One in two calls never reaches a human agent. This statistic highlights a shift from using AI strictly for routing to using it for true resolution. Jon Zoltie joins Oren Batchelor to discuss the mechanics of resolving high-volume requests—like "where is my package"—without human intervention. The conversation explains how Large Language Models (LLMs) and APIs work together to perform data queries, check order statuses, and even use external data, such as weather reports, to explain delays.

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They also address the dangers of the "Super Bot"—an attempt to automate sales, billing, and support in a single unmanageable system. Oren explains why specialized agents are more effective and details how to establish guardrails to prevent AI from hallucinating or accessing sensitive data. The discussion concludes with practical steps for leaders to help identify call topics suitable for automation.

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Guest Bio

Oren Batchelor is a Contact Center Specialist at AudioCodes, working within the UK team to bridge the gap between technical capability and business requirements. He focuses on migrating and operationalizing contact center solutions within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem, specifically handling the Voca CIC line of business.

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What We Cover

1. The technical process behind AI resolution includes intent detection and API lookups for real-time tracking.
2. Using external data reasoning (e.g., snowstorms in Germany) to explain delivery delays to customers.
3. The "Human in the Loop" concept: allowing AI to process small refunds while routing high-value approvals to agents.
4. Why high-empathy scenarios, such as grief or bereavement, must always bypass automation.
5. The seamlessness of modern insurance policy updates compared to legacy voice interactions.
6. The efficiency gains of removing mundane tasks like password resets from an agent's workload.
7. The "Super Bot" mistake: Why trying to build one bot for every department often fails.
8. Practical first steps: analyzing the last six months of call data to find candidates for automation.

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Resources Mentioned

1. AudioCodes
2. Voca CIC

With all the excitement, confusion, and hype around AI, it's tough to cut through the noise and figure out what works and what's worth investing in. On Always On CX:EX, host Sarah Skidd, product marketing manager at Voca by AudioCodes, talks with Jon Zoltie, an AI and contact center expert, to talk about using AI at the end of the call.

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They break down the practical steps: turning on call recording, getting accurate transcription, unlocking AI summarization, and adding AI sentiment analysis. Using a university handling a million calls a year across IT, enrollment, financial aid, and campus security as an example, they show how customized AI summaries, AI sentiment analysis, and seamless CRM integration give agents, supervisors, and leadership the clean, structured insights they need—all while keeping the customer and employee experience front and center.

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Guest Bio

Jon Zoltie is an expert in AI and contact centers.

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What We Cover

1. Why call wrap-up is the most logical next step in your AI journey after conversational IVA
2. How manual wrap-up work—racing against KPIs and typing notes mid-call—creates inconsistent, subjective data that leads to weak insights
3. Why turning on compliance call recording is step one, so AI can access your conversation data
4. Using accurate transcription as the foundation that unlocks everything else
5. Adding custom AI summarization to turn massive transcripts into quick overviews, bullet points, and clear action items
6. Tailoring AI summaries by department so each team gets relevant information
7. Using AI sentiment analysis to understand not just what was said, but how it was said—tracking customer mood and spotting both frustration and delight
8. How AI summaries and sentiment analysis free up agents to focus on customers, give supervisors quickly scannable data, and provide leadership with structured, objective insights that inform strategy
9. Pushing conversation data, AI summaries, and sentiment straight into your CRM or database—Salesforce, HubSpot, Power BI—with one click

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Resources Mentioned

1. Voca, at AudioCodes
2. Salesforce (CRM)
3. HubSpot (CRM)
4. Power BI
5. Microsoft Teams contact center

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Get Started with Voca CIC

👉 Start a free trial of the Voca Conversational Interaction Center for 30-days:

Humans win, and bots assist. A return to real human connections, contact centers being designed for people first and bot second, and customers increasingly opting out of those AI loops that go round in circles. Jon Zoltie talk through top five predictions for 2026 in the contact center environment: the option to speak to a human at every step rather than buried deep within menu systems; CRMs losing a little bit of their status as the gospel of truth as organizations realize the contact center captures what customers actually said, how they said it, how they felt—more objective—and that becoming the source of truth. Voice as a primary interface across devices, apps, and workflows. AI is built into tools and embedded in existing platforms rather than delivered as point solutions. And the ROI element: measurable business impact, clear KPIs, average handle time, misroutes, deflection, wrap-up time, and data that can be proven and quantifiable.

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• Humans win, and bots assist: over automation, a return to real human connections, people first and bot second
• Customers opting out of AI loops and requesting human agents straight away
• IVR flows to always include the option to speak to a human at every step, not buried deep within menu systems
• CRMs losing status as the gospel of truth; contact center conversations as the source of truth
• Investing massive amounts in conversation intelligence rather than relying on manual CRM entry
• Automatically pushing transcripts, summaries, and sentiment analysis from contact centers into the CRM
• Voice as a primary interface across devices, apps, and workflows; conversational IVR, long prompts, and AI assistants
• ROI as a key driver: measurable business impact, clear KPIs, average handle time, misroutes, deflection, wrap-up time, time to resolution

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• CRM
• IVA
• IVR
• conversational IVR
• conversation intelligence
• transcripts and summaries
• sentiment analysis
• large language models
• AI assistants

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Get Started with Voca CIC

👉 Start a free trial of the Voca Conversational Interaction Center for 30-days: https://voca.audiocodes.io/signup

👉 Learn more about AudioCodes Voca CIC: https://www.audiocodes.com/solutions-products/voiceai/voca-conversational-interaction-center