• Login
  • Status
  • Support
  • Partners
  • Pricing
  • Careers
  • ENLanguages
    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Français
    • 日本
    • 简体中文
    • العربية
    • 한국
    • Español
NICE - AI Customer Service Automation Solutions
  • NICE - AI Customer Service Automation Solutions×
  • Platform

      CXone Mpower Platform

      • Workflows

        Automate every service workflow

      • Agents

        Maximize agent performance

      • Knowledge

        Centralize data and knowledge

      Customer Service Automation

      • Platform Overview

        Complete AI platform for customer service automation

      • Trust & Compliance

        Ensure secure, reliable, and compliant customer service operations

      • CXexchange Marketplace

        Discover partner solutions to extend capabilities on our platform

      • Integrations & Hubs

        Seamlessly connect your business systems

      • Developer Portal

        Endless customization options with RESTful APIs and robust SDKs

      • User Communities

        Collaborate, learn, and share best practices for customer service excellence

      Discover the full value of AI in customer service

      Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

      Calculate your savings

    • Products
      • Explore all Products

      • AI for Customer Experience

        AI for Customer Experience

        Purpose-built AI for unparalleled CX automation

        Learn more

        • Autopilot

          Elevate customer self-service with an AI-powered virtual agent

        • Copilot

          Empower agents and supervisors with powerful AI to drive productivity

        • Actions

          Unlock complex data with generative AI for CX leaders

        • AutoSummary

          Automate notetaking with Gen AI to summarize every interaction

        • AI Routing

          Match customers to their perfect agent for improved business results

        • Enlighten AI for Complaint Management

          Protect your organization from reputational and financial risks

        • Enlighten AI for Sales Effectiveness

          Increase conversion rates and grow revenue with real-time analysis

        • Experience Optimization (XO)

          Learn from all interactions with AI that builds smart self-service

        • Enlighten AI for Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

          Gain insights on agent soft-skill behaviors on every interaction

      • Digital & Self Service

        Digital & Self Service

        Friction-free customer experiences driven by conversational AI

        Learn more

        • Autopilot

          Elevate self-service experiences with an AI-powered virtual agent that guides customers

        • Conversational AI & Chatbots

          Engage customers with AI-powered intelligent virtual agents and chatbots that converse naturally

        • Knowledge Management

          Meet customers with knowledge and ensure they receive the right content, wherever they are

        • Proactive AI Agent

          Keep customers engaged in conversation from onboarding to installation, service, and retention

        • Web & Mobile Engagement

          Remove friction across the digital journey by proactively delivering the right guidance at the right time

        • Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

          Accelerate resolution, improve routing efficiency and cut costs with AI boosted voice self-service

        • Experience Optimization (XO)

          Optimize digital CX by learning from all interactions with AI that mirrors top agents to build smart self-service

      • Journey Orchestration & Routing

        Journey Orchestration & Routing

        Seamless customer journeys across voice and digital channels

        View Products

        • Actions

          Unlock complex data with generative AI for CX leaders

        • Omnichannel Routing

          Connect customers to the ideal resource, the smart way

        • AI Routing

          Match every customer to their perfect agent with AI that delivers personalized experiences and improves results

        • AI Orchestrator

          Orchestrate AI-driven customer service workflows across the enterprise.

        • Proactive Engagement

          Generate more revenue, minimize hang-ups, proactively connect to reduce friction in the customer experience

        • Digital & Voice Channels

          Meet consumers in their preferred channel, provide frictionless experiences, maintain context throughout

        • Social, Chat & Messaging

          Engage website visitors in conversations on their channel of choice

      • Workforce Engagement & Management

        Workforce Engagement & Management

        Robust applications to optimize the employee experience (WEM)

        Learn more

        • Workforce Management

          Anticipate business demands with smarter, AI-based forecasting that keeps SLAs up and costs down

        • Quality Management

          Deliver better customer experiences through streamlined processes and actionable, AI-based feedback

        • Performance Management

          Meet your organizational goals while engaging employees through personal coaching and gamification

        • Interaction Recording & Management

          Capture your omnichannel interactions, meet your contact center’s regulatory needs and drive better performance

        • Supervisor Workspace

          Turbocharge supervisors to make agile decisions, streamline workflows and improve performance

        • Dashboard & Reporting

          Gain a full operational picture of your contact center, with enhanced visualization of real-time and historical insights

        • Automated Agent Augmentation

          Automatically detect automation opportunities, and effortlessly build automation processes as needed

        • Playvox by NICE

          Seamlessly integrate with CRMs to efficiently manage your workforce

      • CX Analytics

        CX Analytics

        Actionable insights to continuously enhance the customer experience

        Learn more

        • Experience Optimization (XO)

          Optimize digital CX by learning from all interactions with AI that mirrors top agents to build smart self-service

        • Actions

          Unlock complex data with generative AI for CX leaders

        • Dashboard & Reporting

          Gain a full operational picture of your contact center, with enhanced visualization of real-time and historical insights

        • Feedback Management

          Discover actionable insights from omnichannel customer feedback to improve customer satisfaction

        • Interactions Analytics

          Analyze every interaction to understand operational trends and agent performance

        • Desktop & Process Analytics

          Understand and confidently select the processes that will contribute most to your performance success

      • Agent Assist

        Agent Assist

        AI-driven tools for real-time agent guidance and coaching

        Learn more

        • Omnichannel Agent Desktop

          A unified agent workspace provides everything agents need to handle all interactions

        • Agent Assist Hub

          Easily integrate applications that help turn every one of your agents into a customer service superstar

        • Real-Time Guidance

          Helps agents understand where they can improve their behaviors in real-time to boost customer satisfaction

        • AutoSummary

          Automate agent notetaking with the power of generative AI to summarize every interaction

        • Knowledge Management

          Your customer’s journey begins with a search. Meet them with knowledge and ensure they receive the right content

      • Open Cloud Platform

        Open Cloud Platform

        Innovative cloud-native foundation to rapidly scale extraordinary CX

        Learn more

        • Security & Compliance

          Secure your data and enjoy industry-leading guaranteed uptime

        • Resiliency & Reliability

          Keep your contact center up and running with dynamic elasticity

        • CXexchange Marketplace

          Discover partner solutions to extend capabilities on our platform

        • Developer Tools & APIs

          Endless customization options with RESTful APIs and robust SDKs

        • Pre-Built Integrations

          Increase value with pre-integrated applications, UCaaS and CRM adapters

        • FedRAMP

          Give your government agency the tools to act smarter and respond faster

        • Voice as a Service (VaaS)

          Connect agents and customers with cloud-optimized voice & data services

        • Elevate AI

          Improve your customer conversations with accurate STT transcription

        • Multipath to CXone

          Connect vital enterprise infrastructure to our cloud gradually and safely

        • Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

          Unify your contact center with the rest of the organization

    • Solutions
      • Explore all Solutions

      • By Industry

        By Industry

        • BPO

          Business Process Outsourcers

        • Financial Services

          Customer experiences that count

        • Government

          Elevate citizen trust

        • Healthcare

          Healthy patient experiences

        • Insurance

          Secure policyholder experiences

        • Retail

          Delight customers where they shop

        • Telecom

          CX for Telecommunications

        • Travel & Hospitality

          Boost traveler and guest loyalty

        Discover the full value of AI in customer service

        Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

        Calculate your savings

      • By Business Initiative

        By Business Initiative

        • Grow Revenue

          Boost conversions and win rates to accelerate growth

        • Engage & Empower Employees

          Create a workplace of truly engaged employees

        • Boost Customer Loyalty

          Improve customer loyalty on interactions across the journey

        • Drive Digital Transformation

          Integrate digital technology at the center of CX

        • Small and Medium Business

          Drive growth and boost revenue with smarter, cost-effective customer service built for SMBs.

        • Call Center Software

          Empower agents to provide better experiences

        • Increase Operational Efficiency

          Leverage AI and automation to increase agent retention

        • Move to the Cloud

          Elevate experiences by moving operations to the cloud

        • Improve Compliance

          Protect your consumers with pre-built compliance solutions

        • Proactive Customer Engagement

          Elevate customer satisfaction with proactive conversational AI

      • Integrations & Custom Solutions

        Integrations & Custom Solutions

        • CXexchange Marketplace

          Discover partner solutions to extend capabilities on our platform

        • Pre-Built Integrations

          Seamlessly connect your business systems with our platform

        • Developer Tools & APIs

          Endless customization options with RESTful APIs and robust SDKs

        • Partner Ecosystem

          Embark on a journey of shared success and collaboration

        91% of customers recommend NICE as a preferred CCaaS vendor

        Gartner® named NICE the only Customers’ Choice CCaaS vendor in its 2024 Peer Insights™ “Voice of the Customer for Contact Center as a Service” report.

        Get report

    • Services
      • Explore all Services

      Professional Services

      • Professional Services

        Industry-leading expertise, tools and know-how

      • Implementation Partners

        NICE-certified implementation partners

      • Business Consulting

        Your partner for successful transformation

      Training

      • Contact Center Training

        Tailored education delivered by CX experts

      Support & Assistance

      • Customer Support

        Global support you can depend on

      Make the smartest buying decision with the latest Gartner analysis

      NICE has been named a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for Contact Center as a Service for the 10th consecutive year and is positioned furthest on Completeness of Vision.

      Get report

    • Resources

        Knowledge Base

        • All Resources

          Whitepapers, datasheets, demos and more

        • Analyst Perspectives

          Contact center reports from third party analysis

        • Terms Glossary

          Detailed descriptions of industry-related terms

        • FAQs

          Contact center focused frequently asked questions

        • Guides

          Expert insights for superior CX

        Learning & Insights

        • On-Demand Webinars

          Browse our extensive webinar catalog

        • Interactive Product Tours

          Explore the complete platform with our self-guided demos

        • Blog

          CX industry guidance by contact center experts

        • Why NICE? Video Series

          Step Inside The Room Where It Happened to see CX AI in action

        • NICE & Simple: Video Demo Series

          Brilliant, bite-sized videos from our top product pros

        Community

        • Events

          Upcoming events and webinars

        • Customer Stories

          Our customer's success is paramount. Read case studies about real CX transformation

        • NICE Clubs

          Collaborate, learn, and share best practices for customer service excellence

        Join us at the Largest CX Event of the Year!

        Registration is open! Interactions 2025: June 16-18, 2025. Aria Hotel, Las Vegas

        Register now

      • Company

          Company

          • About Us

            Powering seamless cloud experiences

          • Investors

            Investors relations, reports and filings

          • Global Offices

            Interactive map of locations worldwide

          • Careers

            View job openings and learn about our culture

          • NICE Leadership

            Meet our global leadership and executive team

          News & Media

          • Events

            Upcoming events and webinars

          • Press Releases

            Find the latest updates from NICE

          • Media Center

            Media contacts and resources

          Corporate Governance

          • NICE Trust Center

            Securing your trust with every interaction

          • Market Leadership

            Discover why NICE is the market leader

          • Corporate Responsibility

            In a world where you can be anything, be NICE

          Join us at the Largest CX Event of the Year!

          Registration is open! Interactions 2025: June 16-18, 2025. Aria Hotel, Las Vegas

          Register now

          • ENLanguages
            • English
            • Deutsch
            • Français
            • 日本
            • 简体中文
            • العربية
            • 한국
            • Español
          • Get in Touch
            • Login
            • Status
            • Support
            • Partners
            • Pricing
            • Careers
            linkedinlinkedinlinkedinlinkedin
          • Home
          • Customer Experience (CX) and Contact Center Library
          • How accurate are virtual agents? It depends…
          Icon imageRequest a demo
          Request a quote
          AI for the Contact Center - It's So Much More than Chatbots
          White Papers

          AI for the Contact Center - It's So Much More than Chatbots

          Read now
          Creating a Culture of Customer Centricity in Shared Services with AI
          White Papers

          Creating a Culture of Customer Centricity in Shared Services with AI

          Read now
          Improve Contact Center Performance with Enlighten AI for Customer Satisfaction
          White Papers

          Improve Contact Center Performance with Enlighten AI for Customer Satisfaction

          Read now

          Company

          • About Us
          • Careers
          • Global Leadership
          • Media Center
          • Investors
          • Awards
          • Global Office Locations
          • Contact Us
          • CCaaS
          • Customer Experience
          • NICE Public Safety
          • NICE Actimize
          • NICE RPA

          Partners

          • NICE Partners Overview
          • Developer Partners (DEVone)
          • CXone Mpower Partner Portal
          • NICE Help Partner Portal
          • NICE User Group

          Customer Support

          • Customer Support Overview
          • CXone Mpower Support Login
          • NICE Customer Support

          STAY CONNECTED

          linkedinlinkedinlinkedinlinkedin
          • Terms of Use
          • Site Map
          • Privacy Policy
          • Legal
          • Cookies Settings
          • Accessibility
          © 2025 NICE

          How accurate are virtual agents? It depends…

          AI powered virtual agents

          AI-powered virtual agents are slowly making traction as viable self-service tools, but asking "how accurate are virtual agents?" is kind of like asking "how reliable are cars?" Like car models, there are many different types of virtual agents, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, accuracy is highly dependent upon how virtual agents are used, implemented and maintained.

          The potential of virtual agents (often called AI chatbots) is remarkable. Gartner forecasts that they will be the primary customer support channel for one out of four businesses by 2027,[i] and that by 2026 conversational AI will reduce agent labor costs by $80 billion.[ii]

          Not only do virtual agents have the potential to enhance income statements, but they add speed and convenience to the customer experience (CX). Chatbots provide 24/7 support, respond immediately, and can easily scale to match customer demand. These positive characteristics may be why we discovered a 21-point increase in use of AI self-service between 2019 and 2020.[iii]

          Back to the question of how accurate are virtual agents - the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute recommends targeting an 80% accuracy rate. This article will discuss current problems with accuracy as well as some ways to make virtual agents smarter and more effective.[iv]

          What is a virtual agent?

          Let's start this discussion by defining the term "virtual agent."

          A virtual agent is a smart bot that automates customer support. Natural language processing (NLP), a form of artificial intelligence, enables virtual agents to simulate human speech, which allows them have natural, nonrobotic conversations with users. Additionally, machine learning, another form of AI, enables virtual agents to continuously become smarter with use. Virtual agents can provide self-service in both digital and voice channels.

          Virtual agents are a close cousin to rule-based chatbots, whose functionality is limited by menus and keyword recognition. Although the user interfaces may look the same and users might not know if they are interacting with a chatbot or a virtual agent, their capabilities are quite different. While chatbots may be able to handle hundreds of intents, their smarter cousins can handle thousands.

          Virtual agents can also be programmed to have names and personalities, and the best ones can detect customer sentiment, which allows them to avoid giving chipper responses when users are frustrated or angry.

          A virtual agent's capabilities enable it to make satisfying connections with customers while answering their questions, providing product recommendations, facilitating transactions, and collecting information.

          How accurate are virtual agents? There's some work to be done

          While use of virtual agents is increasing, there is still a good amount of consumer hesitancy surrounding them. We found that 80% of consumers think chatbots (including virtual agents) need to get smarter before they'll use them on a regular basis.[v] In other words, they need to become more accurate before they're widely adopted.

          In addition, our research revealed that the strongest emotions people feel about using chatbots are frustration (22%) and anger (11%) - not exactly the types of reactions businesses are going for![vi]

          A number of factors contribute to virtual agent inaccuracy, ranging from scope creep to inadequate training to poor design. Let's now look at some things contact centers can do to make their virtual agents smarter and not leave a third of their customers frustrated or angry.

          How accurate are virtual agents? - Steps contact centers can take to make them smarter

          The goal of an effective self-service strategy is to make customers as successful as possible. For virtual agents, this means providing quick, accurate responses or facilitating quick, accurate transactions. When virtual agents can provide resolutions without transferring customers to a live agent or trapping them in an endless loop of “please rephrase your question,” that gives customers the frictionless experiences they expect and value.

          The following are some ways to improve the accuracy of virtual agents so customers are wildly successful in this self-service channel.

          Thoroughly train them

          Like new customer service agents, virtual agents need thorough training before interacting with customers. And like human agents, the quality of the experiences they provide is directly linked to the quality of the training. However, the nature of the training is quite different.

          Virtual agents are powered by artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence has a voracious appetite for data. The more information AI tools consume, the more effective and accurate they become.

          Actual customer service interactions should be part of the information used to train virtual agents, and the more the better. It's not unusual for new virtual agents to be trained with millions of historical interaction records, such as chat transcripts. Consuming all this data allows virtual agents to identify patterns, such as frequently asked questions and appropriate answers.

          Use virtual agents for the right tasks

          Virtual agents are best suited for repetitive, well-defined tasks. Let that be your mantra! Even though they're "smart," they don't have the same problem-solving capabilities that humans do. It's important to be clear-eyed about the strengths and weaknesses of virtual agents when deciding what to use them for. Otherwise, you risk putting virtual agents in a situation where they can't be consistently accurate, and this will frustrate your customers.

          When determining how and where to use virtual agents, start with top contact drivers. You may need to drill down a level or use AI analytics if current reporting is too general. Categories like "billing inquiry" don't provide enough detail to be able to determine if virtual agents can handle those types of interactions.

          Look for contact types and transactions that follow structured rules with no or very rare exceptions. For example, if opening a new insurance claim always follows the same process, that might be a good task for virtual agents to facilitate accurately.

          As an example of one of these structured tasks, one of our clients successfully uses a virtual agent in their IVR to authenticate callers, who typically already have an account with the company. Because authentication is a process that follows set rules, it's a task that the virtual agent can successfully handle and offload from human agents.

          Contact centers also need to be practical and calculate the ROI of potential virtual agent tasks. Just because a virtual agent can accurately automate specific processes doesn't mean it makes financial sense. Additionally, use cases need to be viewed in light of the end-to-end customer journey to ensure inserting a virtual agent doesn't create a disjointed experience.

          Give virtual agents access to an accurate, well-populated knowledge base

          Virtual agents rely on knowledge bases to provide accurate answers to customers. They determine the user's intent and then analyze the knowledge base to provide the best answer. In a classic case of "garbage in, garbage out," if the knowledge base isn't accurate, the virtual agent won't be accurate.

          The best knowledge management systems can be accessed by all support channels, including both live and virtual agents. This creates a single source of truth and ensures customers will receive consistent answers regardless of where they find help. A consolidated, enterprise knowledge base is also easier to maintain, which increases the likelihood that the content is complete and accurate.

          As a side note, a good knowledge management system is a fundamental tool of a strong self-service strategy. Customers can search it online to find answers to their questions, and the contents can be made available to search engines so that customers can see answers on search results pages.

          So, you can see why the question "How accurate are virtual agents?" doesn't have a clear-cut answer. No two virtual agents are the same and their accuracy rates can vary greatly. However, accuracy should be a top concern for any business that wants to implement virtual agents because it directly impacts customer adoption and satisfaction.

          Contact centers should strive to make their virtual agents as accurate as possible, and the preceding tips are a good place to start. Without accuracy, organizations will never hit their ROI goals.

          To learn more about NICE's AI self-service capabilities, please visit our conversational AI and chatbots product page.

          [i] Gartner: Gartner Predicts Chatbots Will Become a Primary Customer Service Channel Within Five Years (2022)

          [ii] Gartner: Gartner Predicts Conversational AI Will Reduce Contact Center Agent Labor Costs by $80 Billion in 2026 (2022)

          [iii]NICE: 2020 Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark, Consumer Wave (2020)

          [iv] Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute: 4 Conversational AI Metrics: How to Measure AI Chatbot Performance (2020)

          [v] NICE: 2020 Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark, Consumer Wave (2020)

          [vi] NICE: 2020 Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark, Consumer Wave (2020)

          Contact us

          If you would like to know more about our platform or just have additional questions about our products or services, please submit the contact form. For general questions or customer support please visit our Contact us page.

          Discover the future of virtual agents!

          Watch our free demo video now and see just how accurate and efficient virtual agents can be. Don't miss out on transforming your customer interactions today!"

          Watch demo now