A year into the enterprise AI spending wave, the question has moved on. It’s no longer whether to invest in CX automation; it’s whether you can prove it was worth it. And according to Antoine Nasr, Head of AI at Forethought, most companies are trying to answer that with the wrong measure.
Speaking with CX Today, Nasr took direct aim at ticket deflection, the number that still dominates most AI ROI conversations.
His argument is straightforward: a deflected ticket tells you a customer didn’t reach a human. It tells you nothing about whether their problem was solved.
At Forethought, that gap is built into the pricing model itself. The company only charges when a conversation is determined to be a genuine resolution, with admins able to audit every single case.
“If I wanted to only maximize deflection, I could do it very simply by just refusing to answer questions,” Nasr said. “That’s obviously not what we do.”
Beyond the metric debate, Nasr outlined a broader shift in market mood. The initial euphoria around enterprise AI tools is cooling into accountability, with executives now asking what their investment actually yielded. Forethought’s answer is a consultative model backed by its Discover product, which automatically maps support gaps, deploys agents to fill them, and self-improves after every interaction.
The company has already documented over $1 billion in customer ROI. Nasr was quick to note that number is already out of date.
