With the Deepdesk acquisition now in play, Will Blench, CEO of AnywhereNow, shared how the organisation is shifting from AI assistance to AI collaboration, reshaping frontline service, boosting CSAT and supporting agents through code-free, context-aware intelligence.
Forget the hype – AI isn’t coming for customer service; it’s already here, hardwired into the way modern contact centres think, act and evolve. Among the firms exploring this is AnywhereNow, known for developing AI-powered platforms that integrate with Microsoft Teams.
Its recent acquisition of Deepdesk marks a decisive step toward Agentic AI tools that not only assist agents but also intelligently collaborate with them.
The organisation’s CEO, Will Blench, discussed how AnywhereNow hasn’t just been adding AI, but also reimagining how customer interactions occur – from back-end automation to real-time and emotionally intelligent conversations.
Could you outline AnywhereNow’s core vision for transforming customer experience through AI, especially considering your recent acquisition of Deepdesk? How does this shape and influence your AI-first roadmap?
AnywhereNow is a global pioneer in transforming customer experiences with innovative AI solutions and a leading provider of cloud-based contact centres for Microsoft Teams. Our core vision is centred on delivering seamless, intelligent and proactive interactions powered by state-of-the-art AI solutions.
The acquisition of Deepdesk in 2024 strengthened our AI-first strategy, enabling contact centres to leverage Agentic AI-driven tools for enhanced customer engagement and optimised operational efficiency, with AI capabilities such as summarisation, sentiment analysis and knowledge assistance.
Deepdesk provides a comprehensive AI platform for customer experience (CX), enabling powerful, agentic AI tools that understand conversation context and perform complex tasks. From verification to making next-best-action suggestions, Deepdesk helps businesses develop and deploy these capabilities, allowing multiple AI agents to collaborate on complex scenarios and unlock the full potential of AI to revolutionise customer interactions.
Deepdesk functions independently of any enterprise contact centre environment and is integrated into our Dialogue Cloud platform, allowing agents to leverage over 30 pre-built AI assistants. These tools support real-time interactions across various communication channels, including voice, chat, email and social media and accelerate AI adoption by embedding smart workflows and Agentic Intelligence into the environments employees already use.
Many organisations struggle to scale cloud and AI integration across contact centres. What are the main challenges you’re helping them to overcome?
AnywhereNow addresses several critical challenges facing modern contact centres:
Balancing cost efficiency and customer satisfaction – Contact centres must find a balance between reducing operational costs and improving customer service. AI enables faster resolutions, intelligent self-service and real-time agent support, enhancing key metrics such as Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS), while also reducing expenses.
Streamlining operations – Managing high call volumes across multiple channels is a major challenge. AI automates repetitive tasks, decreases average handling time (AHT) and optimises call routing, making customer service more effective, cost-efficient and maintaining high service quality.
Reducing agent stress and turnover – High staff turnover remains a challenge in the contact centre. AI offers agents real-time support, helping them to concentrate on engaging and rewarding interactions, which boosts job satisfaction and enhances staff retention.
Ultimately, AI helps create a more efficient, resilient and adaptable contact centre operation that enhances human expertise and boosts the customer experience.
Agentic AI represents a bold evolution in automation. How does AnywhereNow’s take on this go beyond traditional chatbots or workflows to enable real-time decision-making and intelligent customer support?
AnywhereNow’s Agentic AI is built to think and understand customer context, intent and emotion in real-time. This allows it to provide meaningful insights, guide agents and make independent decisions when appropriate. Thus, AI becomes an active participant in the customer journey.
Our distinctive approach enables solutions that can operate independently as virtual agents or support humans as AI assistants. Organisations select their level of AI integration and gradually transition from human-supported to more autonomous processes at their own pace. This leads to faster deployments, reduced risks and improved collaboration between AI and humans.
How important is ‘zero-code’ implementation in accelerating AI adoption for businesses? What makes your AI platform especially attractive for IT-light or fast-scaling organisations?
Zero-code implementation is crucial for accelerating AI adoption, particularly in the financial sector, where time-to-market, compliance and operational efficiency are essential. Our zero-code approach removes the need for technical expertise and lengthy integration processes, enabling businesses to deploy AI features quickly with minimal IT involvement.
For financial organisations where both agility and control are key, our platform facilitates rapid experimentation with guardrails, enhancing strategic capacity across the enterprise.
AI-driven insights are transforming frontline productivity. How do features like Dialogue AI Assist and Deepdesk Agent Assist contribute to a measurable uplift in both employee engagement and customer outcomes?
Dialogue AI Assist and Deepdesk Agent Assist are key components of our AI-first strategy, designed to enhance frontline productivity, improve employee engagement, and enhance the customer experience.
Dialogue AI Assist enhances interactions by suggesting relevant responses, guiding agents through complex conversations and ensuring consistency in communication. Deepdesk Agent Assist goes further by analysing ongoing interactions, offering insights and recommendations and simplifying knowledge retrieval.
These AI tools empower agents to focus on meaningful, high-value interactions instead of routine administrative tasks, leading to greater job satisfaction, improved performance and reduced burnout.
By integrating these AI solutions, AnywhereNow delivers quicker problem-solving, improved first-call outcome rates and more tailored support. Dialogue AI Assist optimises conversations by ensuring responses are well-informed, empathetic and aligned with customer needs. Meanwhile, Deepdesk Agent Assist streamlines issue resolution by proactively surfacing relevant insights and solutions, reducing average handling time and improving overall service efficiency. These enhancements create a more engaging customer journey, reinforcing trust and loyalty.
Looking ahead, what major transformative shift in customer experience do you believe AnywhereNow’s AI solutions—particularly Agentic AI—will bring about over the next three to five years?
A significant shift in AI technology is the move toward more autonomous, agentic AI applications in contact centres. These AI agents go beyond scripted responses, as they understand context, adapt in real-time, and collaborate with human agents. This evolution enables AI to handle standard transactions, such as account updates or FAQs, with efficiency and consistency, so agents can focus on more complex or emotionally sensitive interactions.
This transformation encourages hybrid service organisations where AI and human agents work together. AI agents act as intelligent co-pilots, providing real-time suggestions, summarising customer history and predicting next-best actions. Human agents bring empathy and creativity to situations that require a personal touch. The result is a balanced service model that leverages both AI and human capabilities to deliver better customer outcomes.
In this hybrid setup, customers are seamlessly routed to the right channel or agent type based on their needs. For example, a billing inquiry might be resolved instantly by an AI agent, while a complaint involving emotional distress would be escalated to a human agent with AI support. This dynamic orchestration improves customer satisfaction, operational efficiency and agent experience. As AI matures, we expect this model to become the standard for modern contact centres.
AI-driven capabilities are transforming frontline productivity. How do you start with deploying these solutions in your contact centre?
Starting an AI project for contact centres begins with identifying the right use cases. Focus on areas where AI Assistants can deliver maximum value, such as automating routine customer inquiries, supporting agents with real-time knowledge and summarising interactions.
These applications are particularly effective in scenarios that require decision-making, adaptability, and collaboration. Targeting these high-impact areas ensures the AI deployment addresses real operational needs from the outset.
Engaging relevant stakeholders early in the process is essential. Their insights will shape the deployment strategy and ensure alignment between technical requirements and day-to-day workflows.
Building a pilot project is an effective way to test the AI Assistant’s effectiveness. Start small with a specific type of inquiry, such as billing, and refine your approach based on the results before scaling.
To accelerate implementation, leverage existing contact centre platforms and workflows. Integrate AI Assistants using out-of-the-box capabilities, where possible, and ensure that security and compliance standards are met from the outset.
Continuous monitoring and optimisation are key; use analytics and feedback to improve performance over time. Finally, invest in training and support to help the team confidently adopt the new tools. A well-supported rollout fosters trust and encourages long-term success.
