AI & Customer Support Glossary

Key terms and definitions for AI-powered customer support, automation, and service operations.

By Palak Dalal Bhatia, CEO & Co-founder, IrisAgent · Last updated October 20, 2026

AI Agent Assist for Customer Support: Real-Time Help

AI agent assist drafts grounded, real-time replies inside your help desk so agents resolve tickets faster. See how it works, top use cases,...

AI Agent vs Chatbot vs Copilot: Key Differences

AI agents act, chatbots answer, copilots assist a human. Compare autonomy, accuracy, cost, and setup side by side, and see which one fits e...

AI Ticket Prioritization: How It Works

How ML and NLP score support tickets, route them to the right skills, and improve SLA compliance inside your existing helpdesk.

Average Handle Time (AHT): Formula, Call Center Benchmarks & Tips

AHT = (talk + hold + after-call work) / contacts. Get the formula with phone, chat and email examples, call center benchmarks by channel an...

Understanding AI Hallucinations: Challenges and Solutions for Users

Explore AI hallucinations, their challenges, and practical solutions for users. Enhance your understanding and navigate this complex issue....

What Are AI Tokens? A Plain-English Guide for Support Leaders

AI tokens are the units of text that LLMs read, write, and bill for. Learn how tokenization works, input vs output tokens, context windows,...

What is AI Agent Handoff? Definition, Types, and Best Practices

AI agent handoff is the moment an AI assistant transfers a conversation to a human or another agent, with full context. Learn the definitio...

What Is AI Agent Memory in Customer Support?

AI agent memory lets a support agent remember the customer across messages and sessions. Learn the three types, why it is the new battlegro...

What Is AI Deflection Rate? How to Measure and Report It

AI deflection rate is the share of support contacts handled without a human. Learn the formula, benchmarks, how to report it to leadership,...

What Is an AI Hallucination? Definition, Causes & Examples

Why a support chatbot confidently invents a refund policy that does not exist, and what actually stops it: the four root causes of AI hallu...

What Is Auto-QA (Automated Quality Assurance)?

Auto-QA uses AI to score 100% of support conversations against your quality rubric, across voice, chat, email, and tickets. Definition, how...

What Is BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) in Customer Support?

BPO (business process outsourcing) means contracting a third party to run a business function such as customer support. Learn the types of ...

Context Management in AI Conversations: How It Works, With Examples

Context management turns stateless LLMs into coherent multi-turn assistants. See the framework for history, memory, and tools, plus example...

What Is a Canned Response? Examples, Best Practices & AI Alternatives

A canned response is a pre-written reply support agents reuse for common questions. See examples, best practices, where canned responses fa...

What Is Contextual Analysis in Customer Support AI?

Contextual analysis is how support AI interprets a message using conversation history, account data, prior tickets, and tone. Learn how it ...

What Is Conversational AI Design? A Complete Guide for CX Leaders

Learn what conversational AI design is, why it matters for customer support, and the five key principles that separate great AI experiences...

What is Conversational AI? Explore Benefits & Uses in Customer Service

Explore the benefits, needs, and implementation of conversational AI for customer service. Know how it's essential for enhancing customer e...

What Is Conversational Commerce and Why Does It Matter for Brands?

A plain definition of conversational commerce: what the term means, how messaging apps, chatbots, and AI turned conversation into a sales c...

What Is CSaaS (Customer Support as a Service)? A 2026 Buyer's Guide

CSaaS explained: managed service vs software platform, vendor landscape (Wonderful AI, Crescendo, 14.ai), pricing, and how to evaluate for ...

What is CSAT Score? How to Measure Customer Satisfaction

Learn what a CSAT score is and how to effectively measure customer satisfaction. Discover practical tips to enhance your customer experienc...

What Is Customer Effort Score (CES)? How to Measure and Improve It

Learn what Customer Effort Score (CES) is, how to calculate it, and proven strategies to reduce customer effort. Includes benchmarks, surve...

Demystifying AI Copilots: What Is AI Copilot and Its Role in Tech?

Explore the capabilities and benefits of an AI copilot in this detailed guide. Understand how this cutting-edge technology assists professi...

First Call Resolution (FCR): Definition, Formula & Benchmarks

First call resolution (FCR) explained: the formula, 2026 industry benchmarks, and 7 proven ways to raise your team's FCR rate without slowi...

First Response Time (FRT): What It Is & How to Improve

Understand first response time (FRT) in support. Learn what good FRT looks like, how to measure it, and how to improve it with AI.

Grounding LLMs: Innovating Performance and Productivity

Discover how Grounding LLMs is revolutionizing performance and productivity. Our article explores innovative techniques, the latest advance...

What Is Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS)? Framework for AI-Era Support

Explore the benefits and importance of Knowledge Centered Service (KCS) in enhancing customer support. Read the article to boost your servi...

Understanding LLM: Large Language Model

Discover the world of Large Language Models (LLMs) with our in-depth guide. Learn about their applications, impact, and how they're shaping...

What Is MTTR Customer Support? (Mean Time to Resolution Explained)

Discover the significance of MTTR in customer support and how it affects service efficiency. Learn more about its impact and importance in ...

NLP vs. LLMs: How Modern AI Chatbots Really Work

NLP vs. LLMs, explained for support leaders: what each one does, how they work together inside AI chatbots, and where production systems st...

What is NLU: Explore the Core of Natural Language Understanding

Explore the essentials of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) in this detailed guide. Learn how NLU powers AI to interpret human language,...

What Is Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)?

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is an AI technique that retrieves relevant information from an external knowledge source at query time...

Ticket Deflection: Definition, Formula & Tips

Discover how ticket deflection can enhance your support efficiency and reduce workload. Learn strategies to implement it effectively. Read ...

Ticket Triage Meaning: Benefits & Applications In Support Tickets

Ticket triage sorts, prioritizes, and routes every incoming ticket. Get the urgency-by-impact prioritization matrix, the 14 ticket types wo...

What Is Telephony? Cloud Telephony, VoIP & AI Voice Agents Explained

Telephony is the technology that carries voice calls. Learn how it evolved from PSTN and PBX to VoIP and cloud telephony, the building bloc...

What Is Ticket Routing? Definition, Methods & Best Practices

Ticket routing is the process of assigning each support request to the right agent, team, or queue based on the issue, customer, and capaci...

What Is Voice AI? Definition, How It Works & Use Cases

Voice AI lets people interact with software by speaking, using AI to understand a caller, decide a response, and reply in a natural voice. ...

What Counts as a Resolution in AI Support (and What Should Not)

What counts as a resolution in AI support: a grounded answer with no handoff, stall, or red flag. Handoffs, clarifying questions, and previ...

What Is WISMO (Where Is My Order)? Definition & How AI Resolves It

WISMO (where is my order) is the most common e-commerce support request. Learn what drives WISMO tickets, how to measure and reduce them, a...