This article was based on the interview with Featuring insights from Vinod Muthukrishnan, VP and COO, Webex Customer Experience at Cisco by Greg Kihlström, MarTech and AI keynote speaker for The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. Listen to the original episode here:
If customer experience were a dinner guest, it would be the kind that arrives late, repeats itself, and then disappears before dessert. At least, that’s how most people feel when dealing with today’s contact centers—reactive systems that rely on outdated models of interaction and force customers to jump through hoops just to get basic help.
Vinod Muthukrishnan, VP and COO of Webex Customer Experience at Cisco, thinks we can do much better. In fact, he believes AI can make customer experience not just more efficient, but more human. His perspective is refreshingly direct: the point of AI isn’t to sound human—it’s to act human. That means being available, contextual, and helpful without forcing customers to memorize IVR trees or repeat their stories three times.
In this conversation, Muthukrishnan lays out a new vision for CX, one that uses AI to anticipate rather than react, automate without losing empathy, and close the loop with precision. This isn’t about adding bots. It’s about rethinking the entire model.
The Problem with CX? “Everything.”
Ask Muthukrishnan what’s wrong with traditional customer experience and he doesn’t hesitate: “Everything.” Not because companies lack good intentions, but because they’ve been stuck with bad models and limited tools. Customers are expected to initiate every interaction, repeat themselves to multiple agents, and often end conversations without resolution.
“You’re forced to memorize IVR trees. You’re made to wait. The systems don’t retain context. That’s not intuitive or human.”
What makes it worse is the ubiquity of it. Try recalling your last truly delightful customer service moment—you’ll probably come up empty. And that’s the problem: the bar is so low that basic competence now feels like luxury.
Cisco’s answer? Start by flipping the model. Don’t ask “how can we respond better?”—ask “how can we make it so customers never have to contact us in the first place?” It’s a shift from reactive to proactive. And it demands a new set of capabilities.
AI Isn’t the Add-On. It’s the Foundation.
Most companies treat artificial intelligence as a plugin—something you layer on top of existing systems to speed things up. Muthukrishnan sees it differently. AI must be “enmeshed in the fabric” of CX, not bolted onto the edge. That’s the only way to design experiences that actually feel personal.
Take Cisco’s AI-powered assistant. It allows for human-like conversations, but it also removes friction: no call queues, no repeat questions, no channel-hopping. And when a customer does need to talk to a human, that agent is armed with all the right context. The experience becomes not just faster, but kinder.
“The purpose of AI is to make customer experience more human,” Muthukrishnan says. “Your favorite human doesn’t make you wait, doesn’t make you repeat yourself, and knows what matters to you.”
The real win isn’t just the conversation—it’s the invisible infrastructure around it. Context from past interactions, intelligent routing, and AI-generated suggestions help even new agents act like seasoned pros. That’s not just good CX. It’s good business.
Proactive, Predictive, Preemptive
For Muthukrishnan, the most powerful experience is the one you never needed to have. The ultimate contact center win isn’t handling your issue well—it’s preventing it entirely.
That’s where AI’s predictive and proactive power shines. Cisco’s platform includes features like Topic Analytics, which surfaces why people are contacting you in the first place. Is it a confusing charge on a bill? A hidden fee that causes frustration? AI identifies those patterns and empowers teams to fix root causes—either operationally or through better communication—before customers feel the need to complain.
“We discovered one client added a minor surcharge in step three of checkout. It wasn’t the cost—it was the surprise. That surprise was generating calls.”
Fixing that kind of issue doesn’t just reduce inbound volume—it earns trust. And it shifts customer service from a cost center into a loyalty engine.
Closing the Loop with AI-Driven Execution
Of course, the best call resolution in the world means nothing if the promises made aren’t fulfilled. That’s why Muthukrishnan emphasizes automation as a critical partner to AI. AI captures intent, but automation ensures action.
Say an agent promises to waive a fee and send a replacement card overnight. If only one of those happens, the customer’s trust is gone. With AI-driven workflows, the system logs every promise, triggers the right back-end actions, and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks.
“Automation is how you make sure the work gets done. AI is what ensures it gets done right.”
AI also watches for risk. If an agent forgets to disclose required legal terms or veers into inappropriate territory, systems can flag that in real time. AI, in this case, becomes both a helper and a safeguard.
And when calls get dropped? Cisco’s Drop Summary feature ensures that the next agent picks up exactly where the customer left off—no backtracking required.
Conclusion
Customer experience doesn’t need more dashboards. It needs more humanity. What Vinod Muthukrishnan and Cisco are building isn’t just a smarter contact center—it’s a smarter philosophy. One where AI works behind the scenes to do what the best humans already know how to do: listen well, act quickly, and follow through.
The irony? In a world obsessed with making machines feel more human, the real goal may be simpler: let machines do what they’re good at, so humans can do what only they can do.
And that might be the most human move of all.left is: will your next video just tell your story, or will it close the sale, too?
