The Aide Glossary of Agentic AI in customer experience
Definitions for the vocabulary of agentic AI in customer service and experience: what the terms mean, how they differ, terms they are commonly confused with, and why those differences matter.AI and Agentic fundamentals
What agentic AI actually is, how it differs from generative and conversational AI, and the platform concepts underneath.- Agent harness
- Agent memory
- Agent orchestration
- Agent OS (agent operating system)
- Agentic AI
- Agentic AI for customer experience
- Agentic AI maturity model
- Agentic AI platform
- Agentic AI vs conversational AI
- Agentic AI vs generative AI
- Agentic Customer Experience (ACX)
- Agentic process automation
- Agentic RAG
- Agentic workflow
- AI agent for customer service
- AI agent vs AI assistant
- AI agent vs chatbot
- AI agents for insurance
- AI agents vs copilots
- AI concierge
- AI customer service agent
- AI customer service for e-commerce
- AI customer service for logistics
- AI customer service for SaaS
- Autonomous customer support
- Context engineering
- Context window
- Conversational AI
- Conversational AI design
- Conversational AI in banking
- Conversational AI in healthcare
- Customer experience automation
- E-commerce customer experience (ecommerce CX)
- Enterprise conversational AI
- Fine-tuning
- Foundation model
- Intelligent virtual agent (IVA)
- Knowledge base ceiling
- Large language model (LLM)
- Level of autonomy (autonomy spectrum) in AI
- LLMOps
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Multi-agent system
- Multilingual conversational AI
- Reasoning engine
- System prompt
- Tool calling (function calling)
Intents
An important primitive the whole discipline rests on: classification, taxonomies, sub-intents, drift, and the difference between an intent and a topic.- AI triage
- Auto-Tagging
- Contact driver
- Customer intent
- Customer Intent Engine
- Intent classification
- Intent Classification vs Keyword Routing
- Intent classifier
- Intent confidence threshold
- Intent Coverage Rate
- Intent detection
- Intent drift
- Intent Map
- Intent recognition
- Intent taxonomy
- Intent vs topic
- Intent-based routing
- Intent-first architecture
- Long-Tail Intents
- Multi-Intent Detection
- Named-Entity Recognition (NER)
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Natural language understanding (NLU)
- Slot Filling
- Sub-intent
- Utterance
Procedures and Deployment
How automation ships safely: ASOPs, testing before deploy, staged rollouts, and human-in-the-loop patterns.- Agent operating procedure (AOP)
- Agentic SOP (ASOP)
- AI agent action
- AI agent workflow
- Business logic for AI agents
- CX workflow automation
- Decision tree vs agentic procedure
- Deterministic vs probabilistic agent execution
- Intent-scoped deployment
- Natural-language workflow authoring
- Resolution playbook
- SOP for AI agents
Trust and Governance
Guardrails, hallucinations, grounding, explainability, action traces, and what it takes to put AI in front of customers without holding your breath.- Action trace
- Agent simulation testing
- Agent Simulator
- AI agent evaluation
- AI agent sandbox
- AI audit log
- AI escalation policy
- AI explainability
- AI governance for customer service
- AI grounding
- AI guardrails
- AI hallucination
- AI hallucination detector
- AI jailbreaking
- AI observability
- AI quality assurance
- AI red teaming
- AI risk scoring
- Confidence score
- Data privacy in AI customer service
- Guardrail vs guideline
- Hallucination guardrails
- Human-in-the-loop
- Input and output guardrails
- LLM-as-a-judge
- PII redaction
- Prompt injection
- Regression testing for AI agents
- Responsible AI
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- Staged rollout for AI agents
- Test-before-deploy
- Trust-engineered AI
- Zero data retention
Metrics and Operations
Resolution rate, deflection, containment, CSAT, NPS, handle time, and how to read them honestly.- AI coverage rate
- AI resolution rate
- Average handle time (AHT)
- Average resolution time (ART)
- Average speed of answer (ASA)
- Containment rate
- CSAT vs NPS vs CES
- Customer Effort Score (CES)
- Customer health score
- Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
- Deflection rate
- Deflection rate vs resolution rate
- Escalation rate
- First contact resolution (FCR)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- NPS detractor
- Quality assurance in customer service
- Reopen rate
- Resolution rate
- Sentiment analysis (CX)
- SLA compliance
- Ticket volume
- Time to first response (FRT)
- Time to first value (TTFV)
- True resolution
- Why is deflection rate an incomplete metric
All terms A–Z
- Action trace
- Agent harness
- Agent memory
- Agent operating procedure (AOP)
- Agent orchestration
- Agent OS (agent operating system)
- Agent simulation testing
- Agent Simulator
- Agentic AI
- Agentic AI for customer experience
- Agentic AI maturity model
- Agentic AI platform
- Agentic AI vs conversational AI
- Agentic AI vs generative AI
- Agentic Customer Experience (ACX)
- Agentic process automation
- Agentic RAG
- Agentic SOP (ASOP)
- Agentic workflow
- AI agent action
- AI agent evaluation
- AI agent for customer service
- AI agent sandbox
- AI agent vs AI assistant
- AI agent vs chatbot
- AI agent workflow
- AI agents for insurance
- AI agents vs copilots
- AI audit log
- AI concierge
- AI coverage rate
- AI customer service agent
- AI customer service for e-commerce
- AI customer service for logistics
- AI customer service for SaaS
- AI escalation policy
- AI explainability
- AI governance for customer service
- AI grounding
- AI guardrails
- AI hallucination
- AI hallucination detector
- AI jailbreaking
- AI observability
- AI quality assurance
- AI red teaming
- AI resolution rate
- AI risk scoring
- AI triage
- Auto-Tagging
- Autonomous customer support
- Average handle time (AHT)
- Average resolution time (ART)
- Average speed of answer (ASA)
- Business logic for AI agents
- Confidence score
- Contact driver
- Containment rate
- Context engineering
- Context window
- Conversational AI
- Conversational AI design
- Conversational AI in banking
- Conversational AI in healthcare
- CSAT vs NPS vs CES
- Customer Effort Score (CES)
- Customer experience automation
- Customer health score
- Customer intent
- Customer Intent Engine
- Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
- CX workflow automation
- Data privacy in AI customer service
- Decision tree vs agentic procedure
- Deflection rate
- Deflection rate vs resolution rate
- Deterministic vs probabilistic agent execution
- E-commerce customer experience (ecommerce CX)
- Enterprise conversational AI
- Escalation rate
- Fine-tuning
- First contact resolution (FCR)
- Foundation model
- Guardrail vs guideline
- Hallucination guardrails
- Human-in-the-loop
- Input and output guardrails
- Intelligent virtual agent (IVA)
- Intent classification
- Intent Classification vs Keyword Routing
- Intent classifier
- Intent confidence threshold
- Intent Coverage Rate
- Intent detection
- Intent drift
- Intent Map
- Intent recognition
- Intent taxonomy
- Intent vs topic
- Intent-based routing
- Intent-first architecture
- Intent-scoped deployment
- Knowledge base ceiling
- Large language model (LLM)
- Level of autonomy (autonomy spectrum) in AI
- LLM-as-a-judge
- LLMOps
- Long-Tail Intents
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Multi-agent system
- Multi-Intent Detection
- Multilingual conversational AI
- Named-Entity Recognition (NER)
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Natural language understanding (NLU)
- Natural-language workflow authoring
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- NPS detractor
- PII redaction
- Prompt injection
- Quality assurance in customer service
- Reasoning engine
- Regression testing for AI agents
- Reopen rate
- Resolution playbook
- Resolution rate
- Responsible AI
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- Sentiment analysis (CX)
- SLA compliance
- Slot Filling
- SOP for AI agents
- Staged rollout for AI agents
- Sub-intent
- System prompt
- Test-before-deploy
- Ticket volume
- Time to first response (FRT)
- Time to first value (TTFV)
- Tool calling (function calling)
- True resolution
- Trust-engineered AI
- Utterance
- Why is deflection rate an incomplete metric
- Zero data retention