AI voice agents deliver 391% ROI with sub-six-month payback, says Deepgram
Contact centres cut costs, boost resolution rates and avoid seasonal hiring
AI voice agents are generating a 391% return on investment over three years, with most deployments achieving payback in under six months, according to Deepgram.
The company said the technology reduces call abandonment and average wait times in high-volume contact centres, where 74% of customers hang up after being placed on hold. Gartner projects conversational AI could cut global contact centre labour costs by $80 billion by 2026.
AI voice agents combine streaming telephony, speech-to-text (STT), large language models (LLMs) and text-to-speech (TTS) in real time.
Deepgram’s Nova-3 engine reduces streaming word error rates by 54.3% compared with previous versions and by 30% versus market competitors. Its Aura-2 model supports real-time interruption handling and end-of-thought detection for business-grade conversations.
Multimodal integrations with tools like OpenAI’s GPT-4o Realtime API, Google Gemini 2.5 and Hume AI enable features such as emotion recognition.
Providers quote bundled voice AI costs at $0.05 to $0.15 per minute. Reported outcomes include a 14% increase in issues resolved per hour and a 9% reduction in average handling time.
The Canadian Automobile Association eliminated 40 seasonal hires and achieved a Net Promoter Score of 82. Klarna scaled to 2.3 million customer conversations per month, equivalent to the workload of 700 full-time agents.
Deepgram advised careful integration with telephony infrastructure (PSTN or SIP), CRMs and backend systems. It emphasised the importance of conversation design, governance and regulatory compliance.
Related reading
- Klarna adds peer-to-peer payments to app
- Klarna launches Agentic AI system to access 100 million products
- Buyer’s guide identifies six top voice AI platforms for enterprise deployment in 2026
An FCC ruling classifies AI-generated voices as "artificial or prerecorded" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, requiring disclosure and consent, with penalties of up to $1,500 per call.
The Deepgram Voice Agent API is positioned as a unified speech-to-speech solution, offering $200 in free credits to begin development.
The Recap
- AI voice agents deliver 391% three-year return on investment.
- Automation rates projected from 1.8% in 2024 to 10% by 2026.
- Organizations must plan integration, compliance and governance for deployment.
