine Islands runs BEA Chat, a conversational AI assistant on its website and Facebook page that answers general inquiries around the clock, offers self service for common concerns, lets customers apply for products and track service requests, and escalates complex issues to live agents. It serves both logged in clients and guests, and the bank positions it as a channel for Filipinos working overseas who would otherwise need a local SIM card or international calls. No containment or cost outcome is disclosed.

No outcome disclosed.

NatWest routes a wide range of everyday customer queries through Cora, its AI assistant in online banking and the mobile app, now with generative AI (Cora+). Customers whose ATM withdrawal did not pay out are sent to Cora with the phrase "ATM dispute" as the first step of the claim, and the assistant is available before login as well. NatWest says the generative AI version improved customer satisfaction and reduced how often a colleague has to step in, and in 2025 it began a collaboration with OpenAI to extend the assistant to more complex tasks.

• Satisfaction uplift: 150%, Cora+ generative AI functionality

  "The GenAI functionality offered by Cora+ has shown a 150% improvement in customer satisfaction, while reducing the number of times a colleague needs to intervene."

  Claimed by: organization

BT Group runs the EE virtual assistant Aimee on Sprinklr's customer experience platform, drawing on BT Group data for personalised answers. The platform lets BT Group use generative AI for EE and BT customers, for example in an Aimee journey that prepares customers for international travel and in billing support, where generative AI gives detailed explanations of billing charges. BT Group says Aimee handles up to 60,000 conversations a week, double the volume of two years earlier, that the travel journey halved the need for chat support, and that it stays model agnostic behind a private cloud instance with safeguards against attempts to make the AI misbehave.

• Interactions handled: up to 60,000, per week

  "EE virtual assistant Aimee now handles up to 60,000 customer conversations per week, with automation success rates on several types of customer journey now approaching 50%, freeing time for guides to focus on more complex issues"

  Claimed by: organization
• Automation rate: up to 50%, several types of customer journey

  "EE virtual assistant Aimee now handles up to 60,000 customer conversations per week, with automation success rates on several types of customer journey now approaching 50%, freeing time for guides to focus on more complex issues"

  Claimed by: organization

Klarna announced in February 2024 that its AI assistant built on OpenAI models had been live globally for a month as the first line of its customer service, handling refunds, returns, payment issues, cancellations and disputes in more than 35 languages across 23 markets. In 2025 the company said it had gone too far in replacing people and began recruiting human agents again so that customers can always reach a person; the assistant still handles the majority of inquiries. The record is useful precisely because it shows both the gain and the correction.

• Interactions handled: 2.3 million, first month after launch

  "The AI assistant has had 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats"

  Claimed by: organization
• Response time reduction: 82%, since launch, as reported in 2025

  "Since launch, response times have improved by 82%, and Klarna has seen a 25% drop in repeat issues."

  Claimed by: organization

Vodafone rebuilt its TOBi chatbot on Azure OpenAI as SuperTOBi, launched in Italy and Portugal, with Germany and Turkey announced to follow from July 2024 and other markets later that year. A companion SuperAgent helps human agents search the company knowledge base and, in Ireland, sends the human agent a summary of the online customer conversation so customers do not repeat themselves. Vodafone reports that initial tests at one of its call centres showed a 50% improvement in first time resolution of critical journeys such as complex billing inquiries, and that in Portugal first time resolution on appointment booking rose from 15% to 60%, with billing journeys being added next.

• First contact resolution: 60%, appointment booking journey, Vodafone Portugal

  "As a result, the first-time resolution rate has increased from 15% to 60% and Vodafone’s online net promoter scores (where respondents are asked to rate their experience) improved by 14 points to 64 points – anything above 50 points is considered a strong result."

  Claimed by: organization
• NPS change: +14 points, online NPS, Vodafone Portugal

  "As a result, the first-time resolution rate has increased from 15% to 60% and Vodafone’s online net promoter scores (where respondents are asked to rate their experience) improved by 14 points to 64 points – anything above 50 points is considered a strong result."

  Claimed by: organization

Ingka Group, the largest IKEA retailer, rolled out the AI chatbot Billie in its 2021 financial year to answer simpler customer enquiries around the clock. Between 2021 and 2023 Billie resolved about 47% of the enquiries it received. With the chatbot taking simpler enquiries, Ingka reskilled 8,500 call centre staff for remote interior design and remote selling, and sales through its remote customer meeting points reached EUR 1.3 billion in its 2022 financial year.

• Containment rate: about 47%, 2021 to 2023

  "Since the rollout of the solution in FY21[1], Billie has continued to provide value, and from 2021 to 2023 it resolved approximately 47% of customer enquiries it received, which translates to 3,2 million interactions solved by the chatbot and nearly EUR 13 million in savings thus far."

  Claimed by: organization
• Interactions handled: about 3.2 million, resolved by the chatbot, 2021 to 2023

  "Since the rollout of the solution in FY21[1], Billie has continued to provide value, and from 2021 to 2023 it resolved approximately 47% of customer enquiries it received, which translates to 3,2 million interactions solved by the chatbot and nearly EUR 13 million in savings thus far."

  Claimed by: organization
• Cost savings: about EUR 13 million, cumulative, 2021 to 2023

  "Since the rollout of the solution in FY21[1], Billie has continued to provide value, and from 2021 to 2023 it resolved approximately 47% of customer enquiries it received, which translates to 3,2 million interactions solved by the chatbot and nearly EUR 13 million in savings thus far."

  Claimed by: organization

Pegasus Airlines retrained FlyBot, the virtual assistant on its website, with Azure OpenAI and integrated it with internal systems, so customers can ask about flights, flight rules, baggage allowances and claims and reissue tickets in the same conversation. The airline reports that satisfaction with the virtual assistant doubled after the change.

• Satisfaction uplift: 100%

  "“Since we integrated Azure AI Services into our FlyBot, customer satisfaction rates for our virtual assistant have doubled,” points out Bora."

  Claimed by: organization

Together Credit Union runs a voice agent on its inbound phone line that answers member questions, resolves routine requests and hands the rest to a person, drawing on one knowledge base that the branch, contact centre and chat channels also use. The vendor reports that the agent now contains the majority of inbound calls, 12 points more than at the start, that after hours escalations to an outsourced contact centre fell, and that member satisfaction held above 94% during the rollout.

• Containment rate: 66%, total inbound calls, as reported by the vendor

  "Heather, Together CU's Posh-powered voice agent, now contains 66% of total inbound calls"

  Claimed by: vendor
• Contact deflection: 14%, after hours escalations to the outsourced contact centre

  "After-hours escalations to their third-party contact center dropped 14%."

  Claimed by: vendor

Commonwealth Bank built a central AI orchestration agent that reads the customer's intent and routes it to a conversational AI, retrieval over public content, a deterministic guarded path for regulated journeys such as fraud disputes, or a human specialist with the full context, on its messaging channel. It migrated nearly 700 chatbot topics and launched a generative AI banking chatbot in November 2024. Voice bots are a planned extension of the orchestration layer.

• Containment rate: about 84.6%, May 2026, self service messaging

  "In May 2026, approximately 84.6% of self-service messaging interactions were resolved end-to-end in the messaging channel."

  Claimed by: vendor

Telkomsel, with more than 159 million mobile subscribers, rebuilt its Veronika virtual assistant on Azure OpenAI to handle routine customer questions in Bahasa Indonesia with the local accents and expressions its first chatbot could not follow, so that human agents could focus on complex issues. Telkomsel's chief information officer says the architecture can handle up to 5 million transactions a month. Telkomsel's chief marketing officer says customer self service interactions rose from 19% to 45% after the launch.

• Automation rate: 45%, share of customer interactions that were self service, as Telkomsel describes it

  "“I’m thrilled to share that since introducing Veronika, we’ve seen a leap in customer self-service interactions from 19 percent to 45 percent,” enthuses Heng."

  Claimed by: organization

TOBi is Vodafone's digital assistant on the website, the My Vodafone app, messaging and telephony, first launched in Italy and extended to 15 language versions. It handles billing questions, contract updates and simple technical troubleshooting, hands over to a live agent with a summary, and during the pandemic made the same sales offers as human agents, such as data boosts and upgrades. Microsoft reports that TOBi now fully resolves 70% of inquiries arriving through digital channels; an earlier Microsoft story quotes Vodafone on a 12% year on year fall in contacts to call centres after launch.

• Containment rate: 70%, inquiries arriving through digital channels

  "Currently, TOBi handles nearly 45 million customer calls a month, fully resolving 70% of customer inquiries coming through the company’s digital channels."

  Claimed by: vendor
• Interactions handled: about 45 million, per month

  "Currently, TOBi handles nearly 45 million customer calls a month, fully resolving 70% of customer inquiries coming through the company’s digital channels."

  Claimed by: vendor
• Contact deflection: 12%, frequency of customer contacts to call centres, year over year after the TOBi launch

  "Since launching TOBi, we’ve reduced the frequency of customer contacts to call centers by 12 percent year-over-year"

  Claimed by: organization

Air India launched AI.g in May 2023, a virtual assistant on Azure OpenAI that is integrated with the reservation system and answers questions across 1,300 topic areas including bookings, flight status, baggage, check in, frequent flyer awards and lounge access, and escalates automatically to contact centre staff when it detects the need. The airline says it has kept contact centre call volume flat while its passenger count doubled.

• Automation rate: 97%, cumulative, of nearly 4 million queries

  "To date, AI.g has successfully handled nearly 4 million customer queries, 97% of them with full automation."

  Claimed by: vendor
• Interactions handled: about 10,000, per day

  "That's because AI.g is handling about 10,000 a day."

  Claimed by: organization

Mobily deployed customer facing AI agents on eight channels, including WhatsApp, Twitter and Apple Business Chat, connected to its internal systems. The agents answer billing, balance and data usage questions, change subscriptions, sell add ons, take payments and recharges, and handle feedback and complaints, with a warm handover to a specialist who can take over or hand back. NiCE Cognigy reports that the first response time fell from 20 minutes to about 6 seconds. The deployment was already live in 2022, when the case study described it as conversational AI; the current version presents it as agentic AI.

• Response time reduction: 99.5%, first response time on messaging channels

  "An AI agent picks up any inquiry in around 6 seconds, reducing first response times significantly from the previous 20 minutes: a 99,5% improvement."

  Claimed by: vendor

During the pandemic, when passengers flooded call centres to change or cancel flights, Lufthansa Group replaced its in house chatbot with a conversational AI platform and built self service AI agents that manage rebookings, check alternative flights, give travel information and process refunds. The agents run on the airline websites and through SMS links that open a self service chat, with multilingual support and real time translation, and are used to absorb peaks such as strikes.

• Interactions handled: about 16 million, per year

  "By leveraging AI-driven Self-Service Agents, the airline managed to significantly increase its interaction capacity, handling about 16 million conversations throughout the year with AI, with peak days seeing up to 375,000 interactions."

  Claimed by: vendor

Vodafone Germany moved its messaging channels into one central team and put the TOBi chatbot in front of every WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat and SMS conversation, with a handover to a human agent on the same screen. TOBi understands more than 230 intents and can classify the photos and screenshots customers send, such as a bill or a router with a flashing red light. Genesys reports that the share of inquiries resolved by AI (which it calls first contact success) rose from 16% at launch to 44%.

• Containment rate: 44%, share of messaging inquiries resolved by TOBi without a human

  "44% of inquiries now resolved by AI, up from 16%."

  Claimed by: vendor

JetBlue moved its customer support to an AI platform from late 2019, opening messaging channels (Apple Messages for Business, Google Business Messaging, web and app chat, WhatsApp) with Spanish language support, a virtual agent that resolves routine requests and AI assistance for the crewmembers who handle the rest. In a January 2026 conference session published by the vendor, a JetBlue customer support leader described weather disruptions, when passengers ask for their options, and said the conversations crewmembers now handle (rebooking, refunds, alternatives weeks away) are multifaceted, which is why the airline has looked at AI that orchestrates several workflows. The ASAPP speaker in the same session warned against reading containment gains without checking whether customers still have the option to escalate.

• Containment rate: 45%, May 2023, virtual agent

  "The integration of virtual agent experiences facilitated streamlined interactions and contributed to a remarkable 36% year-over-year growth in containment, with a 45% containment rate achieved in May 2023."

  Claimed by: vendor
• Hours saved: 73,000 hours, Q1 2023 only (one quarter, not annualized)

  "In Q1 2023 alone, this AI-driven efficiency translated into significant savings of 73,000 workforce hours."

  Claimed by: vendor