By Marcus Law
Publication Date: 2026-10-07 20:00:00
Most AI agents in the contact centre still behave like a very quick front desk. They pick up a query, work out what the customer wants, and either resolve it or pass it on. When the conversation ends, so does their involvement, and anything left open falls back to the customer or into a human agent’s queue.
Cisco wants AI agents to stay with the problem. At WebexOne 2026 in Austin, the company introduced Dialog, an agentic harness for the Webex AI Agent platform that carries a persistent understanding of each customer across channels, teams and time, and keeps working on their behalf until an issue is resolved.
Speaking to CX Today at the event, Vinod Muthukrishnan, VP and GM of Webex Customer Experience, places Dialog as the third stage in a progression that has moved quickly.
The first wave of agents handled conversations. They were intended to find the intent, answer the question, get something done. Now we are taking a step function up, which is managing relationships:…
