Forethought has announced Forethought Voice, expanding its AI-powered platform to include seamless voice interactions. This latest innovation enables fully autonomous customer service across phone, chat, email, and SMS without relying on complex decision trees or human oversight.
“Agentic AI can now offer seamless customer service on any channel, without the need for complex decision trees or human oversight,” said Deon Nicholas, co-founder, president and executive chairman of Forethought. “Building a voice AI that can truly resolve issues end-to-end is incredibly challenging, and most ‘AI agents’ today lack the real business logic needed to take meaningful action. With Forethought, on Voice and other channels, you can simply explain what you need in plain language and AI does the work — an industry first.”
Why voice still matters in customer support
The latest Forethought survey highlights the ongoing importance of phone-based customer service, with 60% of consumers considering calling the most effective way to resolve issues. In addition, 58% believe voice support helps agents better understand their emotions, and 53% say it remains the fastest and easiest communication method.
However, many also appreciate written channels, with 46% valuing chat records and 31% preferring the ability to multitask while receiving support.
This highlights why businesses need a multi-channel CX strategy that balances real-time voice interactions with digital support options.
How AI is changing voice support
Legacy call centre technology wasn’t designed for AI-driven automation, leaving large enterprises struggling with outdated systems while midsized businesses lack the resources to scale customer support. Forethought’s Autoflows engine changes this by instantly resolving customer issues, from answering questions to processing account updates, without human intervention.
The impact is clear: 72% of companies using agentic AI report a significant reduction in issue resolution costs, compared to 49% of non-adopters.
A partnership for human-like AI conversations
To power its AI voice agents, Forethought partnered with Cartesia, to deliver natural-sounding, low-latency conversations, ensuring seamless interactions that are nearly indistinguishable from human speech.
“At Cartesia, we engineer voices for real-time conversational AI that combine the fastest model latency with natural quality nearly indistinguishable from humans,” said Cartesia CEO Karan Goel. “For CX applications like Forethought’s, this directly enhances call retention and customer satisfaction while our enterprise platform ensures 99.9%+ uptime during peak volumes.”