Hands On: Building Customer Service AI Agents — With Jotform's Aytekin Tank

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2025-02-25

YouTube video id: FVlqOEJWL9g

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVlqOEJWL9g

let's go deeper into building agents
with the latest AI models from a company
with a new release today we're joined
today by iten CEO of jot form a
19-year-old company with 25 million
users that's announcing a new product
release today we're going to talk about
AI agents and customer service sales
education and more in a conversation
brought to you by jot form I tooken
great to see you again welcome to the
show Hello Alex uh thank you for having
me on the show great to have you here so
we've talked in the past uh privately
and now we're going to do it publicly
about the progression of AI technology
and how good it's gotten quickly so
you've worked uh to build agents that
fill out forms and this has been pretty
tough but I'm curious to hear your
perspective on how quickly the
Technology's changed how much better
it's gotten and what it's enabling you
to do that you couldn't do
previously yeah uh just to give you some
like timeline um um we have been working
on this product for more than a year and
um the reason we started working on this
product was like uh we were looking into
like how we can use AI for our users
like we have 25 million users at chat
form and we wanted to like uh find find
a way to help them with AI and um and we
you we usually do like these hacks
several times a year at chat form to to
kind of like uh to to try different
things uh like just allow our teams and
developers to come up with new ideas so
um a year ago um we actually did this
heck and actually more than one team
came up with this idea to to fill out
forms using AI so we released this
product to the beta users and it was
going well but after a few months we
discovered something uh we discovered
that 90% of the users weren't actually
using it for forms they were using it
for different purpose and only like 10%
of the beta users were actually using it
to get people to fill out forms and what
we discovered was uh most of the people
were actually putting these chat B on
their website or like they were just
linking to it and basically they were
doing like kind of customer service with
it so um and just to give you an example
there was this Museum uh and they
actually added all the knowledge about
all the entes uh they have in the museum
and like people were like just going to
the website and they were asking
questions what we discovered was people
actually prefer to talk to an AI than to
like brow the whole website to find the
information if you think about it now we
are used to this like um like in the
past like you would actually Google
something right uh today people are more
likely to you know go to CPT and ask
them their questions because like you
can just get the question answered
directly as opposed to like browsing 10
different pages and try to figure things
out you can just get the the summary you
can get the final answer and I don't
want to go onto like out of topic but uh
like I have I have three kids two of
them are on uh at elementary school and
like when they do their homework they
are basically using CHP to to ask their
questions and every they using the The
Voice especially because it's just much
easier right just quickly asking okay
what is this like what does this mean
and then they get an answer quickly I
remember when I was a kid like uh there
was no internet uh I didn't even have a
computer when I was in Elementary School
uh I would actually like I had to find
an encyclopedia I had to go to a library
or you know I had to ask a you know ask
my parents or something to find out
about something and a decade ago kids
actually had to like Google things uh to
find things that was much better than
going to a library but it's still you
know compared to talking to CHP it's
still you know much uh it's it's just
like uh uh more difficult compared to
just getting the answer from CHP so if
you think about it people are now used
to talking to uh Ai and they can they
get their answers from AI they are used
to talking to llms uh but if you like
which company actually has an AI agent
you can talk to it I don't I don't think
there you know I I haven't heard many uh
so basically there is this mismatch
there's something missing like you know
people are used to talking to AI to get
their answers but the businesses don't
have ai to to do that so that's the the
goal of J from AI agents what we are
like you know doing with this launch
today is to to be able to really um and
for the first year our goal is to like
like get to like 1 million small
business what if we can actually give
this AI agents to 1 million small
businesses so they can actually put this
AI agent on their website or put put it
on their card or put it yeah just you
know send a link uh over text or
something and get people to like uh get
customer service 24/7 uh all their
questions answer just like talking to
chipd what if you could talk to the
business a small business uh anytime and
you can ask any questions you can fill
out forms you can um just you know uh we
will figure out like what else can be
done and uh you know uh you know sales
probably like the you know maybe data
analysis like there's lots of things uh
you could do with AI agents but we are
starting with customer service one of
the things I I like about this
conversation is you're actually going to
show us and we don't just need to sort
of talk about it theoretically we can
see how this works practically it's like
a AI CEO who's going to actually show
the product which is always cool before
we get into that I have to ask you a
question because this is sort of stuck
with me since you said it you built a AI
product basically for form uh completion
and your customers then sort of hacked
it to do customer service I mean how did
this happen it's actually like even from
day one we had the customer service
aspects but we were thinking okay when
people are filling out filling out the
forms they're going to also have like
questions like they are going to so we
had from the beginning we had the
knowledge based aspects of the product
uh in place so you could upload like
documents uh you could give URL of your
website so that we can craw your website
and learn from it uh you can answer like
questions and answer you can just train
we even implemented this feature where
you can actually talk to your own agent
directly and train it and it's asking
you question like what if someone ask
this question you can role play with
your agent like uh or you can just
instruct the agent to do something and
in the backend is actually building all
these like features like actions it
starts using if you say okay uh if
someone wants to make an appointment
make an appointment and basically uh
like you actually in the backand the AI
agents is actually enabling the
appointment tool so that like people can
actually you know make appointments
using the AI agent so uh um uh so even
from the beginning we always had that
aspect to train it but our goal was to
okay when people are filling out forms
let's give them the right answers right
that was the goal but it turned out that
like people actually discovered this and
then they oh they said they said like
okay this is great I will just use it on
my website forget about the forms just
you know get people ask get people to
you know ask their questions and give
them answers and that's how they used it
and so that's how we are pro uh kind of
releasing the product because people
kind of wanted this product as opposed
to just you know filling out the forms
that is pretty cool so like you as a as
a company that for 19 years was working
to help people fill out forms all of a
sudden you realize that that is
contained within the customer service
realm I mean it was always but you're
with AI you're able to really expand
what you do exactly I mean uh we've been
thinking like we will just help them
with forms uh but it turns out that
people actually
kind of needed this this this as well
yeah great so let's take a look at the
product I'd love to have you share your
screen and sort of let everybody see how
it
works so uh let me start with uh the are
our web page um here we see you know the
um you know an example AI agent
basically one of the things we did was
even though our AI agents kind of tell
you they are an AI agent and um they
they they made sure to mention that they
are an AI agent um that we we wanted to
give them a a feeling of human like we
want them to be like smiling and because
customer service is about like providing
that nice uh support like you know uh
you know providing the those Nic because
like people want to get uh they don't
want to get their question answered but
they also want a good service like uh
uh warm nice service that's why like we
wanted to give these a avatars uh and
and smiling faces and so we can see here
that uh there are like multiple channels
um so basically uh you can use phone um
chatbot uh
WhatsApp uh there's a voice agent uh
messenger and you can even like do this
you know install an app like if you have
a customer that needs to get support
from you uh constantly like they can
just install their the AI agents as an
app uh so I'm going to just uh create my
first AI agents
agent um so here we are I'm creating my
first agent so I first decide on how
what's the primary Channel I will use
this let's say I'm just going to use the
standal on agent
type and uh I'm going to start from
scratch I could choose use like I could
start with a form uh use one of our
templates or like like clone an agent is
kind of like you know you kind of it's
it actually gets your information and
basically and I'm actually uh doing that
on my on my web page iek in tank.com if
you want to see an example like you can
just talk to my clone and you know I
train with my articles uh and my
knowledge so that people can actually
talk to it and you know even if they if
they want to connect me they can
actually uh use that to ask me questions
as well voice and
chat um yeah it's it's also chat yeah
it's a chatting AI agent um so I'm just
going to uh I prepared a prompt summer
camp agent to help with questions from
parents and students so this is the
agent I'm
creating and so now this is creating uh
Ani agent for me basically from my
prompt and here I am um so you know as I
mentioned we wanted to have that feeling
of like you know okay even though this
is AI like this is a nice AI like this
is smiling and like body posture uh
friendly and uh we we can customize a
agent uh like we you know we could pick
different avars or uh we could give like
a different
colors uh if you want to use the voice
agent or the phone agent we can pick one
of the
uh uh different uh you know options uh
from and um different voice options yeah
uh so here we are uh we could enter
knowledge uh we we could crawl our
website we could upload files we could
provide a question and answers and I'm
just going to provide like you know the
summer camp um
starts uh on June
1st
okay just just to show you how to
basically you know uh how to use and I
was talking about this uh like how we
can actually talk to our own agents here
we are uh like just you know uh it's I'm
basically talking to this agent as the
as the owner of the agent as the manager
of the agent so it's asking me question
uh but basically I want to tell it okay
uh can you change your name change your
name uh what can we change the name to
um any any opinions Jimmy I feel like
Jimmy is a good camp name
okay
uh okay
so it actually you know CH it's changing
its name from Sunny to G so basically I
see AI is uh a way for us to kind of um
also be the user interface like the
conversation could be the user interface
and AI actually gives us that promise
like if you think about it in the past
uh like just uh people have been having
trouble using uh software because it's
just you know you have to learn software
but uh with AI
the AI could be the user interface
between people and the software so that
like you could just ask it what you want
and then it can actually instruct the
software to do those changes so I think
that's another possibility for AI to
make our lives easier I was going to ask
you you know when it comes to agents we
always think that it's not just adding a
knowledge base and having it do customer
service but actually taking action on
our behalf and maybe you got to you
already got the answer to my question
because you showed that this agent not
only will answer questions but also be
able to operate software in its own
right yeah yeah so there are uh
different tools and options um like you
know appointments uh you could connect
it with with Google Calendar so that you
can it can take appointments um so and
actions are more about like you know uh
you could give it like this um if and
then condition like if people talk about
this maybe do this like give them this
answer things like that so uh and um and
I want to show you the you mentioned
that the you know the voice agent the
phone agent let's try the voice agent
hello I'm Jimmy your friendly AI agent
for summer camp inquiries how can I help
you uh when is the start
date the summer camp starts on June 1st
do you have any other questions about
the camp no thank
you you're welcome if you have any more
questions in the future feel free to
reach
out that is pretty cool Jimmy gets it
done yes it does uh yeah so this was
example
and um
yeah I do really uh like the fact that
you could call them to me you know we we
did a recent show talking about how
effectively the ability to talk to chat
PT with voice or even the promise of it
help chat GPT go from 100 uh million
users to 300 million wow and you know
when I see this and they also they know
that and that's why they released their
own 1800 chat GPT and when I see this it
does look like a 1800 chat GPT
effectively for all businesses which is
pretty cool yeah I mean if you think
about it um when you call a company uh a
business like you have to wait on the
line for like I was just going to say
this is so much better than the phone
trees you know press seven press zero
and then you press like 17 buttons and
then it hangs up on you
yeah and and basically uh because it's
AI uh it will just pick up instantly
because there's no like there's no
reason to wait like there's no limited
number of people uh and uh it it's also
you know it will understand what you are
seeing is opposed to uh like you know
pick different numbers and and um yeah I
think it's it's it's great for uh
especially for small businesses who H
who don't have the resources to have uh
you know those like 247 you know call
lines right so we had uh Sebastian SEI
and Kowski from Clara on the show a
couple months ago and he talked about
how he's used AI to replace a lot of
customer service um I imagine that this
will replace phone trees first right so
stuff that's already been automated but
automated poorly um it's natural for AI
to step in and and fix that which seems
to it seems like you have a ve very big
Market opportunity ahead of you on that
front but I also wonder about like human
customer service agents um what happens
to
them um so while when we actually
pivoted to uh like customer service uh
one of the things we did was we we
actually have a large customer service
team like 200 uh employees and uh
basically we started kind of um using
our own agents for customer service but
we didn't actually do that by we we
didn't you know lay off anybody or
anything like that we actually want um
we actually started providing more
service to our customers like you know
we had limited service like we didn't
have a phone support line for example we
also didn't have a chatbot on our
website to help people uh with their Ser
with
questions we also uh like um so we we
actually added additional like uh
options for our customers to get support
and um also on our you know support uh
part we actually uh started like you
know creating drafts for our support
team so that you know when they're
answering questions uh so that they
don't have to spend so much time like
dra like for the initial draft and then
once they have that initial draft of the
answer they can actually improve that
manually and uh it it also it was also
feedback for us to improve our product
but it's it also uh kind of uh helped
our support team become better which
meant that we we were able to provide a
faster uh we were able to increase our
support times support uh response times
and uh and you know our support team was
actually happier to be able to uh like
just you know uh spend their time more
on like you know providing better uh
support uh to our users and also like
and and I think this is this is uh
really more useful to kind of uh small
businesses which kind of replaces
non-usage like there's no support line
for a small business there's no like
sales line right there's no pre-sales
line because the you you know a small
business cannot put uh they they don't
have resources to put like you know the
phone line but with this uh with a very
fraction of the cost instead of hiring
someone full-time they're able to so
this is actually I feel like this is
actually replacing non uh usage non
option like uh replacing the options
that doesn't uh there you know creating
new options for for companies to provide
so it's um I think it's increas in the
level of service people uh the companies
can provide that's very interesting so
you would think that the default is I
have an agent that can do service
therefore I don't need to have customer
service people but that would only make
sense if you assume like service is
complete or everybody's as satisfied as
they can be with service and the truth
is that uh customer service is like one
of the most important things that a
business does like customer experience
is a big part of the reason people make
purchase decisions and if you can make
it better
then you're going to be better off or if
you can add it in a place where you
didn't have it before if you're a
nonprofit for instance and you can fill
uh a voice agent with your knowledge
base and upcoming dates and things like
that and allow even maybe even allow
your um your constituency to take action
then you're you're really in business
there so I want to I want to end with um
just like we love to dream at the end of
the show so let's kind of talk a little
bit about where this might go um I I
mentioned at the top you know maybe it
ends up in sales maybe it ends up in
education where are the various like
permutations of these type of Agents uh
going to show up next after customer
service um I feel like it's it's going
to you know uh and uh I think customer
servic is pretty pretty large topic so
it could include like uh pre-sales
questions and you know appointments all
all kinds of different use cases so it's
just like even that topic includes like
so many things but but I think the next
next one is like sales right how can you
do sales and it's again like there's
this uh there's this term called like
you know lead qualification right you
qualify leads why do you need to qualify
leads why don't you like treat everyone
equally and if you cannot serve everyone
if you cannot provide everyone like a
you know human
salesperson uh just provide them like
this AI service person uh so it's like
in many areas like we because we are
limited by the amount of time and
resources we have uh we are we are not
actually doing a great job uh we are not
doing a great job in customer service we
are not doing a great job in
sales in many aspects like we are not
doing a great job so uh AI agents can
actually uh make it uh much better and
uh help us you know provide a better uh
service in in all kinds of uh different
things so product launches today yeah
okay great and if people are interested
in learning more where do they go uh
yeah they can just go to jotform.com and
uh they will you know they will find uh
jform AI agents there uh and uh I will
also provide the link uh for our for our
uh you know for the video description uh
for you great uh yeah all right you
heard to here first the plat form is on
jotform.com the CEO is ien tank and uh
iin great to see you thank you for being
here thank you Alex for having me all
right and hey look first Dave with the
product we got the demo here on the
channel doesn't get better than that all
right everybody thank you for watching
we'll be back on the Channel with
another video soon