AI agents vs. Live Agents: Calculating the ROI of AI Support

• Created, June 24, 2025

Human agents vs. AI agents

Each has its strengths. Live agents offer empathy and creative problem-solving; bots offer speed and scale. When considering investment, it's smart to compare the ROI of AI support versus traditional helpdesk. The bottom line is clear: AI chatbots can slash costs and boost efficiency while maintaining quality of service.

Big Cost Savings: Human support is expensive. A single live phone call typically costs on the order of $10–$14 on average, and a live chat session about $6–$8. Multiply that by thousands of monthly inquiries, and budgets skyrocket. By contrast, chatbots handle many of these interactions for a few cents apiece. According to an IBM report, bots can cover up to 80% of routine questions, cutting overall support costs by roughly 30%. Because bots work 24/7 (never take holidays or breaks), they practically pay for themselves through coverage alone.

For example, Vodafone deployed the AI agent TOBI across markets. It automatically resolved 70% of customer inquiries and reduced cost-per-chat by 70%. In practical terms, "serving customers via AI costs less than one-third of what a live chat used to cost," the company reported. Large-scale implementations show millions of dollars saved. Juniper Research estimates industries like retail and banking saved about $8 billion in 2022 by offloading routine queries to agent.

Efficiency and Productivity: Bots don't just save labor costs; they accelerate service. With an AI assistant, a customer gets an instant answer — no hold time or queue. This increases the resolution rate: for instance, McKinsey study found pairing AI-based bots with human agents can double productivity while halving per-call costs. In practice, faster answers mean happier customers and agents who can focus on fewer, higher-value tasks.

Meanwhile, employees on the front lines get a boost: 44% of support agents say having bots handle basic requests allows them to "do their job better". Freed from repetitive FAQs, they tackle complex tickets more thoughtfully, improving overall support quality.

Measuring ROI: A simple way to calculate ROI is: (Benefits – Costs) ÷ Costs. Benefits come from lower support spend and higher sales (due to better service); costs include bot development, subscriptions, and training. Given many companies report 5–10× ROI within months, the formula usually swings positive quickly. For example, talkative.ai shows a bot costing $25k that generates $62k in value yields 148% ROI.

You can also measure specific metrics: Average Handle Time (AHT) drops dramatically with bots. For a bank or retailer, each bot-handled query saves about 4 minutes of an agent's time (roughly $0.50–$0.70 per query). Over millions of queries, those minutes add up to major savings.

Where Human Touch Wins: Not every case should be handed off to AI. Complex or sensitive issues still benefit from human empathy. Surveys show roughly half of customers prefer real humans for complicated support questions. The most effective strategy is hybrid: use bots for quick wins (FAQs, status checks, basic troubleshooting), then escalate to agents when emotional intelligence or deep context is needed. This way you maximize cost savings without sacrificing the personal touch that drives loyalty.

The Bottom Line: Integrating an AI chatbot can transform a support budget. In sectors from telecom to fintech, AI-driven help has turned customer service from a cost center into a profit enabler. Firms like Alibaba automate 75% of inquiries and save $150M/year in support costs (and even boost satisfaction). With statistics like these, the ROI of AI support is hard to ignore.

Key ROI Metrics to Track:

Cost-per-contact: should plummet as bots handle more queries.
First-Contact Resolution (FCR): often rises when bots pre-answer easy questions.
Support Volume Handling: count how many tickets/queries the bot resolves.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): track CSAT for bot interactions; good bots maintain high scores.
Ticket Backlog: a shrinking backlog signals bots are effective at deflecting queries.

Want to see the ROI for your support team? Try Tessa and watch simple math take over: fewer tickets + lower cost = a happier bottom line. Contact us to calculate potential savings or sign up to measure your bot's impact firsthand.

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