AI Agents For Customer Service: How They Work

AI agents can do your tasks: How, and how much should you let them?

AI agents can independently pursue goals on users' behalf, turning AI from a source of answers into a delegate. Early evidence offers clues to what consumers are willing to hand over, and how much control they may want to retain.

Andrew Lawson, EVP of Sales for EMEA at Zendesk: “We are underestimating how much AI can change the way service teams work”

Having enjoyed senior roles at both Oracle and Salesforce, Andrew Lawson has seen the impact great technology can have on companies first hand. Now Executive Vice President of Sales for EMEA at Zendesk, that’s truer than ever: he’s in prime position to help as organisations navigate the latest wave of AI-powered software. That means Andrew also sees their common mistakes. “Adding an AI feature to an existing product does not necessarily improve …

AI-103: Azure AI Apps and Agents Cram

Azure AI cram featuring Foundry OpenAI tools Responses API Agent Framework model deployment responsible AI speech vision The video gives a focused study cram for the AI-103 exam, highlighting Microsoft’s shift toward Microsoft Foundry and practical, hands-on learning to build generative AI apps and agents. It explains agent development essentials, including agent types (prompt, hosted, published), the Microsoft Agent Framework, and the Foundry…

Zendesk Employee Service AI Agents Are Almost Here. The Employee Portal May Be in Trouble

Zendesk Employee Service AI Agents enter early access on August 3, 2026, bringing permission-aware search into Slack, Teams, and the help center. The release strengthens Zendesk’s connected employee service platform, with Action Flow integration set to extend the experience from governed answers into task completion. An employee moves into a finance role and starts Monday without access to the system they need. At 9:05 a.m., they drop one line i…

Agoda keeps humans in charge as AI scales customer service

Scaling customer service required Agoda to decide where AI could handle complexity and where human oversight remained necessary. To address concerns from customers and property owners more effectively, the company had to provide consistent assistance across communication channels. “Scale and complexity are customer service’s biggest challenges,” Gauri Vicknasvaran, Senior Director, Customer Service Delivery, Agoda, told Frontier Enterprise. Conc…