What is agentic AI? How AI agents are transforming customer support

What is agentic AI? How AI agents are transforming customer support

Customer support is evolving faster than ever. Not long ago, support teams relied on simple scripts and basic chatbots to field requests. Then came the surge of generative AI with tools that could draft responses and summarize conversations using natural language. Now, we’re seeing the next leap: agentic AI.

Generative AI got us used to smarter, more helpful chatbots, but agentic AI takes things a step further. Rather than just responding to questions or generating text, agentic AI can actually take action. It initiates tasks, follows up, and navigates complex workflows, all with minimal human involvement. 

This isn’t just about AI texting or calling, though. Conversational AI has become a foundational strategy for brands aiming to actually engage with customers, not just reacting to their queries. As strategies shift, businesses are now exploring how agentic AI can automate routine tasks, empower agents, and raise the bar for customer experience across every channel.

In this article, we’ll break down what agentic AI really is, explain how it’s different from generative AI, and look at some of the most impactful agentic AI use cases for support and sales teams. Along the way, we’ll highlight why Twilio continues to lead in cloud communications and how our products can help forward-thinking companies transform support for the better.

What is agentic AI? 

Agentic AI is the next step in artificial intelligence for customer support. At its core, agentic AI refers to systems that can act on their own: taking actions, managing tasks, and pursuing goals with little or no human input. This goes far beyond traditional chatbots or rule-based automation. Instead of just responding to set commands or handling single interactions, agentic AI can understand ongoing context, make decisions, and carry tasks through to completion, much like a skilled human agent would.

To see this in action, imagine a support scenario where a customer reports an issue with their service. Rather than simply relaying information, an agentic AI can walk through troubleshooting steps, escalate the issue to the right team if needed, update internal records, and even follow up with the customer at a later time—all autonomously. The “agentic” part is about initiative; this kind of AI isn’t waiting to be told every step. It operates independently within clear guidelines and frameworks, capable of solving problems rather than just providing answers.

Agentic AI is not a static script or a rigid workflow. It handles complexity with goal-oriented behavior, adapting as conversations unfold. Thanks to context awareness and multi-step reasoning, it can manage more sophisticated interactions. Over time, it learns and improves, making smarter decisions and picking up on new patterns. The end result is a system that brings true autonomy and initiative to customer support.

For organizations using Twilio’s support solutions, agentic AI is a game-changer. It frees up human agents to focus on high-value work while ensuring customers get faster, more accurate resolutions. It’s a major leap toward a future where AI not only assists but truly empowers service teams to do more.

Agentic AI vs. generative AI: what’s the difference?

Generative AI brought real improvements to customer support. It’s fast and impressively flexible while being able to draft responses, summarize lengthy conversations, and even translate between languages. But it still has limitations. Generative AI doesn’t take the next step to complete a process. It can’t follow up after a support ticket is closed, escalate an issue on its own, or update customer records across different systems automatically.

For example, a generative AI chatbot can write a perfect reply to a refund request or summarize the last five messages in a conversation. But it won’t proactively process the refund, log the update in your CRM, or remember to follow up with the customer a week later. It only responds; it doesn’t manage, initiate, or close the loop on tasks. In modern support, that leaves a gap–one that agentic AI is now built to fill.

Agentic AI use cases: reimagining support and sales

Agentic AI represents a shift in how businesses deliver support and drive sales, beyond being just another tool for responding to customers. Here are some of the most impactful agentic AI use cases and how Twilio’s products help bring them to life:

1. Automated issue resolution

With agentic AI, your support team can solve problems end-to-end. For example, the AI agent can identify the root cause of a customer’s issue, walk them through step-by-step troubleshooting, and confirm the problem is resolved. If the solution requires multiple steps or systems, agentic AI can handle those interactions without dropping the thread. Twilio Flex, paired with intelligent automation, can orchestrate these multi-step resolutions seamlessly, ensuring a smooth experience for both customers and agents.

2. Proactive customer outreach

Agentic AI can monitor customer data in real-time to spot potential churn signals, such as lapsing engagement or negative feedback. Instead of waiting for these customers to reach out, the AI proactively initiates outreach by sending a personalized message, offering targeted solutions, or launching a retention workflow. By leveraging Twilio’s Messaging API, businesses can automate these timely interactions across channels to retain at-risk customers more effectively.

3. Workflow orchestration across systems

Today’s support is all about coordinating action across multiple platforms, not just closing out support tickets. Agentic AI can escalate complex cases to human agents only when needed, update customer records in your CRM, and trigger follow-up calls or surveys automatically. With Twilio’s flexible platform integrations, these orchestrations happen in real-time, minimizing manual handoffs and eliminating silos between teams and data sources.

4. Sales enablement and lead management

Agentic AI doesn’t stop at support. It can be used to transform sales workflows, too. It can qualify leads, ask follow-up questions, provide personalized offers based on real-time data, and automatically schedule appointments–no human intervention necessary. Using Twilio’s programmable communications, your AI agent can carry these conversations over SMS, email, or phone, ensuring every prospect receives timely, relevant outreach.

5. Cross-channel consistency

Customers now expect seamless conversations whether they’re texting, emailing, or calling your business. Agentic AI tracks context and intent across channels, so conversations pick up right where they left off, even if the customer switches devices. Thanks to Twilio’s omnichannel capabilities, agentic AI can manage customer journeys from start to finish, delivering consistent, connected experiences whether it’s chat, voice, SMS, or any other channel you offer.

Agentic AI is reimagining how companies deliver value throughout the customer journey. Twilio provides the infrastructure to execute these scenarios at scale, helping businesses lead the way in the era of smart, autonomous agents.

How agentic AI boosts agent productivity and delights customers

Agentic AI brings real, measurable improvements to both support teams and customer experience. For support agents, agentic AI takes over the time-consuming, repetitive tasks like gathering account details, troubleshooting common issues, or routing conversations to the right department. This means agents can spend more time focusing on the complex or high-value cases that actually require a human touch. 

The result is faster response times, less time wasted on routine work, and significant cost savings for your business.

By automating mundane tasks, agentic AI also helps reduce agent burnout, which is one of the leading causes of turnover in support teams. Agents can play to their strengths, step in when needed for complex or nuanced cases, and collaborate with AI rather than getting bogged down in the basics. The hybrid approach, where agentic AI and human agents work together, leads to smoother handoffs and ensures that nothing falls through the cracks. Agents can review AI-handled cases, add context or empathy, and focus on relationship-building while the AI keeps workflows moving.

For customers, this means issues are resolved more quickly—and, often, right on the first attempt. Higher first contact resolution rates naturally boost customer satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Scores (NPS). For example, Twilio customer Universidad Uk deflected 70% of customer support cases with virtual agents while maintaining their CSAT score and increasing new customer conversion rates by 25%. When customers feel truly taken care of, they’re more likely to continue buying from you and recommending your brand, which drives better sales conversions over time.

With agentic AI handling the busywork, everyone wins. Agents are more productive, customers get better service, and companies see a measurable impact on their support and sales metrics.

How to get started with agentic AI & best practices

Launching agentic AI in your support organization doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does benefit from a thoughtful approach. Here’s how to lay the groundwork for a successful rollout:

1. Assess current support workflows

Begin by mapping your team’s existing processes. Where do agents spend most of their time? Which steps require the most repetition? Identify common friction points and routine tasks that slow things down.

2. Identify automation opportunities

Spot the areas where AI can add immediate value. This might be in data gathering, triaging tickets, handling simple troubleshooting steps, or routing requests. The more you automate these repetitive activities, the more you free up agents for higher-impact work.

3. Integrate Twilio APIs and agentic AI solutions

Twilio’s API-first ecosystem makes it easy to connect your new agentic AI capabilities across chat, SMS, voice, and email. Platforms like Twilio Flex are designed to combine with AI-powered workflows, allowing you to orchestrate support tasks, escalate issues, and keep all your communication channels in sync. Twilio Segment can help gather important customer information for agents to better understand their pain points and preferences.

4. Build with human-in-the-loop design

Agentic AI shouldn’t operate in a vacuum. Set clear rules for when and how the AI should hand off to a human agent, especially for sensitive or complex customer needs. This ensures high standards, even as you automate more of your processes.

5. Ensure security and data privacy

Data security can’t be an afterthought. Make sure your AI implementation follows industry standards and complies with all relevant regulations. Twilio’s products are designed with enterprise-grade security in mind, giving you a solid foundation for protecting customer information.

6. Train and optimize continuously

Introduce your team to new agentic AI workflows with hands-on training and clear documentation. After launch, keep a close eye on performance metrics and collect feedback so you can fine-tune your systems over time. Ongoing optimization helps you realize even greater returns as your AI matures.

By following these best practices and leveraging Twilio’s versatile platform, you’ll set your support team up to get the most out of agentic AI, boosting productivity, minimizing costs, and improving customer satisfaction from day one.

Twilio’s vision: building the future with agentic AI

Twilio is at the forefront of the shift to agentic AI, empowering businesses to build smarter, more autonomous support solutions. Our product portfolio, including Twilio Flex, Messaging, and integrations with leading AI platforms, gives developers and support leaders the flexibility to create customized, scalable agentic AI experiences across every channel. Our robust ecosystem lets teams experiment fast, iterate safely, and integrate seamlessly with existing systems.

While generative AI is powerful for drafting responses and handling simple inquiries, agentic AI is necessary when your business needs automation that takes real action: troubleshooting issues, automating multi-step workflows, escalating when needed, and maintaining full context across touchpoints. With Twilio, you can progressively roll out agentic AI where it delivers the most impact.

Ready to transform your support strategy? Explore what Twilio’s various Conversational AI products and features can do for your business. Contact us or sign up for a free account today.