Forethought Introduces Voice, Becoming the First Complete Agentic AI Platform Across All CX Channels

Forethought Voice delivers instant phone support with no decision trees, reducing costs and boosting customer satisfaction

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Forethought, the leader in agentic AI for customer support, today announced the launch of Forethought Voice to its multi-agent, multi-channel AI for CX platform.

“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.”

With Autoflows, Forethought’s advanced agentic reasoning engine, businesses of all sizes can offer fully autonomous customer support. Forethought instantly resolves complex issues, answers questions with precision, and takes action–like checking order statuses or updating account details — without a human agent.

According to a new Forethought survey, most consumers (60%) believe the phone is the most effective channel for resolving an issue. 58% say it’s easier for an agent to understand how they feel, 53% say it’s faster, and 53% say it’s easier to communicate over the phone compared to other customer service channels, like chat, SMS, or email. At the same time, many consumers like the written record provided by online chat (46%) and the ability to multi-task while getting customer service (31%), reinforcing the importance of a multi-channel CX strategy.

“Previously, enterprises with large call centers were stuck relying on legacy call center technologies that were not AI-native,” said Nicholas. “Meanwhile, midsize companies with smaller CX teams struggled to meet demand for customer service calls. Now, AI can seamlessly scale support across any channel while improving customer interactions.”

The benefits for businesses with significant voice support operations are clear. According to Forethought research, 72% of companies using agentic AI reported a positive or highly positive impact on their issue resolution costs, compared to only 49% of companies not using agentic AI.

"I’m impressed by how thoughtful and natural the responses sound, especially the empathetic touches like ‘I’m sorry, that's frustrating,’” said Colin Smyth, associate product manager at KOHO, a fintech company that uses Forethought. “The quality of the answers is excellent — clear, relevant, and genuinely helpful."

Forethought partnered with Cartesia, a real-time voice AI company, to power its voice AI agents and deliver an exceptional voice experience. Cartesia’s model sounds natural, performs consistency, and maintains low latency, ensuring seamless conversations every time.

"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. We're excited to partner with Forethought to power conversational experiences that are as seamlessly natural as they are consistently dependable."

With Forethought, businesses can now provide 24/7 support across chat, email, SMS, and phone while reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction, and freeing human agents to focus on more high-value activities.

“This is going to keep changing how we do things. This is the next big thing," said Stan Gromer, director of customer service technology and innovation at Upwork, a Forethought customer.

Read Forethought’s new State of Voice CX study and learn more about Forethought Voice here.

About Forethought

Launched in 2018, Forethought is the most advanced agentic AI suite for customer support, trained on proprietary data. The company powers support for leading customer-centric organizations like Upwork, Grammarly, and iFit, and has raised $90M+ in venture capital from leading investors, including NEA, Sound Ventures, and Operator Collective. Forethought has been recognized by G2 as a High Performer in 2024 and Mid-Market Leader, Best Est. ROI, and Easiest to do Business With in Customer Support for 2025.