Talkdesk is bringing AI to retail with artificial intelligence (AI) agents it says autonomously handle complex customer service tasks and optimize operational processes without direct human intervention.
The company’s AI Agents for Retail, announced Thursday and scheduled to be showcased at next week’s National Retail Federation conference in New York, offers 24/7 conversational agents that dynamically adapt responses based on real-time interaction analysis and contextual awareness.
The agent’s capabilities include natural language processing that handle multiple topics in one “fluid” conversation; seamless integration with existing commerce platforms and APIs; and ability to assign multiple digital tasks – from customer identification and authentication to real-time order status, tracking and updates, intelligent shipping address modifications, and connecting customers with in-store specialists.
“We’ve been talking for some time in retail about conversational commerce, where we can now speak in general terms about a product we previously bought without specifically describing it down to the order number,” Michael Klein, head of retail product marketing at Talkdesk, said in an interview. He declined to name customers of Talkdesk who are beta-testing the retail AI product.
Thursday’s announcement is the latest in Talkdesk’s goal to modernize customer experience through its AI-powered platform, Talkdesk Ascend AI. Talkdesk plans to bring agentic AI to financial services and healthcare.
Talkdesk is among a wave of companies bringing AI agent-like features to retailers in consumer electronics, airlines, healthcare and banking, to improve efficiencies and more accurately understand the wants and sentiments of customers.
“Agentic AI has been around a while, but we are slowly seeing it become mainstream,” Dennis Perpetua, chief technology officer of digital workplace services at Kyndryl, said in an interview. “IT companies, consumer electronics and airlines are increasingly showing the ability to accurately articulate in detail what their customers want, allowing them to more easily find a specific part from an entire catalog, and better understand customer sentiment based on voice tone, language analysis, and buying patterns.”
Siddhant Jayakumar, who has worked in AI for a decade, including seven years at Google DeepMind, does see two problems with agentic AI in any industry. “No one is really able to define it, or what they are showing in production is LLM with a little magic sprinkled on it,” said Jayakumar, who is now CEO of Finster AI. “That said, I expect huge applications in cost saving and customer experience for AI agents in retail.”
But Jayakumar predicts a bright future with AI as a personal shopping assistant. Within a few years, he believes people will be able to order a shopping list on their iPhone via Apple Intelligence, charge the bill to Apple Pay, and have the groceries delivered by a third-party service like InstaCart at a specific time — with minimal interaction from the customer.
