This week in customer service, there was a lot of exciting news about AI agents helping companies serve customers better. An AI agent is like a smart robot or computer helper that can understand what people need and give them answers without a human having to do it. Let's look at the biggest stories.

Holiday Shoppers Love AI More Than Ever

On October 30, 2025, a big company called Talkdesk asked thousands of people and stores what they think about AI agents during holiday shopping. The answers were really interesting. 75% of shoppers said they plan to use AI agents to find deals on things they want to buy. That's much more than the year before, when only 66% of people wanted to use AI agents for shopping. Even more people, 67%, said they will use AI agents to get ideas for gifts to buy. This tells us that AI agents are becoming normal for shopping, not just something new and different.

The stores are doing really well with AI agents too. 80% of stores that are using AI agents think they will sell more things during the holidays because of the robots helping them. Even better, 79% of stores believe that AI agents will make their customers like them more and stay as customers longer. This means that AI agents are helping both stores and shoppers have better experiences together.

Contact Centers Become Smarter

On the same day, October 30, 2025, a big research company called ISG said that contact centers are changing in big ways. A contact center is the place where you call or message when you need help from a company. Companies used to just answer questions there, but now they are using AI agents to do so much more. AI agents are helping contact centers become centers where companies make more money and keep customers happy at the same time.

The reason this is happening is that AI agents can answer customer questions 24 hours a day, every single day, without getting tired. They can handle hundreds of questions at the same time. When customers have tricky problems that need a person to help, the AI agents can pass the work to a real human worker who can help more. This makes everything faster and makes workers happy too, because they don't have to answer the same easy questions all day long.

Microsoft Builds Tools to Manage AI Agents

Microsoft, the big technology company, announced something called the Microsoft Agent Framework this week. This is a new tool that helps companies build and control multiple AI agents at the same time. The tool makes sure that when AI agents work together, they do it safely and follow the rules that companies need to follow. This is very important because companies need to make sure their AI agents don't make mistakes that could hurt people or break the rules.

Microsoft said that a company called KPMG already used the new tool to help with something called audits, which is when companies check if they did things correctly. Using AI agents, KPMG could finish this work faster and make sure everything was done right. This shows that AI agents are not just for talking to customers—they can help with all kinds of work.

The Secret About Feelings

Scientists at the University of Texas studied something really cool called emotion AI. Emotion AI is a special kind of AI agent that can understand how someone is feeling by reading their words or listening to their voice. The scientists found out that emotion AI works best when it works together with real people, not alone.

Here's something interesting: when a customer is really upset and angry, sometimes an emotion AI can handle it first and calm the customer down. This helps because real workers don't have to listen to angry customers all day, which makes them feel sad and tired. But when a customer needs someone to really understand them or has a very hard problem, a real human is better than a robot. The scientists found that sometimes a weaker emotion AI that makes some mistakes is actually better at stopping people from trying to trick it.

More People Using AI Agents

The stories this week show that AI agents are becoming more and more normal in customer service. 90% of leaders at companies say that using AI agents saves them money and works really well. 79% of workers who have AI agents helping them say that these robots make them much better at their jobs. Companies are finding that when they use AI agents the right way, customers are happy, workers feel better, and the company makes more money. It's a win for everyone.