Agent assist improves the person on every call; a Human + AI BPO changes who takes the call. Agent assist is AI beside a person: live suggestions, a drafted summary, the next best action on the agent's screen. The person still takes every call, so the seat count does not change; handle time and wrap-up fall. A Human + AI BPO puts the AI first on every call, finishing 60 to 80% of them at maturity, with a person joining the same call for the rest, so the seat count falls and the AI's minutes replace it.
Side by side
| Agent assist | Human + AI BPO | |
|---|---|---|
| Who takes the call first | A person, on every call | The AI, on every call |
| What the AI does | Suggests, summarises, prompts the agent | Runs the conversation, decides when a person is needed |
| Share of calls a person handles | 100% | 20 to 40% at maturity |
| What moves | Handle time, wrap-up, consistency | Seat count, coverage, cost per outcome |
| Billing shape | Per agent licence | AI per minute, people per seat, handover free |
| Where it fits | A floor that is staying the same size | A floor that wants the AI to take the volume |
On our floor they coexist
When a person joins a handover on Vox Agent Desktop, the summary is drafted, the transcript is live and the wrap-up is proposed. That is agent assist, applied to the 20 to 40% of calls a person takes. Buy both if you like. The decision is which calls a person should be on at all. A CCaaS vendor pitching agent assist is answering a different question from the one a head of operations is asking when the floor is 100 seats and the budget is 70.
Which to start with
If the floor must stay the same size for a reason outside your control (a contract, a regulation, a union), start with assist and measure wrap-up. If the floor is the cost you have been asked to move, start with one queue on Human + AI, agree the baseline, and let the ramp run. The pilot runs at the pilot rate with no commitment, and the people you already have can be the human bench.
Questions people ask
What is agent assist?
AI beside a human agent on every call: live suggestions, a drafted summary, the next best action. The person still takes every call.
How is a Human + AI BPO different from agent assist?
The AI takes the call first and finishes 60 to 80% at maturity; a person joins the same call for the rest. Seat count falls; with agent assist it does not.
Can we use both?
Yes. On Vox Agent Desktop the person taking a handover gets the drafted summary, the live transcript and the proposed wrap-up, which is agent assist applied to the calls a person takes.