Talkdesk has announced a new agentic AI offering.
Available via the vendor’s Ascend AI platform, AI Agents for Retail promises to equip retail customer service teams with autonomous conversational agents.
According to Talkdesk, the offering will enable a service experience that “surpasses human capabilities”.
Powered by generative AI (GenAI), the new AI Agents are specifically designed to manage complex retail processes autonomously.
Operating 24/7, they deliver hyper-personalized self-service experiences by analyzing interactions in real time and adapting responses based on context.
Introducing the new solution, Ed Durbin, VP & GM of Industry Strategies for Retail and Consumer Goods at Talkdesk, expounded on why the company is targeting the retail CX sector:
“Today’s retailers are experiencing significant change, driven by shifting consumer behavior, global uncertainty, and technological evolution,” he said.
“Increasingly, retailers are looking to do more with their existing resources, and these innovations directly address that need.
Talkdesk AI Agents for Retail represents a significant advancement in how retailers can effortlessly deliver intelligent, seamless, and hyper-personalized customer experiences.
In the official release, the vendor also outlined the following key features of Talkdesk AI Agents for Retail:
- Streamlined Design: Simplifies the creation of AI agents using natural language, enhanced by large language models (LLMs) and GenAI for improved accuracy.
- Advanced NLP: Enables fluid conversations by handling multiple topics seamlessly.
- Platform Compatibility: Integrates effortlessly with existing commerce platforms and APIs.
- Versatile Functionality: Supports tasks like customer authentication, real-time order updates, address modifications, and routing to in-store specialists, optimizing metrics such as AHT, FCR, and service levels.
Service Directories
In addition to the release of AI Agents for Retail, Talkdesk also confirmed that it had utilized agentic AI to enhance its Service Directories tool.
With 24/7 support from AI and human agents, the revamped tool allows retailers to direct customers to the most suitable offline channels based on their location, needs, or available specialists.
In doing so, Talkdesk believes that users will be able to provide more personalized, contextual information about store locations, services, and expertise.
The solution also offers geolocation capabilities for accurate store and service recommendations, an intuitive visual map interface for location selection, comprehensive directories for services and specialists, and pre-built templates for AI-driven location searches.
All in on AI Agents
The latest release from Talkdesk follows the launch of the company’s Ascend AI platform in October of last year, which promised to integrate AI agents across its entire AI suite.
The platform uses agentic AI to enhance Talkdesk’s AI solutions, including Talkdesk Autopilot, Copilot, and CX Analytics.
By incorporating AI agents throughout its tech stack, Talkdesk claims to be able to deliver significant efficiency improvements for contact centers and offer autonomous and hyper-personalized customer experiences.
With the ability to work fully or semi-autonomously to manage tasks at scale, Talkdesk’s agentic AI solutions can analyze customer journey data and take independent actions to optimize workflows, assisting both agents and supervisors.
While the previous announcement referred specifically to equipping its existing solutions with agentic AI, AI Agents for Retail and Service Directories mark Talkdesk’s first new releases since the introduction of the Ascend AI platform.
For Durbin, both features demonstrate Talkdesk’s continued commitment to leveraging agentic AI to enhance its CX offerings, as he explains:
We continue to expand our portfolio of GenAI innovation and build on the success of our industry motion to meet the specific CX needs of our key industries.
More News from Talkdesk
In November of last year, Talkdesk introduced Talkdesk Express, a CCaaS solution tailored for SMBs.
Key features include an omnichannel interface, conversational IVR, knowledge base, analytics, journey orchestration, and integrations with over 70 business applications.
Windstream, a managed communications services provider, is the solution’s first channel partner.
Elsewhere, Talkdesk also recently unveiled Talkdesk Embedded, a new solution enabling businesses to integrate its CCaaS tools into third-party CRM and helpdesk systems like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Dynamics, Pega, Oracle, and Zendesk.
Using no-code and low-code tools, Talkdesk Embedded incorporates features from Workspace, Conversations, and Copilot, aiming to streamline agent workflows and simplify experiences in contact centers.
