NiCE survey: Six in ten customer service teams already face interactions from personal AI agents

Personal AI agents are already reaching customer service teams

Personal AI agents are beginning to change how consumers interact with businesses, with customer service teams increasingly encountering automated agents acting on behalf of customers.

A new survey from NiCE found that approximately six in ten customer service practitioners are already dealing with personal AI agents autonomously contacting their organisations. The findings suggest that businesses are moving beyond the early stages of AI adoption towards an environment where their own AI systems must interact with agents representing customers and business partners.

The survey received 118 responses from practitioners at more than 70 NiCE customer organisations across Australia, North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and India. Respondents described how agent-to-agent interactions are emerging across customer service operations, alongside efforts to build the infrastructure and governance needed to manage them.

Approximately six in ten respondents also reported employing a multi-agent ecosystem, in which different AI agents work together to handle customer requests, retrieve information and initiate follow-up actions.

Businesses are adapting to customer-side AI agents

The growing presence of personal AI agents is creating new operational considerations for businesses, particularly when automated systems begin interacting directly with customer-facing digital channels.

In Australia, a major insurer has reported a significant increase in personal AI agent traffic across its quote and purchase pages. The activity is making it more difficult for the company's digital team to distinguish genuine customer prospects from interactions initiated by AI agents.

Rather than blocking this traffic, the insurer is working with NiCE to explore how its platform can accommodate these emerging interactions.

The development illustrates a broader shift in how businesses may need to approach digital engagement. As consumers increasingly use AI agents to research products, compare services and initiate transactions, organisations will need to consider how their platforms identify and respond to both human visitors and automated representatives.

NiCE's survey also found that personal AI agents are already scheduling appointments and interacting with enterprise service agents, while businesses are exploring the orchestration, identity verification and intent controls required to support these exchanges securely.

Multi-agent systems are moving into enterprise operations

The survey points to growing adoption of AI systems that work collaboratively rather than operating as standalone assistants.

Respondents described enterprise workflows in which one agent identifies a customer's intent, another retrieves relevant account information and a third routes the case or triggers the required follow-up action.

These coordinated processes are helping organisations reduce manual effort, accelerate resolution and improve consistency across customer interactions.

Businesses are also beginning to connect their service agents with external systems, including logistics and operational platforms. A propane distributor, for example, uses a customer-facing agent to resolve delivery and billing enquiries by communicating directly with telemetry and routing systems.

A healthcare technology provider reported that agent-to-agent handoffs have eliminated most after-call work while improving documentation quality and case-closure speed.

The findings indicate that the value of enterprise AI is increasingly linked to how effectively multiple agents can coordinate tasks across systems and business functions.

Governance and visibility remain essential

As AI agents take on more responsibility, organisations must also ensure that automated interactions remain secure, traceable and aligned with business requirements.

More than half of survey respondents identified oversight, auditability, human-in-the-loop controls or unified interaction logs as important factors in expanding automation with confidence.

The emphasis on governance reflects a practical challenge for businesses: enabling AI systems to act independently while retaining visibility into the decisions and actions they take.

A customer service planner at a global building technologies company said centralised customer engagement data, automated action tracking and auditable processes help maintain oversight as automation expands.

A similar focus is emerging in other sectors. An engineer at a global transportation company described personal AI agents interacting with virtual agents to negotiate appointments, clarify account details and initiate service requests. The organisation is using intent verification, API security and unified interaction logs to manage these exchanges.

The findings suggest that enterprise adoption will depend not only on the capabilities of AI agents, but also on the controls that allow businesses to monitor and manage their activity.

Australia and New Zealand move towards practical AI deployments

The survey's findings are reflected in several developments across Australia and New Zealand, where organisations are applying AI to customer-facing operations.

In New Zealand, a leading telecommunications and utilities provider has developed a Voice AI Concierge in collaboration with NiCE Labs' Forward Deployed Engineering team.

The system allows customers to explain their requirements in natural language, verify their identity, troubleshoot internet issues and, where necessary, transfer the conversation to a human agent with relevant context. The project is expected to save between 90 and 120 seconds in average handling time per call.

The deployment is progressing with a focus on its anticipated return on investment, demonstrating how organisations are prioritising practical outcomes as they move AI initiatives into production.

Another New Zealand organisation in the healthcare sector is preparing to deploy Cognigy.AI by Christmas. The planned implementation will use live Voice AI for X-ray concierge services, routing and appointment booking. According to NiCE, it is expected to be among the country's first large-scale live Voice AI deployments and the first NiCE customer to use Cognigy.AI for these services.

Commenting on the regional developments, Ben Hancock, APAC Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering at NiCE, said businesses across Australia and New Zealand are finding new opportunities to transform customer experiences and improve operational efficiency through AI.

He highlighted the Australian insurer's efforts to accommodate personal AI agent traffic, alongside the New Zealand deployments demonstrating how organisations are applying AI to customer needs and measurable operational outcomes.

The next phase of customer service will involve agent-to-agent collaboration

For businesses, the growing use of personal AI agents introduces a new layer to customer engagement. Customer service teams may increasingly need to manage interactions not only with people, but also with automated systems acting on their behalf.

NiCE Cognigy supports enterprise engagement with personal AI agents across voice and digital channels, including through emerging standards and protocols such as Agent2Agent (A2A), Model Context Protocol (MCP) and ChatGPT Apps. NiCE CXone brings AI agents, workflows and interaction analytics together in a governed environment.

The company is also collaborating with Meta and other partners on the Personal Agent Protocol (PAP), an initiative focused on establishing standards for secure interactions between personal and enterprise AI agents.

Sascha Poggemann, COO of NiCE Cognigy, said agent-to-agent AI is already becoming part of how organisations operate, adding that visibility and governance are essential for businesses seeking to scale these interactions.

As personal AI agents become more common, the relationship between consumers, businesses and customer service platforms is likely to evolve. The survey suggests that organisations are already preparing for this shift by developing multi-agent capabilities, strengthening oversight and rethinking how customer interactions are managed.

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About Nice

NiCE is a global software company providing AI-powered platforms for customer experience, automation and enterprise operations. Its platforms support organisations in more than 150 countries, connecting people, systems and workflows to improve customer engagement and operational performance.

Source: NiCE Customer Survey