RingCentral Launches AIR Pro For Agentic Voice AI At Scale

RingCentral recently launched AIR Pro, a voice-first omnichannel AI agent and orchestration studio for the agentic era. While RingCentral AIR (AI Receptionist) is ideal for intelligent call routing and Tier 1 customer support request, AIR Pro autonomously resolves more complicated customer interactions and supports businesses across every phase of the agentic AI journey. 

AIR Pro and its corresponding suite of voice AI tools empower teams to build, test, deploy, manage, monitor, and improve AI agents at scale. It handles multi-system and multi-step workflows, integrating with over 100 third-party tools. It is available as a standalone AI Receptionist, as well as a paid add-on for RingEX and enterprise RingCX users.  

In RingCentral's March 18 episode of AI Real Talk, President and COO Kira Makagon also highlighted RingCentral AVA (AI Virtual Agent) and RingCentral ACE (AI Conversation Expert). Together, AIR Pro, AVA, and ACE create a human-in-the-loop agentic voice AI suite for the entire customer journey.

RingCentral AIR Pro

Steven Zachok, VP and GM of AI, and John Finch, Global VP of Product Marketing, outlined AIR Pro's key differentiators. 

AIR Pro Studio, a no-code AI agent design tool, leverages AI to help end users create fully custom or template-based AI agents.  Simplicity is paramount here: users can describe what they'd like the AI agent to be able to do (and what it should not be able to do), and AIR Pro automatically creates the agent.

In the Studio, users can create AI agent tasks, assign agent skills and personalities, integrate third-party tools for deeper and more personalized support , assign agents to specific communication channels, and specify greetings and communication styles. Users can also upload knowledge base material from multiple platforms, including SharePoint and web pages, to create a single source of truth for AI agents. Before deployment, users can text these AI agents, review agent decision trees/rationale, and see how well the AI agent handles edge cases. 

The AIR Pro Studio also includes AI agent analytics like request volume, top request drivers, request status, and more. 

Importantly, RingCentral AIR Pro also provides vertical-specific AI agents with custom-built templates and integration with industry specific applications. The first of these is RingCentral AIR Pro for Healthcare, with planned vertical expansions for retail, financial services, and professional services.

RingCentral AVA

RingCentral AVA is a virtual assistant providing real-time conversation summaries with key takeaways and highlight reels, language translation, automated message drafting,  task assistance, smart prompting, and proactive next-best-action suggestions. 

By putting trusted voice intelligence at employees’ fingertips, AVA makes work more productive and empowering. AVA is your personal virtual assistant that enables you to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.

Kira Makagon

President & COO, RingCentral

Kira Makagon

RingCentral ACE 

RingCentral ACE is an AI conversation expert and automated agent coaching tool. Businesses can uncover insights like common customer objections and call drivers, top moments of customer frustration, trending topics, risk signals, customer sentiment and CSAT, competitor analysis, and more.

RingCentral ACE offers both AI-generated and human-led agent coaching. Top features include customizable agent scorecards, more detailed team +  individual agent monthly performance reviews, agent strengths and weaknesses, agent speaking metrics, and the ability to leave timestamped agent feedback. 

Analyst Take: What This Means For The Market

RingCentral's suite of Voice AI tools differentiates itself from competitors by offering options for both SMBs and enterprises. The downside is that, since it's available only as an add-on as of this writing, RingCentral AIR Pro gets expensive fast.

Positioning AIR Pro as a paid add-on, not a native capability, may not be as much of an issue for larger businesses and enterprises. But for mid-market buyers and small teams stacking costs on top of existing RingEX or RingCX contract?  It may be a bigger problem. RingCentral risks ceding that segment to leaner AI voice platforms that aren't carrying the overhead of a full UCaaS platform.

Still, the vertical-specific AIR Pro receptionists stand out. Healthcare is the right starting point, with high call volumes, hefty regulations, and desperately understaffed teams. If RingCentral can demonstrate fast deployment and measurable deflection in a HIPAA-compliant environment, the retail and financial services expansions will be much easier to sell. 

With AIR Pro, RingCentral is making a smart (though overdue) move to position itself as a full-stack voice AI  platform, not just a UCaaS and CCaaS platform with bolt-on AI capabilities. Together, AIR Pro, AVA, and ACE create a more coherent agentic CX architecture than anything RingCentral has brought to market before. The goal here is to help businesses avoid having to hire a team of developers while still automating outcomes. AIR Pro is a good option for businesses that aren't yet ready to hand full autonomy to AI agents, but that can't afford (in cash or competitiveness) to keep every workflow staffed by humans alone.