Not all AI-powered tools in contact centers deliver on their promise. Many organizations implement Real-Time Agent Assist expecting immediate improvements in compliance, customer experience, and agent performance, only to realize that real-time guidance alone isn’t enough.
Why?
Because reactive assistance isn’t coaching.
- AI can suggest actions, but it can’t build decision-making skills.
- AI can flag compliance risks, but it can’t create long-term behavior change.
- AI can guide agents, but it can’t grow them.
Some contact centers adopt Real-Time Agent Assist believing it will replace structured coaching altogether. But when coaching gets sidelined, so does performance.
Real-Time Agent Assist has a place in modern contact centers, but only when it's paired with consistent, human-led coaching. It’s a powerful support tool, not a development strategy.
While AI tools like Real-Time Agent Assist can elevate a good coaching program, it shouldn't replace it, and this is where contact center's that adopted Real-Time Agent Assist with the thought it could replace the need to coach as often are running into challenges with Real-Time Agent Assist.
In this article, we’ll explore the true pros, cons, and use cases of Real-Time Agent Assist, and show where AI-Enabled Coaching fits into the bigger picture of building high-performing agent teams.
Topics we're covering:
- What is Real-Time Agent Assist
- What is Real-Time Assist
- RTA & RTAA Comparison
- Real-Time Agent Assist Use Cases
- Pros of Real-Time Agent Assist
- Cons of Real-TIme Agent Assist
- RTAA Pros & Cons Compared
- Real-Time Agent Assist for Coaching
- Real-Time Agent Assist vs AI-Enabled Coaching
- Real-Time Agent Assist in Your Contact Center
Before diving into the pros and cons, lets cover the broader definition of Real-Time Agent Assist, and Real-Time Assist tools in general.
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What is Real-Time Agent Assist?
Real-Time Agent Assist supports customer service agents in contact centers, offering live, AI-powered guidance to agents during customer interactions, such as on-screen prompts, suggested responses, and relevant information, aiming to improve response quality, decrease handle times, and boost overall customer satisfaction.
What is Real-Time Assist?
Real-Time Assist leverages AI to provide instant, automated support across a spectrum of digital platforms. From online gaming experiences, like poker sites, to intelligent systems that offer split-second data analytics for financial traders, Real-Time Assist is used in environments where immediate, intelligent support can be the difference between success and failure.
Comparison: Real-Time Assist and Real-Time Agent Assist
📌 Real-Time Agent Assist is the more advanced contact center focused option.
Real-Time Agent Assist Use Cases
Real-Time Agent Assist has many great use cases for contact centers.
Below, we explore how RTAA fits into contact centers and where it may fall short.
Real-Time Agent Assist Pros
Real-Time Agent Assist brings several key benefits to the table for contact centers.
When leveraged in combination with other contact center coaching programs, it can significantly increase overall call center productivity, by enabling agents to deliver on-brand customer experiences.
1. Immediate Support
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Real-Time Agent Assist offers contact center agents real-time support during customer interactions, using conversational intelligence to supply agents with the information or actions needed.
2. Onboarding Assistance
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In industries with strict regulations, like financial services and healthcare, Real-Time Agent Assist acts as a safety net, providing agents with reminders to ensure adherence to rules, minimizing the risk of penalties protecting your company's integrity.
3. Better Compliance
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Real-Time Agent Assist speeds up the learning process with instant feedback and directions. This hands-on learning helps new agents quickly become proficient, allowing trainers to allocate more time to those who need it most.
4. Enhanced Call Handling
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With immediate assistance from Real-Time Agent Assist at their fingertips, agents can handle some calls faster, potentially increasing the volume of calls managed overall.
5. Reduces Cognitive Load
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Real-Time Agent Assist helps lighten the mental load for agents by providing real-time guidance, eliminating the need to remember complex scripts, compliance regulations, or troubleshooting workflows. This allows agents to focus more on engaging with customers, problem-solving, and delivering a better experience.
Real-Time Agent Assist Cons
Real-Time Agent Assist has some incredible benefits, however, it can be easy to focus on its strengths without also considering the limitations of Real-Time Agent Assist in your contact center.
1. Limited Scope
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While Real-Time Agent Assist is great for handling routine tasks, it struggles with more complex customer issues. Real-Time Agent Assist is designed for a specific set of tasks. If it's presented with something outside of those tasks, it may not be able to guide the agent to handle the situation appropriately.
2. Lacking Human Touch
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Real-time agent assist cannot replicate the human touch. While the world of AI is improving rapidly, according to a 2024 study by Bachkirov and Kemp, these "AI Coaches" a.k.a. Real-Time Agent Assist will never be able to replace the human coach. Expecting Real-Time Agent Assist to replace your human coaches will not yield favorable results for your team.
3. Over-Reliant Agents
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Real-Time Agent Assist may unintentionally limit an agent's learning and development. If agents become overly reliant on immediate answers, they might not develop the necessary problem-solving skills to handle complex situations independently, leading to a potential stagnation in their skills growth.
4. Data Privacy Concerns
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As Real-Time Agent Assist processes customer interactions, there can be data privacy concerns if not handled correctly. While it might not be against any data regulations its important to consider this carefully.
5. Integration Challenges
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Though designed to be user-friendly, Real-Time Agent Assist can only integrate so deep into your contact center analytics. AI is only as good as the data and integrations it has to work with.
6. Technical Issues
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Since Real-Time Agent Assist operates in live customer interactions, any unexpected technical issues can have immediate and detrimental effects. Whether it fails to provide the right prompts to agents, lags in real-time or leads to device screen flicker during customer interactions, or completely stops working in the middle of a service call, technical glitches will affect service quality and decrease customer satisfaction.
Real-Time Agent Assist Pros and Cons Compared
Here's a side-by-side comparison of the top advantages and limitations of Real-Time Agent Assist in contact centers. Use this table to evaluate whether RTAA aligns with your performance and coaching goals or where it may need to be paired with broader enablement tools.
| Pros of Real-Time Agent Assist | Cons of Real-Time Agent Assist |
|---|---|
|
Immediate Support: Provides real-time assistance, helping agents navigate customer interactions more efficiently. |
Limited Scope: Works best for routine queries but struggles with complex customer issues. |
|
Onboarding Assistance: Speeds up agent training with real-time learning prompts. |
Lacking Human Touch: AI cannot replace human coaching for empathy and complex decision-making. |
|
Better Compliance: Helps ensure agents adhere to regulatory and procedural guidelines. |
Over-Reliant Agents: Agents may become too dependent on prompts, weakening critical thinking skills. |
|
Enhanced Call Handling: Helps agents handle calls faster, improving efficiency. |
Data Privacy Concerns: Requires proper security measures to ensure compliance with data regulations. |
|
Reduces Cognitive Load: Real-Time Agent Assist helps lighten the mental load for agents by providing real-time guidance |
Technical Issues: System glitches or slow response times can negatively impact the agent experience. |
Real-Time Agent Assist for Coaching
Many vendors market Real-Time Agent Assist as an "AI Coach" or an 'AI-Enabled Coach', or part of a 'Call Center Coaching Software', but in reality, it’s neither of these.
While Real-Time Agent Assist (RTAA) is useful for real-time prompts, it does not develop agents, enhance long-term performance, or replace human-led coaching.
Points to consider:
- Coaching is about skill-building, critical thinking, and long-term agent development. RTAA is about instant responses.
- RTAA is a compliance and efficiency tool not a performance management solution.
- Contact centers that implement RTAA expect it to reduce turnover, boost CSAT, and improve agent productivity but experience the opposite.
The most recent 2024 study by Bachkirova and Kemp reinforced this, stating:
"Our conclusion is that AI ‘coaching’ does not meet these criteria. However, in considering various genres of organizational coaching along simple model-based types, we identify a number of elements in human coaching that could be augmented to various degrees by the use of AI."
📌 AI can enhance coaching, but it cannot replace it.
Real-Time Agent Assist vs AI-Enabled Coaching
Many contact centers implemented Real-Time Agent Assist for the instant prompts and compliance training it can offer agents during live calls, and that is all they needed it for.
However, some contact centers adopted Real-Time Agent Assist purely believing it was that next logical step in agent performance boost expecting it to replace structured agent coaching and agent development while removing the human element from coaching altogether.
The latter group are the ones who have been disappointed in the results they achieve.
Real-Time Agent Assist: is a tool for in-the-moment assistance. It helps with prompting answers, scripting compliance, and providing real-time nudges, but it doesn’t create skilled, autonomous, high-performing agents.
AI-Enabled Coaching: takes a different approach. Instead of reacting to problems, it develops agent skills, decision-making, and long-term performance behaviors through data-driven coaching actions. (and can integrate with Real-Time Agent Assist)
Both AI solutions have their place: But organizations that rely solely on Real-Time Agent Assist as their agent development strategy will be disappointed with the results.
RTAA is like relying on ChatGPT for all your work: it’s helpful in the moment but doesn’t build skills.
AI-Enabled Coaching is like an intelligent mentor: guiding agents with data-backed coaching to improve performance long-term.
Below is a full side by side of Real-Time Agent Assist vs. AI-Enabled Coaching.
Comparison: Real-Time Agent Assist vs AI-Enabled Coaching
Here's how Real-Time Agent Assist and AI-enabled coaching differ across key operational categories.
Want to see how the top AI-enabled coaching platforms stack up?
Explore our top call center coaching software picks for 2025.
Should You Implement Real-Time Agent Assist in Your Contact Center?
Real-Time Agent Assist has its place in contact centers, it provides instant support, compliance reminders, and conversation prompts during live calls. If all you need is a tool to provide real-time nudges to agents, RTAA may serve that purpose.
But if you're aiming to boost productivity, improve CSAT, enhance customer experience, or develop high-performing agents, RTAA alone won’t get you there.
Bachkirova and Kemp warned about this misconception:
“We hope stakeholders will be less seduced by the ‘beautiful idea’ of AI Coaching... and not mislead those who are in need of real coaching.”
The decision comes down to your goals:
- Need short-term compliance guidance? RTAA can help.
- Need sustained performance improvement? AI-Enabled Coaching is the better investment.
If you're evaluating both options, we can help you compare based on your tech stack, team structure, and frontline goals.
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