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Dr. Ryan Ries here, and today I want to chat about something that's been getting a lot of buzz lately – the intersection of Amazon Connect and AI technologies.
Over the past few months, I've been watching contact centers start to use more and more AI in their operations.
Personally, I believe that in 2025, if you’re looking to leverage Amazon Connect or already using that AWS service, you need to be thinking about Amazon Connect + AI together.
Quick side note before jumping into our topic.
I’ll be at the AWS Summit NYC next week and I’m hosting a breakout session on 7/16 at 10 AM called “Beyond the Hype: Delivering Measurable ROI with Generative AI on AWS.” Stop by if you’re interested. I’ll also be at Mission’s Happy Hour after the Summit, so if AI ROI isn’t your thing, maybe cocktails on a rooftop is!
Reactive → Intelligent Customer Service
Here's what I'm seeing across the industry. We're witnessing a fundamental shift from transactional service models to intelligent, experience-driven operations.
The old approach was reactive: customer calls, agent scrambles through multiple systems, customer waits.
AI is flipping this entirely. Instead of bolting intelligence onto legacy infrastructure, we're seeing platforms that were built with AI-native architectures from day one.
This honestly makes a huge difference in the contact center. When AI capabilities are deeply integrated rather than layered on top, you get something magical: systems that don't just respond to customers, they anticipate needs, understand context, and adapt in real-time.
(P.S., that’s a huge bonus with Amazon Connect, your contact center can be built from the ground up with AI embedded.)
Real-World AI Impact: The Netfor Story
Let me share a story that perfectly illustrates what happens when you get this integration right, without falling into the trap of overhyping the technology.
Netfor, a Business Process Outsourcing company, came to us facing a classic challenge: unpredictable spikes in call volume and outdated IVR experiences that frustrated customers. They had 16,000 knowledge articles built over three decades - incredible institutional knowledge that was nearly impossible to access quickly during live interactions.
The solution wasn't flashy AI for the sake of it. It was practical intelligence applied to a real business problem. Working with our team, we built them an AI-powered system that could understand natural language, route calls intelligently, and answer routine questions using their extensive knowledge base.
The results speak for themselves: they can now handle thousands of incoming calls per hour without adding headcount, dramatically improved first-call resolution rates, and substantial cost savings.
What I love the most about this, though, is that it doesn't replace human agents. It allows the human agents to do their jobs more efficiently and better.
Addressing the ElephAInt in the Room
(See what I did there.)
There's still a lot of hesitation around AI in contact centers, and I get it. Most of the concerns I hear are rooted in real experiences with poorly implemented systems.
A big misconception that I come across often is that AI replaces the human element. In reality, the best implementations enhance it.
At Mission, we've applied AI across our own support operations - handling ticket routing, filtering alerts, consolidating information - and achieved a whopping 50% reduction in noise from monitoring tools. But it's still our people who solve the complex problems and deliver real value to customers.
Another common concern is complexity. Many assume AI is too technical or risky to implement. When AI capabilities are built into the platform from the ground up, rather than bolted on afterward, the complexity disappears. You get accessible, configurable intelligence without requiring a massive IT overhaul.
The key is starting internally. Before rolling out AI tools to your customers, use them to improve your own operations. That's what we did at Mission. It allowed us to dramatically reduce time to resolution, improve customer satisfaction, and make our team far more efficient, all while maintaining the human touch that sets us apart.
What I’m Excited About
Personalization at Scale
We're moving toward contact centers that don't just respond to customers. They remember the customer, understand context, and adapt in real time.
Imagine dynamic voice personalities that adjust based on customer preference, routing that considers sentiment and interaction history, or even real-time AI orchestration that changes tone and response strategy mid-conversation based on how the customer feels. That kind of emotional intelligence in AI will redefine what "good" customer experience looks like.
True Agentic AI
The other thing I’m really excited about for contact centers is the potential for true agentic AI. Not just tools that react to agent queries, but intelligent copilots that proactively surface knowledge, summarize conversations, and recommend next steps. This is transformative for contact centers because it amplifies human intuition with machine intelligence.
The companies that will win aren't those with the most advanced AI. They're the ones that strike the right balance between technology and human touch.
AI should accelerate the process, but it's still people who deliver the value. When you get that balance right, the result isn't just better service - it's better outcomes for customers and stronger, more capable teams.
Let me know…
If you're interested in learning more about how Amazon Connect can transform customer experience in your organization, let me know. I’m working on content for a future webinar on this and would love to hear from you and your challenges.
Until next time,
Ryan
Now, time for our AI-generated image and the prompt I used to create it.
Create a visual representation of "the elephant in the room". The elephant should be wearing an AWS t-shirt and should be in New York, standing in front of the Javits Center, for the AWS Summit.
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