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Forbes
20 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Moving From GenAI To Agentic AI In Within Customer Experience
As customer service leaders prepare for agentic AI, they should apply what they've learned from GenAI so far. By Reza Soudagar, SAP In many companies, generative AI (GenAI) is either fully automating some aspects of customer support or helping service reps with repetitive tasks. Now, agentic AI has arrived on the scene. Agentic AI systems and models act autonomously to reach complex goals without constant human guidance. For example, an agentic system could spot a customer delivery that's behind schedule, alert the customer, and offer a discount to hedge against disappointment. As the business world advances from GenAI to agentic AI, leaders can apply what they've learned from their GenAI pursuits. Here are four key lessons that will help guide businesses into the agentic AI era. Lesson 1: GenAI copilots and conversational assistants may take you only so far. GenAI-driven copilots can undeniably improve productivity for customer service reps. However, depending on the use case, these gains may be incremental and could max out quickly. For instance, according to a 2024 report by McKinsey & Co., off-the-shelf GenAI systems that translate customer communications or summarize customer interactions are relatively easy to integrate into existing service processes, making them low-risk investments. However, McKinsey says, there are limits to these types of use cases, and the captured value is modest. The total value is only about 3% to 5% of the whole customer operation. At the same time, according to Simon Bamberger, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, some customer service centers have reduced the time to issue resolution by 50% when using a GenAI assistant to resolve issues requiring access to product or diagnostic solutions or to individual customer information. To achieve even greater results, customer service leaders are contemplating the move to agentic AI. Beyond acting as a copilot or assistant to address a customer billing dispute, for instance, autonomous AI agents could take meaningful, independent action. They could route the issue to a cash collection AI agent, which would kick off a dispute resolution workflow. With cross-functional AI agents working together, the dispute could quickly be resolved, increasing process efficiency and boosting customer satisfaction. Lesson 2: To achieve greater productivity gains, the data has to be right. GenAI outputs are only as good as the data they use. This poses a particular problem in customer service, which needs to pull insights from a variety of structured and unstructured data sources. According to McKinsey, this makes data quality one of the top challenges for implementing GenAI in customer service—especially when businesses want to identify context-relevant responses, which requires formatting internal data and incorporating it into the large language model, or LLM. Ensuring data quality is even more important when it comes to agentic AI. Since the AI in this case is taking autonomous action, the data has to be right. The trouble is that many companies are carrying a data debt in the form of inconsistent, incorrect, outdated, or incomplete data across systems. Customer service reps, especially those with experience, are adept at handling these data discrepancies. They know, for instance, that one data source might be more reliable than another, or they might easily recognize when the data seems inaccurate, then take measures to validate it. Such is not the case with an autonomous AI agent. Because the agent is unable to make that distinction, it's even more important to make sure the data is high quality. Lesson 3: Address new information security threat vectors. According to Deloitte, cybersecurity is a top area of GenAI investment. Still, Deloitte says that '58% of businesses are highly concerned about using sensitive data in models and managing data security' and 'only 23% say they're highly prepared for managing [GenAI] risk and governance.' Early GenAI adopters have learned that they need to do their own adversarial tests of their GenAI systems, while also limiting liability for hallucinations. Security has an even more important role in agentic AI as the stakes are much higher. Organizations evaluating the use of autonomous AI agents need to consider and protect against scenarios in which the agents interface with outside contacts (such as through a chatbot) and can be duped into completing actions beyond their intended use. They will also need to fully test current security controls to ensure that they work with the agentic AI technology. As companies identify strong guardrails that protect agentic AI, AI use and adoption will grow and mature. Humans must have an oversight role, ensuring that the system is working as planned and not leaving room for breaches. Lesson 4: Service reps will need to learn new ways of working. When incorporating GenAI into a customer service center, training is essential for ensuring that customer service reps know how to work productively with the technology. According to Bamberger, GenAI implementations involve a heavy dose of change management. 'We tell our clients that 10% of the success is around the algorithm, 20% is around the data and the technology, and 70% is around the operational transformation,' Bamberger says. The bulk of the work consists of operational tasks such as change management, people management, process reengineering, and orchestration of a cross-functional team. The need for AI training and change management will increase with agentic AI. Customer service reps will need to learn new ways of working as process flows change to map with the autonomous behaviors of these systems. As Deloitte says in a recent report on agentic AI, processes will need to be redesigned to remove unnecessary steps. While autonomous agents can help each other navigate their environments, 'cluttered and sub-optimized processes could deliver disappointing results.' Applying lessons from GenAI to agentic AI If you've spent the last year or two working on pilot projects, or even a full deployment of GenAI in customer service, have no fear. The work you've done so far will be put to good use as the industry shifts to offering agentic AI customer experiences. A version of this story also appears on
Reuters
15-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Brazil looks to solve US tariff issue before deadline
BRASILIA, July 15 (Reuters) - Brazil will work to get the United States to reverse 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods before they are set to take effect on August 1, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in Brasilia after meeting with business leaders to discuss the tariffs, Alckmin said the government aims to resolve the issue "as quickly as possible." Earlier in the day, following a first round of meetings, he acknowledged that Brazil faced a tight deadline for negotiations and did not rule out the possibility of requesting an extension if necessary.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Brazil looks to solve US tariff issue before deadline
BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil will work to get the United States to reverse 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods before they are set to take effect on August 1, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in Brasilia after meeting with business leaders to discuss the tariffs, Alckmin said the government aims to resolve the issue "as quickly as possible." Earlier in the day, following a first round of meetings, he acknowledged that Brazil faced a tight deadline for negotiations and did not rule out the possibility of requesting an extension if necessary. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Brazil looks to solve US tariff issue before deadline
BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil will work to get the United States to reverse 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods before they are set to take effect on August 1, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in Brasilia after meeting with business leaders to discuss the tariffs, Alckmin said the government aims to resolve the issue "as quickly as possible." Earlier in the day, following a first round of meetings, he acknowledged that Brazil faced a tight deadline for negotiations and did not rule out the possibility of requesting an extension if necessary. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Fast Company
09-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Think you're secure? Prove it. Why penetration testing is your best defense against a breach
Ninety-six percent of cybersecurity leaders are confident in their ability to detect and respond to security incidents in real time—but then again, so is everyone… until they're breached. In reality, it takes an average of 272 days from identification to containment. Cyber threats are getting faster, smarter, and more destructive. Nearly half of organizations report increased attack frequency over the past year. 43% say attacks are also more severe. Adversaries now use automation, AI -powered phishing, and stealthy tactics that weaponize legitimate system tools to move through networks and remain undetected by traditional defenses. And while 53% of business leaders admit they're unprepared for AI-powered threats, few have taken meaningful steps to adapt. Instead, many continue to rely on outdated strategies—simple point solutions, such as firewalls, automated vulnerability scans, and training programs, which simply can't keep up on their own. What cybersecurity leaders are missing is that adaptive, intelligence-driven penetration testing is a basic, cost-effective tool that can identify those cybersecurity blind spots before they become tomorrow's headline. Most companies won't fail because they weren't warned. They'll fail because they never stepped into an attacker's shoes. Without testing their defenses or uncovering the easy entry points, they leave themselves exposed. To stay ahead, organizations must adopt a cybercriminal's mindset—know the enemy, anticipate their moves, and shore up weaknesses before they're exploited. Here are the three most common—and costly—blind spots pen testers discover on a daily basis. Mistake #1: Skipping The Fundamentals It's 2025—and yet the same avoidable flaws keep showing up in breach reports. Misconfigured security settings Weak or reused passwords Unpatched software Missing multi-factor authentication Exposed admin tools facing the public internet These aren't sophisticated zero-day exploits. They're basic errors—and they persist because of lax asset management, poor cyber hygiene, and unclear incident remediation assignments. Mistake #2: Blind Faith In Firewalls A firewall isn't a security strategy. It's a tool—and one that's often misused. Too many organizations deploy enterprise-grade firewalls and assume they're covered. But without regular validation, misconfigured rules, outdated protocols, and overly broad access turn the best firewall into a false sense of security. And they don't help when the threat is already inside. 95% of cyber breaches today are caused by human error. Your firewall might be strong, but it can't stop an employee from letting attackers in through a phishing link or misused credentials. Mistake #3: Believing Automated Vulnerability Scanning Alone Can Secure You Continuous vulnerability scanning is a good starting point for improving your threat visibility, but it's not enough. Automated tools only flag known issues based on predefined rules. What they can't do is think like attackers. They don't combine flaws, move laterally, or target weak business logic. Against today's threats, organizations need to simulate real attacks and expose how a malicious actor could chain together small oversights into a full-scale compromise. If your only line of defense is what your scanner detects, your attacker—who sees far more—already has the upper hand. With penetration testing, these avoidable mistakes are discovered and remediated long before the attacker's strike. However, up to one in three companies don't effectively implement penetration tests on a regular basis. This is a major mistake. PENETRATION TESTING—YOUR BEST REALITY CHECK Security awareness training won't matter if your team still clicks the wrong link under pressure. A firewall won't help if its rules haven't been reviewed in a year. And a vulnerability scan won't show you how deep an attacker could go. That's why penetration testing is essential. Pen tests replicate how attackers behave, identifying vulnerabilities (both within your tech stack and among your staff), demonstrating how they could be exploited, and revealing what data is at risk. These tests routinely uncover critical issues like employee training gaps, exposed APIs, hardcoded credentials, outdated encryption protocols, and weak identity controls—all things compliance checklists and automated tools often miss. HERE'S HOW IT REALLY WORKS Penetration testing is a controlled battlefield simulation—where ethical hackers do bad for good. Trained to think like cybercriminals, they begin with quiet reconnaissance scouring public data for weaknesses: leaked credentials, forgotten subdomains, DNS records, even source code in public repositories. Every overlooked asset is treated as a potential entry point—because that's exactly how a real attacker would see it. Then they scan your systems, finding open ports, exposed services, and soft spots in your infrastructure. But instead of stopping there, they attack—using real tactics: credential stuffing, privilege escalation, and lateral movement. They'll probe your defenses, pivot across systems, and extract sensitive data—not to cause harm, but to show you exactly how an attacker would do it. And they don't leave you with a generic PDF. They deliver a narrative: how they gained access, what they accessed, and step-by-step remediation guidance that your team can use immediately. If you can't remember the last time you tested your defenses like an attacker would (or don't want to admit how long it's been), you're overdue. Penetration testing won't solve every security challenge. But it will show you where you're vulnerable, where your assumptions break down, and what it would take for someone to bring your business to a halt. It's just one important piece of a layered defense—not a silver bullet. True resilience comes from combining penetration testing with continuous monitoring, timely patching, security awareness, and a culture of accountability across the organization. The most forward-thinking organizations are adopting integrated platforms that embed pen testing directly into continuous integration, delivery, and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines and cloud environments. While not every company needs 24/7 red teaming, every company needs a minimum cadence—ideally twice a year—to catch what your tech stack and staff inevitably miss. Think you're secure? Prove it. Let a trained penetration tester do what attackers are already trying—so you can fix the flaws before they exploit them.
