Virtual Agents

A virtual agent is a software application that handles interactions The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. with contacts The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center. in place of a live agent. They can be helpful in many kinds of situations, such as asking questions at the start of an interaction to determine the kind of help contacts need. Many virtual agents can provide nearly human-level comprehension and interactions.

Virtual agents use various technologies to provide these human-like interactions, such as:

Artificial intelligence (AI)
Natural language processing Also called NLP, this process understands human speech or text and responds with human-like language. (NLP)
Text-to-speech Allows users to enter recorded prompts as text and use a computer-generated voice to speak the content. (TTS)
Speech-to-text Also called STT, this process converts spoken language to text. (STT, also called transcription)

NiCE CXone supports many third-party virtual agents. It also offers three native virtual agent solutions, Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia), Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia), and Bot Builder. The native solutions are discussed in the sections that follow. You can also see a list of all supported virtual agents.

Classics Inc., has decided that they would like to add self-service options to their contact center. They want to reduce the burden on their agents. Self-service options mean contacts can get answers to common questions without agent interaction. This will reduce the load of calls that their agents handle, so they will be free to focus on the complex cases.

The implementation manager, Ichabod Crane, looks at all of the virtual agent solutions that NiCE CXone supports. He decides to use NiCE CXone Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia). Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) offers voice and chat virtual agent solutions and has all the desired features. He can:

Design the virtual agent to handle the most common questions his agents receive.
Have the virtual agent escalate interactions to live agents when needed.
Integrate with his existing Salesforce knowledge to increase the virtual agent's ability to provide helpful responses.
Use voice biometric authentication to provide additional identity verification and increase security of sensitive information.
Configure the virtual agent to use appropriate languages for his international contact centers.

By using Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) with NiCE CXone, Classics, Inc. can lighten the workload for their agents. Self-service virtual agents can provide some of the more common answers to customers. This lets agents handle the more complex questions.

NiCE CXone Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia)

NiCE CXone Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) is a full-service, data-driven intelligent virtual agent A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent.. It handles voice and digital Any channel, contact, or skill associated with Digital Experience (DX).interactions The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. in the place of live agents. Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) virtual agents understand human language and respond to contacts naturally. They can switch topics, understand context, and answer questions with human-level comprehension. Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) virtual agents can fully resolve issues via self-service, limiting escalations to live agents.

You can learn more about Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) or about setting up an Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) virtual agent to work in NiCE CXone.

NiCE CXone Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia)

Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) is a full-service, data-driven intelligent virtual agent A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent.. It handles voice and digital Any channel, contact, or skill associated with Digital Experience (DX).interactions The full conversation with an agent through a channel. For example, an interaction can be a voice call, email, chat, or social media conversation. in the place of live agents. Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) virtual agents understand human language and respond to contacts naturally. They can switch topics, understand context, and answer questions with human-level comprehension. Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) virtual agents can fully resolve issues via self-service, limiting escalations to live agents.

You can learn more about Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) or about setting up an Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) virtual agent to work in NiCE CXone.

NiCE CXone Bot Builder

NiCE CXone Bot Builder enables you to create your own virtual agents or bots even if you have no coding knowledge or programming expertise. If you can carry on a conversation, you can create a working bot. These bots can do a wide variety of tasks, including:

Answering common questions.
Helping a customer change their information in your system.
Gathering information before transferring to a live agent.

Start learning how to use Bot Builder, or explore the implementation process.

All Supported Virtual Agents

NiCE CXone supports virtual agents on voice and digital channels Various voice and digital communication mediums that facilitate customer interactions in a contact center.. Two options are available for connecting to virtual agents on voice channels. You can learn more about the supported voice connection options.

The supported virtual agent A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent. providers are:

Virtual Agent Provider	Supports Voice	Supports Digital Channels	Native or Third-Party
NiCE CXone Bot Builder	Yes, Voicebot Gateway	Yes, via Digital Experience (DX)	Native
NiCE CXone Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia)	Yes, SIP backchannel and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Native
NiCE CXone Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia)	Yes, SIP backchannel and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Native
Amazon Lex V1	Yes, utterance-based and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Amazon Lex V2	Yes, utterance-based and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Cognigy	Yes, SIP Protocol used for signaling and controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls. backchannel and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Google Dialogflow CX	Yes, utterance-based and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Google Dialogflow ES	Yes, utterance-based and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
IBM Watson Assistant	Yes, SIP backchannel and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Microsoft Azure	Yes, utterance-based and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Omilia	Yes, SIP backchannel and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Salesforce Einstein	Yes, Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party
Custom Virtual Agent Integrations	Yes, utterance-based and Voicebot Gateway	Yes	Third-party

Additionally, NiCE CXone supports other virtual agent providers. the following DEVone integrations Icon of a square with an arrow point from the center through the top right corner. . DEVone integrations are integrations with the virtual agents of NiCE partners. They require assistance from NiCE Expert Services to set up. Contact your Account Representative for more information. The supported DEVone virtual agents are:

Ada
Floatbot UNO
Kore.ai
Rasa NLU
ServiceNow
Yellow.ai

If you want to use a virtual agent provider that's not natively supported in NiCE CXone, you can do a custom virtual agent integration. Custom integrations require additional development work to set up a secure communication route between the virtual agent provider and NiCE CXone.

Integration of Virtual Agents with NiCE CXone

When you want to use virtual agent in NiCE CXone, you need to have a virtual agent set up, configured, and tested in the provider's management console. If you're using a NiCE CXone option such as Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia) or Autopilot (Amelia/Omelia), see the online help for those applications. If you're using a third-party provider, see the appropriate documentation for your provider.

You can learn about the integration process in general, or about the specific needs of the virtual agent you're using. The online help for setting up an integration for each supported virtual agent provides information about the configuration requirements and steps to follow. There may be additional requirements for configuration in the platform for some providers.

Integrating virtual agents requires custom scripting. Your organization's NiCE CXone administrator, virtual agent administrator, and Studio script writer may need to coordinate to complete the integration.

Virtual Agent Hub

Virtual Agent Hub allows you to manage and test the connection between NiCE CXone and your virtual agent provider. When you add a connection to a virtual agent, you provide the information NiCE CXone needs to communicate with your virtual agent.

Working in Virtual Agent Hub is one step in the process of integrating your virtual agents into NiCE CXone.