AI customer support agents
They answer from your knowledge base, check the customer's order or account in your systems, resolve what your rules allow and open a ticket or hand over for everything else.
Explore AI support agents
AI agent development services: custom agents that do the work and belong to you
We build AI agents that answer customers, qualify leads and clear back-office work, then hand you the keys.
CBWhatsApp
AI agent
Chloe Bennett
Chloe Bennett: Hi! Order #4821 still hasn't arrived and I need it for Friday.
- Checked order #4821 in the store
AI agent: It shipped on Tuesday and the courier has it arriving Thursday, a day before you need it. Here's your tracking link.
Chloe Bennett: Perfect. Could I swap it to black?
- Exchange filed for your team to approve
AI agent: I've filed the swap to black. Someone from the team will confirm it shortly, right here in this chat.
- You own the agent and its code
- Runs on your cloud or ours
- Tested on your real conversations before launch
- Built by a team that runs AI agents in production
Who hires us to build AI agents
Most teams call us after an off-the-shelf chatbot hit its limit. The job needed an agent that could look things up, take action and know when to stop.
Support leads
Customers get the answer, not a promise that someone will get back to them.
The agent checks the order or account before it replies, fixes what your rules allow and hands the rest to your team with the details filled in.
Marketing and growth
Every campaign reply answered while the buyer is still interested.
The agent answers from the offer, asks your qualifying questions and books the call. Content and SEO agents draft the weekly work for your team to review.
Sales
Qualified buyers on your calendar, and fewer browsers.
The agent sorts serious buyers from browsers, books the meeting with the right salesperson and follows up with the ones who went quiet.
Operations
The forms, documents and data entry off your team's desk.
Back-office agents read, check and move the work between your systems, and a person approves anything that costs money.
Founders and CTOs
An AI agent your own engineers can run and change after launch.
You get the code, the instructions and the test cases, running on your cloud or on ours.
Custom AI agents we build for your business
Every agent is built around your process, your data and your rules, and connected to the systems your team already uses. Your team can see what it did and step in at any point.
AI marketing and sales agents
They work every reply your campaigns start on WhatsApp, Instagram and your website, and pass interested buyers to sales with the conversation attached.
Lead qualification and sales funnel. The agent sorts serious buyers from browsers, books the meeting with the right person and follows up with the ones who went quiet.
Explore AI marketing agents
AI automation behind the scenes
Content and SEO agents
They draft and refresh content against your brief and brand voice, track the searches you want to win and queue the work for your team to approve.
Back-office automation agents
They read forms and documents, enter and check data across your systems and move each item to the next step. A person signs off on anything that costs money.
Connected to the systems you already run
An agent that can check stock, a booking or an account finishes the job. One that cannot will only promise a callback. We connect yours to the tools you choose, including your own database and internal APIs.
- Your CRM
- Bookings and calendars
- Your store or ERP
- Your database and APIs
How our AI agents work, from first message to finished task
Every customer-facing agent we build runs the same five steps. What makes it yours is what sits behind each one: your knowledge, your systems and your approval rules.
A customer writes in
Website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram or LINE
It understands the request in the customer's own language, on whichever channel they chose.
It finds the answer in your knowledge
Help articles, policies, price lists
Answers come from the material you approve. If the answer isn't there, the agent says so instead of guessing.
It gets the job done in your systems
Orders, bookings, CRM records, tickets
It looks up and updates the systems you connect: checks the order, moves the booking, logs the lead, opens the ticket.
It follows your approval rules
Routine: done. Costly: you approve
Routine actions that are easy to undo, it takes alone. Anything that moves money or is hard to reverse waits for a named person on your team.
It hands over with full context
Your team sees the whole thread
When the customer is upset, asks for a person or goes beyond what the agent was given, your team takes over with everything the agent already checked.
The approval rules are written with your team in discovery: what the agent may do alone, what a person approves first, and when it stops and hands over.
Behind-the-scenes agents follow the same pattern without a customer in the loop. The work arrives from a system or on a schedule, and a person reviews the output before it goes anywhere.
Our AI agent development process
Five steps from the first call to a working agent your organisation owns. Nothing is built until you have the scope in writing.
Scoping call
Thirty minutes with an engineer: the process, the systems it touches and what a wrong result would cost you.
You know whether it should be an agent
Discovery and a written scope
We map the decisions the agent makes, the data it needs and where a person approves, and agree with your team what a correct result looks like.
A written scope before any build
Quote from our sales team
Our sales team quotes the build against the written scope. You decide whether to go ahead with the scope in your hands.
You know the cost up front
Build and test
We build on your real data and check every change against the cases agreed in discovery. A small group on your side uses it first.
It passes your test cases
Launch and handover
The agent goes live and is handed over to your organisation, on your cloud or ours. We stay on for changes.
The agent is yours
You own the agent we build. Code and all.
Run it on your own cloud or on ours. You choose in discovery.
What you get at handover
The finished work belongs to the organisation that ordered it:
- The working agent, live on your cloud or on ours.
- Its code and its instructions.
- The test cases agreed in discovery and the results of the last run, so your team can tell whether a later change made it better or worse.
- The written scope: what the agent does alone, what needs approval, and when it hands over to a person.
Where your agent can run
If the agent talks to your customers on chat channels, it can live on the HiQBot platform, the same one we sell by the month:
- It talks to customers on website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and LINE.
- Every conversation lands in one inbox, whatever the channel, and your team can read each one.
- A person on your team can take the conversation over live with the whole thread in front of them.
- Bookings can go onto Google Calendar, contacts and deals into HubSpot, and a WooCommerce store's products and orders are there for the agent to use.
You can try the platform before you speak to us: start with the AI agents on the HiQBot platform or the omnichannel inbox.
AI agent use cases by industry
HiQBot already runs agents tuned for six industries, and those are the trades we know best. A custom build starts where a plan stops: your own booking or order system, rules only your business has, or work the agent does behind the scenes.
If your trade is not listed, the same approach carries over. The scoping call tells us whether your job fits.
An agent that qualifies demo requests by need, company size and timeline and books the demo. A support agent that collects the version and browser when something breaks and opens the ticket in the tracker your engineers use.
More on SaaS & TechnologyProduct and stock questions answered from your catalogue, order status once the shopper confirms the email used at checkout, and refunds or exchanges filed for your team to approve.
More on E-commerce & RetailIt reads a described fault, checks the job is one your shop does, and books the visit with make, model and mileage attached. A complaint about a repair you already did goes straight to a person.
More on AutomotiveIt answers guests about dates, opening hours and dietary needs from your own material, and puts the booking or the order into the system your front desk works from.
More on HospitalityIt takes table bookings and takeaway orders in the chat, answers menu and allergy questions from your menu, and passes anything it cannot confirm to a person.
More on RestaurantsIt works out dates, group size and budget, says what the price leaves out, and books the call with the trip details attached. Changes to a booked trip go to your team.
More on Travel & TourismWhy build your AI agent with HiQBot
Most AI agent development companies build an agent and move on. We run AI agents in live customer conversations every day on our own product, so the problems that sink an agent in its second month are ones we have already fixed.
- 01
We run agents in production
HiQBot agents answer customers on six channels every day. The engineers who build yours are the ones who keep ours reliable. Read how we test new models on real customer chats.
- 02
You own what we build
Code, instructions and test cases go to your organisation at handover, so your engineers can run it, change it or move it.
- 03
Tested before customers see it
Your real conversations become test cases. The agent passes them before launch and again after every change.
- 04
A live inbox behind every agent
Run it on HiQBot and your team reads every conversation in one inbox and can take over live.
- AI models
- OpenAIAnthropicGoogle GeminiOpen models via Fireworks and DeepInfra
- Agents and retrieval
- LangChainLangGraphQdrantBGE-M3
- Testing and monitoring
- RagasLangSmith
- Backend and data
- PythonFastAPIMongoDBRedis
- Cloud and delivery
- Google CloudCloudflareDockerNext.jsTypeScriptReact
The stack our own platform runs on in production. For your agent we use what fits the job and your cloud.
Engagement models
Start with one agent or bring on a team. Our sales team quotes each option against a written scope.
A project, handed over
One agent, built against the written scope, tested with your team and handed over with its code, instructions and test cases. It runs on your cloud or on ours. This suits a first agent with a clear job.
A dedicated AI team
The same engineers stay on your work for a run of agents, or for one agent that keeps taking on more. You set the priorities with them, and each agent they finish is handed over the same way as a project.
Support after launch
We make the changes your team asks for: a new question to answer, a new system to connect, rules to loosen as trust grows. We rerun the test cases after each change and share the results.
Custom AI agent or a HiQBot plan?
Not every job needs a build. If a plan covers yours, we tell you on the scoping call and point you to it.
| The job | What covers it |
|---|---|
| Answer questions, qualify leads and book meetings on website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram or LINE | A HiQBot plan |
| The same, with your team taking conversations over live and a support agent raising tickets | A HiQBot plan |
| Rules, systems or tasks the plans do not cover, including work behind the scenes | A custom agent, built for you and handed over |
A HiQBot plan includes the AI agent and lead qualification.
AI agent development FAQs
What do AI agent development services include?
A scoping call, discovery with a written scope, the build, testing against cases agreed with your team, and handover of the finished agent to your organisation, with support afterwards.
How much does AI agent development cost?
It depends on the systems the agent connects to, the actions it may take and where it runs. Our sales team quotes against the written scope after discovery, so you know the cost before any build starts.
What is the difference between an AI agent and a chatbot?
A chatbot answers. An agent also takes the next step, such as booking the meeting, checking the order or opening the ticket, and knows when to hand over to a person. We tell you on the call which one your job needs, and we build both.
Who owns the agent?
You do. It is handed over to the organisation that ordered it, with its code, instructions and test cases.
Where does the agent run?
On your own cloud or on ours. If you want it answering customers on chat channels, the HiQBot platform is where it can live.
Do I need to be a HiQBot customer?
No. The agent is yours and can run on your own infrastructure. The HiQBot platform is there if you want your agent on chat channels with an inbox and live chat behind it.
Which systems can a custom AI agent connect to?
The ones your business runs on: your CRM, booking or order system, helpdesk, database or internal APIs. We agree the list in discovery and test the agent against each one.
Can you build an AI marketing agent?
Yes, for campaign conversations on WhatsApp, Instagram and your website, and for content and SEO work behind the scenes. More on AI marketing agent development.
Do you build agents that never talk to customers?
Yes. Content, SEO and back-office automation agents work inside your systems and hand their output to a person to review.
Which AI models do you build with?
OpenAI, Anthropic Claude and Google Gemini, and open models through Fireworks and DeepInfra. We pick the model per job, the way our own platform does.
Can you stay on as a team after the first agent?
Yes. A dedicated team stays on your work for further agents or changes, and each agent is handed over like the first.
How do I choose between AI agent development companies?
Ask each one to show you an agent it built that is running today, how it will test yours before customers see it, who owns the agent at the end, and where it runs after launch. We answer all four on the first call.
Get a written scope for your AI agent
Thirty minutes with an engineer, then a written scope and a quote from our sales team. If a HiQBot plan already does the job, we will tell you that too.
The call covers:
- The process
- The systems involved
- Where a person approves
- Where the agent will run