PwC US recently announced the launch of agentic contact and service solutions, that it has developed with OpenAI, as part of its partnership with the frontier model provider.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The announcement includes an AI-powered voice and digital agent\u00a0capability\u00a0and a dedicated PwC-OpenAI Center of Excellence focused on accelerating enterprise adoption. But how are clients progressing from pilots to production deployment of advanced AI in service operations and customer experience.<\/p>\n
PwC is a Strategic Alliance Partner with OpenAI and has a relationship with the AI research lab as both a partner and a customer. \u00a0Ian Kahn, Commercial and Service Excellence Platform Leader for PwC, explains:\u00a0<\/p>\n
We have used this technology to transform our own business and can then use this experience to take to clients for their business processes and functions with an AI-first mindset. We develop software and transform processes using Codex. We have done this in Finance, Supply Chain and in Contact Centers.<\/p>\n
The partnership with OpenAI began in October 2025 and collaboration started by the two companies publishing some thought leadership pieces together, prompted by a number of clients looking for more innovative solutions around complex service use cases as their technology platforms are reaching end of life. Kahn recalls:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Six months ago, clients began seriously looking for really innovative multi-modal capability. \u00a0At that point Open AI was out in front in terms of unlocking customer service. So, we built on the model and took solutions to market to help customers develop an intelligent customer edge across channels in a multi-modal way. We built a customer service platform that can leverage their capabilities at the edge using voice, text, images and video to capture all those customer signals. Those signals are brought into an intelligence layer and analysed to generate next best actions.<\/p>\n
He continues:<\/p>\n
I spend most of my time with clients and they are struggling with the pace of innovation. A large number of vendors are approaching them and it is critical that PwC has the ability to explain the opportunity and need \u2013 the strengths and weaknesses of each vendor.<\/p>\n
Increasingly the best solution can be a multi-platform solution. For example, if a client has a high-volume environment with field services, then Salesforce\u2019s Agentforce Field Service and Operations has a role to play, combined with a leading-edge multi-modal approach. This is a common pattern that is emerging that requires an integrated solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mainstream prioritisation of AI in the front office<\/p>\n
In terms of how PwC\u2019s OpenAI agentic contact and service offerings are actually performing in client environments, Kahn says:\u00a0<\/p>\n
In early results you can take 30% to 50% of all interactions and move them from traditional to a self- service model that is personalised and intelligent so that it is more effective and efficient. This generates a workforce dividend as they can then spend more time on higher level activities to build and grow customer relationships. We are not seeing it be used to cut headcount. There is a balance between cost and looking at the front of the house.<\/p>\n
Kahn is adamant that clients are not using the approach as a cost-saving measure, stating:<\/p>\n
There is a renewed focus on finding new growth pathways across marketing, sales and service. Basically, it creates more efficient routine actions, and clients are reinvesting the savings in relationship-building to create more value from each customer relationship.<\/p>\n
Aside from observing that the offerings enable the movement of traditional customer interactions to self-service, PwC is also seeing savings amongst customers of up to 40% and NPS scores rising by up to 10 to 15 points.<\/p>\n
Kahn agrees that most retailers are not yet very advanced in their use of AI but because more than two-thirds of consumer purchases are using AI at some point in their customer journey the pressure is increasing for retailers to also deploy it. In particular as the 10 to 20% of companies that are more advanced in their use of AI for customer care are beginning to show the proof-points of its usage PwC expects to see a mainstream prioritisation of AI in the front office.<\/p>\n
One of these AI leaders is a large airline that is partnering with PwC to transform its commercial and care operations using AI native conversational experiences across voice, digital, and mobile channels. The engagement is focused on helping customers resolve common discovery, buying, and service needs more quickly and naturally, while creating a more connected experience across channels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
PwC is currently helping the airline build a common intent taxonomy, design value based agentic experiences, and develop an omni-channel AI architecture. The goal is to meet customer needs and requests through intelligent self-service experiences that align with consumer expectations. PwC is helping create a customer journey that reduces the need to redirect a customer to a website or transfer to live-agent. The result should drive revenue, while improving operating efficiency. The project is built on an insights driven pilot-prove-to-scale approach, allowing the airline to be measured and methodical in its ability to test and validate outcomes before scaling AI across additional customer journeys.<\/p>\n
My take<\/p>\n
As organizations continue to focus on growing more business with customers via what is described in marketing speak as \u2018moments that matter\u2019 (the critical touchpoints that help create brand loyalty), the time is ripe to help organizations modernize service operations and deliver more connected customer experiences. End of life platforms such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016, Veeva CRM and SYSPRO CRM offer an entry point for selling new agentic AI solutions. And, AI-first professional services players such as PwC are positioning themselves as being ready and waiting to help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PwC US recently announced the launch of agentic contact and service solutions, that it has developed with OpenAI,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[179,521,2820,523,23324,157],"class_list":["post-134696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-agentic-ai","tag-ai-adoption","tag-consulting","tag-enterprise-ai","tag-generative-ai-and-llms","tag-openai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}