Webex Dialog targets long-tail customer relationships with AI

Agentic AI seems to have forced some convergence of service and CRM -- as well as agent orchestration and governance. If it all isn't converging, it certainly overlaps.

At its WebexOne user conference in Austin, Texas, today, Cisco Webex previewed Dialog, which it describes as an agentic CX harness with beta availability anticipated in Q1 2027. Dialog is designed to harness and orchestrate AI agents while maintaining customer context across interactions, systems and time.

Historically, dedicated relationship managers could connect those interactions for only a limited number of customers. Cisco's premise is that AI can extend that kind of coordination across a much larger customer base.

Using the example of an airline customer who missed a flight, Vinod Muthukrishnan, vice president and general manager of Webex customer experience, said that Cisco had previously focused on individual customer journeys with tools such as AI Concierge -- to execute processes such as a ticket refund and flight rebooking to return the passenger home.

"For the customer, thousands of interactions -- these hundreds of journeys through a lifetime -- come together to form one continuous relationship," Muthukrishnan said. "So far, we've used AI to optimize the conversation of the journey, but ... ultimately it's one customer relationship you need to tend to."

Cisco says Dialog will assemble a customer's many journeys to build business context from existing data such as purchase history and service interactions. With governance and security on top, Cisco says agents working together through Dialog will be able to stitch together fragmented context, maintain a longitudinal view of the customer relationship and take actions on the customer's behalf.

Separately, Cisco announced planned A2A and MCP support intended to connect AI agents with other agents and enterprise systems.

Cisco says Dialog could continue working with agents and people until a customer's desired outcome is reached, onboard new agents, learn from customer journeys, human judgment and exceptions and maintain context across channels, systems and time.

For the customer, thousands of interactions -- these hundreds of journeys through a lifetime -- come together to form one continuous relationship.

Another Dialog capability, Relationship Context, is intended to give agents a longitudinal view of the customer relationship by synthesizing data across channels and over time. That context could help Webex fill a gap in the CX tech stack, said Robin Gareiss, CEO and principal analyst for Metrigy.

"The pairing of Relationship Context is what [enhances] the offering because it provides the context that Dialog needs to empower the agents," Gareiss said. "In our research, only 35% of companies' AI systems and platforms maintain full context across interactions and workflows today."

Harness, orchestration converging?

All of this cross-organizational agentic activity looks like service and CRM collapsing into one. Furthermore, it can sometimes be difficult for users to see where AI orchestration tools end and the harness begins, Gareiss said.

The wide variety of vendors offering agent harnesses -- combined with orchestration and governance tools -- might be overwhelming. Many companies currently see value in buying as many applications and platforms as possible from a single vendor, although vendor sprawl may be inevitable. Picking which harness to use, though, could be an easy decision.

"The average number of AI vendors in a typical company's CX stack is 12 already, and just under half [of companies] plan to increase next year," Gareiss said. "They usually have one vendor they consider to be their primary CX provider -- the one that everyone else must integrate with -- whether it is a CRM, CCaaS, or AI agent vendor. I would expect them to use the agentic harness from that vendor because AI and CX are so tightly coupled."

Context is becoming a key ingredient in enterprise AI. In this Targeting AI podcast video, Celonis CEO and co-founder Alex Rinke explains why AI agents need business context to understand workflows, make better decisions and deliver measurable results.

Don Fluckinger is a seasoned B2B technology journalist with over 30 years of experience specializing in enterprise IT, digital experience and content management. As a senior news writer at Informa TechTarget, he delivers award-winning analysis that helps IT and business leaders navigate complex technologies to enhance customer and employee experiences. Got a tip? Email him.