Voice Agents Pick Up Pace As Customer Service Centers Embrace AI

Voice agents are expected to increasingly supplant human customer service representatives

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Could you tell the difference between a human customer assistant and a tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI)? Vapi, which is today announcing it has raised $50 million of Series B funding, says its voice technology is so good that many users won’t notice they’re talking to such a tool.

Companies are increasingly pinning their hopes on such technology as they battle to improve customer satisfaction – as measured by metrics such as CSAT scores – that have continued to fall despite significant investment in a range of tools in recent years. Many customers report frustration with automated call handling services, call center delays and unwieldy chatbots; Vapi says its voice agents can overcome such issues.

“Voice represents an opportunity to bring your costs down but more importantly, we can help you consistently function at the level of your very best human,” says Jordan Dearsley, CEO and co-founder of the company. “The real unlock is building agents for your customers that feel human.”

Vapi works with its customers to do exactly that: to build and deploy voice agents that can handle a broad range of customer inquiries, rapidly increasing an organisation’s capacity to deal with customers but without compromising satisfaction. Once implemented, the AI tools can autonomously manage most queries, but they also improve over time as the underlying models learn from each call handled.

I first profiled the San Francisco-based start-up in December 2024, just as it was putting the finishing touches on a $20 million Series A funding round. Since then, Vapi’s revenues have grown 10-fold, thanks to deals to supply its voice agents to customers including Amazon, New York Life, Intuit and Service Titan. The company has just announced its voice agents have now handled 1 billion calls.

Still, it has taken time to convince people that voice agents really can…

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