Why is it still so difficult to get a simple customer service question answered?

Despite years of investment in digital channels, customers still navigate disconnected systems, repeat information and wait for someone who can resolve their issue. This disconnect persists because many customer service processes were designed around how businesses operate rather than what customers need.

Agentic AI offers an opportunity to address these challenges by connecting information, workflows and human expertise to help customers resolve issues with less effort. Thomas Rauschen, CGI’s Global Industry Lead for Insurance, describes CGI’s role in this work: “We are helping clients explore how to put these new capabilities into practice through our partnership with NiCE Cognigy.”

From conversations to intelligent action

Traditional chatbots primarily answer predefined questions or guide customers through structured interactions. Agentic AI goes further. AI agents can understand objectives, access information, coordinate workflows and take action, with human oversight where needed.

Derek Roberti, Head of AI Enablement at NiCE Cognigy, sees another trend emerging: Customers are increasingly using their own AI assistants to interact with businesses on their behalf. Contact centers may need to support interactions between AI agents as well as with people.

"The biggest shift we're seeing is that a consumer's first point of contact with any business is quickly becoming their own personal AI assistant," says Roberti.

Yet legacy systems, disconnected data, and established operating models still constrain adoption. Rauschen emphasizes that successful transformation requires organizations to reconsider how their processes and operating models support customer needs.

"If you layer a new technology on top of a legacy process," he explains, "you might make that process faster without necessarily improving the customer outcomes or satisfaction."

The opportunity extends beyond automating interactions to connecting customer service across systems and channels, enabling faster resolution while allowing employees to focus on situations requiring human expertise. To realize this opportunity, organizations need to rethink how they design customer service operations and processes.

Combining technology and industry experience

Founded in Germany a decade ago, Cognigy has expanded beyond conversational interfaces to enable more autonomous customer interactions.

Now part of NiCE, its capabilities contribute to three areas of customer experience:

  • Agentic experience automation: AI agents, knowledge integration and intelligent assistance
  • Engagement orchestration: Coordinating interactions across voice and digital channels
  • Workforce empowerment: Supporting customer service teams and their performance

These capabilities can integrate with existing enterprise technologies, helping organizations build on current investments.

Our partnership with Cognigy began when it joined CGI's Unicorn Academy program, which connects emerging technology companies with our enterprise expertise and client relationships.

Mark Oliver Schuller, Vice-President, Consulting Services at CGI, helped establish the partnership and recalls how early conversational AI projects demonstrated both the potential and limitations of automation. These experiences shaped our approach, which is focused on usability, integration and measurable business value.

Today, our teams apply NiCE Cognigy technology across industries, including transportation and public services, while continuing to develop our delivery expertise.

Schuller points to a major international airline as an example of how the partnership has evolved. Originally a Cognigy client, the airline has worked with CGI over several years to implement agentic customer service capabilities. The engagement demonstrates how CGI's deep industry expertise and implementation experience can complement NiCE Cognigy's technology in a complex enterprise environment.

Turning AI potential into business value

Combining NiCE Cognigy's technology with our industry knowledge and systems integration experience creates opportunities to address complex customer service challenges.

"We know their processes and their systems. We know how to integrate. We have their trust," says Schuller, describing the value CGI brings to clients adopting agentic AI.

Consider insurance, where a single request may involve several systems, departments and decisions. AI agents help policyholders navigate claims, retrieve information, coordinate next steps and involve a human specialist when judgment or empathy is required. This reduces the policyholder's effort while letting employees focus on more complex situations.

Similar opportunities exist in transportation, healthcare, financial services and public services, where organizations must balance efficiency, accessibility and trust.

As Roberti explains, organizations should treat customer experience automation as an ongoing program rather than a one-time implementation. This includes maintaining reliable knowledge sources, monitoring performance and adapting AI agents as customer needs change.

A practical starting point is to identify focused use cases with clear objectives. Organizations can assess data and integration requirements, establish measures of success and expand based on demonstrated results.

For example, an insurer could begin by automating responses to common claims questions before extending AI capabilities to coordinate more complex processes. This approach helps organizations build confidence without waiting to modernize every legacy system.

Building what's next in customer experience

As agentic AI advances, customer service could become less tied to individual channels, with coordinated action across the organization resolving customer needs.

Employees could spend less time on routine transactions and more time supporting customers where their expertise adds the greatest value. Achieving this will require continued attention to governance, security and human oversight.

For CGI and NiCE Cognigy, the next chapter builds on our combined experience to help clients move beyond isolated automation initiatives. Success will depend on how effectively organizations combine AI and human expertise to resolve customer needs and deliver meaningful outcomes.

Connect with our experts to explore how agentic AI could reduce customer effort and help your teams improve service delivery.