What is a customer agent?

Learn moreGet started

A customer agent is an AI-powered shopping assistant that provides 24/7 support to your customers across web chat, text messaging, email, and WhatsApp.

The main purpose of an AI customer agent isn’t just to answer questions. It’s to turn conversations into conversions. Many people abandon purchases because of unanswered questions about sizing, shipping, or policies. An AI customer agent solves this problem instantly, offering personalized, round-the-clock support without you scaling your human team.

Unlike a human service representative who handles one query at a time, an AI customer agent can manage countless conversations at once, turning every support interaction into a potential sale. And unlike a generic chatbot that merely deflects tickets, an AI customer agent actively drives revenue.

Because an AI customer agent is trained on your brand’s storefront, help documents, and customer data, it can instantly answer questions about your specific products, policies, and processes while recommending items based on a customer’s browsing history and past purchases. 

What does a customer agent do?

Consumers expect instant, personalized support across every channel they use. According to Klaviyo’s 2025 future of consumer marketing report, 74% of consumers expect brands to deliver more personalized experiences this year, and 81% expect a response within 24 hours after reaching out about a negative experience.

An AI customer agent meets these expectations by providing immediate, intelligent responses that feel personal and helpful. It acts as the first line of support, handling routine inquiries automatically while freeing up your human support team to focus on complex issues that require empathy and problem-solving skills.

Ultimately, this helps turn customer service from a cost center into a revenue-driving part of your business.

Key features of a customer agent

The best AI customer agents don’t just deflect support tickets. They actively drive conversions and retention through intelligent, data-driven interactions. Here are a few key features of an AI customer agent:

  • 24/7 cross-channel availability: An AI customer agent works around the clock on web chat, email, text messaging, and WhatsApp, so customers get help the moment they need it on the channel of their preference.
  • Brand-specific knowledge: An AI customer agent learns from your brand’s information. It connects to your storefront, help center articles, and frequently asked questions to build its knowledge base.
  • Answering common questions: An AI customer agent answers questions about product features, availability, and sizing, clarifies shipping, return, or exchange policies to address purchase hesitation, and gives real-time order updates.
  • Making personalized recommendations: An AI customer agent can suggest items based on someone’s browsing history and past purchases, guiding customers to discover products they’ll love.
  • Escalating to human support: When an issue requires human expertise, an AI customer agent smoothly hands off the conversation to a human representative, preserving full context.

Benefits of using a customer agent

An AI customer agent helps bridge the gap between your marketing and service teams, creating a holistic experience for your customer from the moment they land on your website. Here are a few benefits you might see by employing one: 

  • Scale support without adding headcount. An AI customer agent handles common, repetitive questions automatically, freeing up your human support team to focus on complex, high-impact customer issues. Home fragrance brand Happy Wax, for example, reports that in just 90 days, over half of the conversations handled by their AI customer agent were fully resolved without any service team involvement.
  • Reduce friction in the buying process. An AI customer agent provides instant answers and product guidance to help remove doubt and friction between browsing and check-out. When customers can get immediate answers about sizing, shipping, or product details, they’re more likely to complete their purchase rather than leaving to think about it.
  • Create sales opportunities. With an AI customer agent, every conversation becomes a chance to recommend products, suggest upgrades, or highlight promotions that match the customer’s interests. The AI agent can identify cross- and up-sell opportunities based on purchase history and current browsing behavior, turning support interactions into revenue drivers.
  • Enrich customer profiles. In every conversation, an AI customer agent captures the questions customers ask and the topics they discuss and adds them to their profiles, giving your marketing team richer insights to fuel future segmentation and personalization.

An AI customer agent acts as a tireless, expert teammate that improves the customer experience while actively driving revenue growth. Get started to see how Klaviyo AI (K:AI) Customer Agent* can work for your brand.

*K:AI Customer Agent is currently available in English. Additional languages will be available in 2026.