NiCE Cognigy

Cognigy, now part of NICE, is a conversational AI platform for chat and voice agents and agent assistance in contact centres. Essent, the largest Dutch energy supplier (2.5 million customers under the Essent and Energiedirect brands), handles all incoming chats with an AI agent first and automates about 55% of them end to end, according to Cognigy's case study. An AI voice agent collects meter readings by phone, and Cognigy's Agent Copilot, built into Microsoft Teams and trained on more than 1,100 knowledge articles, suggests answers to service reps in real time; Cognigy reports it absorbed 85% of the questions reps used to put to a seven-person senior helpdesk, saving about EUR 2 million a year. The platform also routes contacts to 17 teams and summarises live chats into the CRM. Reps still answer the customer; the copilot supplies knowledge. The Cognigy webchat widget loads on essent.nl and energiedirect.nl (checked November 2026), and Essent's privacy statement lists voicebot and chatbot contact.