NiCE World 2026 Concludes with AI Agent Demonstrations

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Continuing with the theme that artificial intelligence, particularly agentic AI, is having a transformative impact on customer experience, Jeff Comstock, president of product and technology at NiCE, noted during the opening keynote on the final day of NiCE World 2026 that every customer interaction is a chance to deliver an amazing experience, earn loyalty, and grow revenue.

"But when that moment is not well executed, the cost is real. You can lose the customer. That's why this moment matters so much. Agentic AI is fundamentally changing customer experience," he said.

Comstock cited a Stanford University study that showed that AI is accelerating and reaching more people than ever. Generative AI reached 53 percent adoption within three years, faster than any other highly touted technologies.

"We are experiencing a once-in-a-generation transformation," Comstock continued. "AI agents are moving from answering questions to completing real work. They can understand complex intents, reason for the next-best action, connect third-party systems, make governed decisions, and execute multi-step workflows autonomously."

As a result, AI agents are enabling companies to scale customer service in ways that human agents never could, he added, noting that service becomes proactive and the workforce scales instantly.

Comstock also said that AI connects fragmented CX and other systems while orchestrating intelligence across the entire customer experience. "That's where a connected platform changes the game, where the three pillars of customer engagement work together: Agentic experience automation with AI agents instantly and proactively resolve customer needs," he stated.

Philipp Heltewig, NiCE's chief AI officer, headed a team of company executives highlighting how AI agents could help people reschedule flights and deal with other complexities following a major storm that shuts down Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The demonstration used voice interactions with an AI agent to show how different situations would be handled.

Though the theoretical agent was with a single AI agent, Heltewig said multiple AI agents handled different tasks in the background, noting that a single AI agent trying to solve all off those complexities would be too unwieldy.

Though the shutdown and CX examples were theoretical, Heltewig said that all of the capabilities demonstrated are possible today, not at some undetermined time in the future.

He added that agentic analytics underpin all of the AI agent capabilities. "This is how the company knew that the disruption could be handled by AI, though in some instances a human agent would be involved as well."

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