As it stands, most customer service automation today is a handoff from automation to a human agent. This has been a meaningful step in the journey of delivering faster customer service with automation, but we’re ready for the next step.
With AI, customer service teams will move from using deterministic flows to more reasoning-based flows to power their support. They will still likely need human escalations or interventions depending on the customer issue at hand. These interventions do not have to be a one-way street. This true collaboration means that human agents should be able to hand off the conversation back to the AI after they have addressed the escalation or the intervention.
At Kustomer, we’re excited to announce critical enhancements to unlock the true potential of human-in-the-loop automated customer service with the ability for human agents to hand off conversations to an AI Agent for additional work, after they have addressed the escalation or the intervention.
How do AI Agent hand-offs work?
With this set of enhancements, human agents can transfer conversations to an AI Agent team in Kustomer in two ways: manually (by assigning it to a specific AI Agent team and leaving notes for the AI to act on) or via an automated workflow. That means you’ll need AI Agent teams set up. The setup for AI Agent teams is straightforward, relying on some strategic planning and a few lines of natural language instruction within our no-code AI Agent Studio.
If you’re still in the process of setting those up, check out our Ultimate Guide to AI Agents for tips on how to approach AI Agent teams and get them up and running in Kustomer.
You can review our help center articles for all the nitty gritty details on how to manually assign a conversation to an AI Agent team and use a workflow to hand off a conversation to an AI Agent.
How hand-offs align with Kustomer’s human-in-the-loop mission
At Kustomer, we’re all about human-in-the-loop when it comes to customer service, because it supports what CX teams need and what customers want.
The 2025 Customer Experience Report found that 72% of consumers are open to AI-powered customer service experiences, if they can escalate to a human. Plus, 86% of survey respondents said empathy and human connection are more important than quick responses.
While consumers are coming around to automated customer service and appreciating speedy responses and omnichannel availability, consumers still want to talk to human agents - especially when it comes to sensitive or complex issues.
With this latest update, human agents can jump in to handle the sensitive or complex part of the issue resolution, then hand it back to the AI Agent for follow-up work that can be automated. That’s the advantage of the human-in-the-loop model; it allows CX teams to drive efficiencies without sacrificing the human element that drives high quality customer experiences.
Get started
If you’re already using Kustomer, work with your customer success manager to ensure you’re on a plan with our AI Agent capabilities.
Not already using Kustomer? If you’re looking for a tool to supercharge your brand’s customer service while delighting customers, talk to our sales team today!
