Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- During a historic US winter storm, GenerativeAgent powered a major US airline to handle 34,000 customers and rebook 3,800 flights automatically.
- The platform achieved 40% issue containment, 90% customer satisfaction, and saved $69,000 in labor costs, even amid massive disruptions.
- Agentic AI enables real-time human-AI collaboration, scalable service, and seamless issue resolution, setting a new standard for customer experience across industries.
In late January, a massive winter storm blanketed large parts of the US with snow, ice, and dangerous travel conditions. Over three days, more than 20,000 flights were canceled across the country, stranding thousands of passengers and putting enormous pressure on airline contact centers.
Airlines scrambled to handle the torrent of calls and chats from travelers looking to rebook. It was a storm of historic proportions, and the impact on the airlines was equally historic.
But one US airline had a major advantage—GenerativeAgent, an autonomous AI agent that powers CXP, the ASAPP Customer Experience Platform. The CXP was made for moments like this.
Scaling instantly when demand exploded
As the storm intensified, inbound volume surged. Passengers needed immediate help with rebooking, itinerary changes, and next steps, often while already en route or stuck in an airport.
Every airline prepares for disruptions. But they’re never easy to handle. Queues stack up. Wait times explode. And customers grow more frustrated by the minute. Scaling up to meet the sudden demand with human agents is like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a teaspoon.
But GenerativeAgent scaled up in real time to meet that demand. During the storm, GenerativeAgent spoke to 34,000 customers whose flights had been impacted and successfully rebooked more than 3,800 passengers on its own.
Customers connected immediately and got fast resolutions, despite the historic event. Speed is always important in customer service. For an airline navigating the disruption of a major weather event, it can also be the difference between restoring trust and losing it.
High containment, high satisfaction, even during disruptions
Storms like this one are the ultimate stress test for agentic AI. Demand skyrockets. Policy exceptions are common. And emotions run high.
Despite that complexity, GenerativeAgent delivered strong outcomes:
- 40% containment, which relieved the burden on the airline’s service representatives
- 90% customer satisfaction, an impressive result during a major travel disruption
- $69,000 in labor costs saved by resolving issues automatically at scale
This wasn’t a deflection strategy to keep human agents from being overwhelmed. It was about delivering better customer service when it matters most – solving what could be solved quickly and intelligently, and passing the rest to human agents without friction.
Setting a new standard for enterprise CX
For CX leaders, the takeaway isn’t that airlines face unique challenges. Every industry deals with disruptions. Utilities and telecom providers deal with mass outages. Property and casualty insurance scrambles in the wake of a natural disaster. Retailers get hit with recalls and supply chain issues.
In every case, customers expect fast, frictionless resolutions without a long wait for an available representative. That level of responsiveness is now the standard for every brand in every industry, even during a major disruption.
When businesses can’t absorb volume spikes and resolve issues fast, the consequences are predictable, and they go way beyond momentary frustration. Customer sentiment can be fickle, and a single bad experience can lead to lost loyalty and lost revenue.
GenerativeAgent changes that equation. It expands customer service capacity to meet demand, even with sudden spikes. And it ensures your customers always have a path to help, with faster service and real resolutions.
What it takes to meet the new standard
The difference in this airline’s storm response wasn’t just AI tossed into the mix to squeeze out more efficiency. It was an agentic CX platform that reasons, acts, and adapts in real time.
To enable this kind of service, here’s what to look for in an agentic CX platform:
- Goal-driven, agentic automation
AI that can take action, not just answer questions. The platform should be able to complete multi-step workflows end-to-end, such as updating accounts, modifying orders, processing requests, or resolving issues across systems, without relying on rigid scripts. - Human-in-the-loop collaboration
No more treating humans as just a failover point, standing by to clean up the mess when automation fails. An agentic CX platform must enable real-time human-AI collaboration, where humans provide guidance for the AI agent without taking over the interaction. And when a handoff is needed, full context and conversation history is passed, so the experience still feels frictionless to the customer. - Enterprise-grade reliability and security
Proven performance under real-world conditions, including peak demand and high-volume events. The platform should support strong security, compliance, governance, and auditability requirements. - Deep system integrations
Native, bi-directional integrations with core enterprise systems, such as CRM, billing, order management, and operational platforms, so the AI can reason, act, and resolve issues in real time. - Elastic, scalable architecture
The ability to scale instantly as interaction volumes surge, without sacrificing accuracy or experience quality, ensuring consistent service no matter the channel, use case, or demand pattern.
The era of agentic CX is here
Some say this is the future of CX. But here’s the mic drop moment. It’s not the future. It’s already here. One airline and a historic storm just proved it.
For enterprise CX leaders, the question is no longer if agentic CX is the path forward. It’s whether your organization will be ready when the next storm hits.
