Charting the future of AI agents at eTail Boston

The big idea: AI agents you can trust at enterprise scale

At Sendbird, we’re building the industry’s first foundational system to make AI agents accountable, responsible, and ready for enterprise scale. Accuracy alone is not enough. AI agents must act with your brand voice, operate within your compliance framework, and deliver results you can trust in real-world, high-stakes customer conversations.

A success story: Partnering for real impact

One example I shared during the panel was our work with a large national retailer that recently adopted Sendbird’s ecommerce AI agent. The partnership was built on showing up not just when the stakes were high, but at every stage from pre-production through launch and beyond.

From the outset, we worked closely with teams across the organization to ensure the AI agent would deliver the biggest possible impact during the proof-of-value stage, while setting a strong foundation for growth with AI in retail operations. Transparency was central to the process. The client had full visibility into how the AI agent was built, tested, and evaluated, which increased confidence in its ability to deliver a successful agentic AI implementation.

The AI agent’s role went far beyond customer service. By connecting service with other parts of the business, it helped transform the customer experience into a driver of both loyalty and revenue.

What we have learned about successful AI vendor partnerships

Working with buyers evaluating AI for critical use cases has shown us patterns in what makes partnerships work and what does not.

1. Build the right buying committee

The best buying committees are cross-functional but need one clear owner who drives scope, pushes decisions forward, and becomes the internal champion. This person, often a product leader, brings together teams from data, compliance, operations, and customer experience to align early on success metrics.

Our role at Sendbird is to help that champion build momentum and remove blockers. The best teams evaluate not just the product but the foundation:

• Is the AI agent trustworthy in real customer conversations?

• Is the infrastructure built for speed, scale, and control?

• Is this a platform that can grow with you?

• Will the partner be there after launch, or disappear once the contract is signed?
  

2. Fit into the customer’s ecosystem

We know success depends not only on what our AI agent can do, but also on how well it integrates with a customer’s existing systems. That’s why we start with deep discovery by observing teams, mapping systems, and identifying pain points.

We have built our AI agent to be fully interoperable, with flexible orchestration that connects to CRMs, helpdesks, knowledge management tools, retail APIs, and first-party systems. The goal is to meet the customer, and their data, where they are today without requiring a rip-and-replace.

3. Know when to go unified

We’ve seen many retailers reach a tipping point where specialized vendors slow them down. Fragmented tools create bottlenecks and operational drag. A unified platform speeds deployment, improves reliability, and ensures clear accountability. When one team owns the full stack, you can move faster across systems and decisions.

4. Earn trust by showing, not telling

AI today is crowded with big claims. We expect skepticism, and we welcome it. That’s why we created Trust OS, the foundational system behind every phase of our AI agent lifecycle.

Before deployment, AI agents go through simulation, evaluation, and safeguard testing, with full observability for the customer. After launch, we enable grading, monitoring, and improvement because even great AI needs a manager. We surface edge cases early, provide granular control, and give teams the tools to roll back instantly if needed.

5. Execute with discipline

We define success up front with shared KPIs, clear roadmaps, and agreed milestones. Our Forward Deployment Team works side-by-side with customers, both virtually and on-site, to make sure every phase of the rollout delivers measurable impact.

This is where our years of experience in the conversation space give us a distinct advantage. Sendbird has supported billions of conversations every month across multiple channels, and we have seen firsthand how customer service interactions have evolved. From single-channel transactions to omnichannel, highly personalized engagements that connect customers with a brand on their terms.

That perspective allows us to see the bigger picture. We understand that conversations are not limited to the customer service desk. They’re touchpoints that span marketing, sales, operations, and post-purchase support. Every interaction has the potential to deepen a connection and build brand loyalty, and our implementation approach reflects that.

A typical on-site engagement follows a tight, outcomes-focused schedule:

• Before: Align scope, integrate APIs, set up authentication, and gather tone and brand guidelines to ensure the AI agent sounds and acts like the brand from day one.
  

• During: Build, test, and complete end-to-end evaluations with real scenarios and edge cases, using our proven playbook refined through years of deployments.
  

• After: Maintain regular check-ins to iterate quickly, monitor performance, and capture early wins.
  

Our experience across billions of conversations means we do not just execute the plan. We help customers future-proof their AI agent so it can adapt as customer expectations, channels, and interaction patterns continue to evolve.

6. True partnership means shared accountability

A provider delivers a product. A partner co-owns the outcome. We embed deeply with customers, define impact metrics together, and share best practices from across industries. This means rethinking workflows, shaping AI-human hybrid operating models, and ensuring AI delivers real business results.

AI is still new, and we’re all figuring it out together. We’ve worked with teams across retail, on-demand services, fintech, and healthcare, and we bring those lessons to every engagement. We share best practices, help customers transform human workflows into agentic systems, and even help reimagine what an organization can look like in an AI-human hybrid world. This isn’t just about delivering technology. It’s about shaping how teams work and succeed in a new era.

7. Look past the demo

Flashy demos are easy. Real deployment is hard. Complexity lives in the exceptions, from regulatory restrictions to unique operational rules. We design for these from day one, mapping them into the AI workflow to prevent costly problems later.

We’ve seen it firsthand:

• In Korea, high-rise deliveries require elevator trucks that charge by floor and access windows, adding complex delivery rules.

• Regulated products like alcohol or medical supplies cannot ship to restricted states, which requires multiple compliance checks throughout the process.

• A return tied to a promo the customer no longer qualifies for can create exceptions that break automated workflows if not handled correctly.

• Sensitive products like prescriptions or optical goods require extra verification and human oversight to ensure safety and compliance.

That’s why our playbook is designed to map and build for these complexities before launch.

The road ahead

eTail Boston confirmed what we have seen firsthand: the companies that will win with AI are those that combine ambition with responsibility and choose partners who will be there long after launch.

Sendbird’s AI agents, built on Trust OS, are designed for exactly that. Whether it’s a national retailer or the next forward-thinking brand, our commitment is the same: show up, move fast, and deliver AI agents you can trust to drive your business forward.