Nigel Lindsay-Smith, managing director for Australia and New Zealand at contact centre software maker NICE, used CX Day on Oct. 6 to tell enterprises to get ready for customers who send AI agents to deal with them. His argument concerns contact volume. When an agent handles the waiting and the follow-up for a customer, that customer stops rationing how often they get in touch.
The comment was sent to MarTech Edition for CX Day, which the Customer Experience Professionals Association marks on the first Tuesday of October.
What Lindsay-Smith said
He described the cost customers carry today. “Until now, every call, chat or email has cost the customer something: patience, time away from their kids and, all too often, a 40-minute wait on hold,” he said. “Personal AI agents remove that cost. An agent doesn’t get bored on hold, doesn’t mind retrying, and can hunt down a better offer whilst it waits.”
The consequence he draws is a rise in contact volume. “When the cost of asking drops to near zero, people ask a lot more. That’s a big opportunity for the enterprises ready to answer,” he said.
Why he points at Meta Muse
The product he names is already live in one market. Meta released Muse, a personal AI agent, in the United States on Sept. 8, according to Fox Business. The report says Muse can send emails, book travel, sell a car and lower a bill on a person’s behalf, works through a Muse app or WhatsApp, and launched only in the U.S.
Lindsay-Smith reads that U.S.-only launch as time for Australian companies to prepare. “Australia doesn’t have Meta Muse yet, and that gives retailers, banks and healthcare providers a real head start,” he said. “Build the front door now: one controlled entry point that authenticates the person behind every agent and routes every request, human or AI, to the right place.”
What this means for CX and marketing teams
His recommendation has two parts a buyer can check against current tools: whether the service stack can verify the customer behind an agent’s request, and whether one routing layer sends agent traffic and human traffic to the same place. A request to lower a bill, one of the tasks Fox Business lists, typically lands with a retention team, so its offers and save rules would be read by software as well as by people.
He closed with a claim about who wins: “The enterprises that answer well at any volume will be the ones to define the next generation of great customer service.”
NICE sells contact centre and customer service software, including AI agents for service teams, so a rise in contact volume is a market it serves. Teams weighing his advice can start with the two checks above before Muse or a similar agent reaches their market.
Source: Fox Business, Meta introduces Muse, a personal AI agent that can send emails, book travel; CXPA, CX Day Is Coming on Tuesday, October 6th; comment from Nigel Lindsay-Smith, Managing Director ANZ, NICE, sent to MarTech Edition for CX Day 2026
