Atento and Omilia Bet on Agentic AI to Overhaul Customer Experience

ATHENS, Greece – January 20, 2026 – Customer experience giant Atento has announced a strategic alliance with Omilia, a leader in advanced artificial intelligence, in a move poised to reshape the landscape of customer service automation. The partnership will see Atento integrate Omilia's "Self-Learning Agentic CX" platform, aiming to deploy a new generation of autonomous virtual agents capable of delivering highly sophisticated and scalable customer interactions.

A Leap Beyond Chatbots: The Rise of Agentic AI

The technology at the heart of this alliance, Agentic AI, represents a significant evolution from the familiar, often rigid, chatbots of the past. Unlike traditional conversational AI that relies on predefined scripts and keyword triggers, agentic systems are designed to be proactive, goal-driven, and autonomous. They can reason, create multi-step plans, and execute complex tasks with minimal human intervention, learning and adapting from every interaction.

Omilia's platform is at the forefront of this shift. Its virtual agents are engineered to understand context, orchestrate workflows across multiple enterprise systems, and continuously improve their own performance. This "closed-loop learning" model breaks through the performance ceiling that limits older, siloed AI systems. The market is responding with vigor; the Agentic AI sector, valued at over $7 billion in 2025, is projected to explode to nearly $140 billion by 2034, growing at a compound annual rate of over 40%. This explosive growth underscores a decisive industry pivot from merely conversational AI to autonomous systems that deliver measurable business impact.

However, the technology is not without its hurdles. Industry experts caution that real-world reliability can be a challenge, and these systems can lack the common sense or ethical intuition of their human counterparts. Success hinges on high-quality data and robust governance to mitigate risks of bias or unpredictable behavior, a challenge Omilia aims to address with a structured adoption framework.

Atento's Strategic Power Play in a Competitive BPO Market

For Atento, one of the world's largest providers of customer experience management (CXM) and business transformation outsourcing (BTO) services, this partnership is a calculated strategic maneuver. The company is betting that superior AI capability will become the key differentiator in a fiercely competitive global market. The alliance directly accelerates Atento's 'AI Agent' pillar, one of three core components of its technology strategy, which also includes 'AI Advance Insights' and 'AI Agent Assist'.

By embedding Omilia's agentic capabilities, Atento aims to offer its clients—over 400 leading companies in telecom, banking, and healthcare—a class of virtual agents that are not just automated, but truly intelligent and outcome-driven.

"This alliance reinforces our vision of delivering customer experiences powered by advanced AI, integrating market-leading Agentic AI capabilities into our AI Agent pillar,” said Dimitrius Oliveira, CEO of Atento. “Omilia’s technology enables us to scale more autonomous, intelligent and outcome-driven virtual agents for our clients.”

This move positions Atento to challenge its BPO rivals, many of whom are also investing heavily in AI but may lack the deep, self-learning autonomy promised by Omilia's platform. The ability to demonstrate tangible ROI will be critical, and the partnership is built on that premise.

From Cost-Cutting to Customer-Centricity

The promise of Agentic AI extends far beyond simple automation. For Atento's clients, the integration is expected to deliver a cascade of measurable benefits. Research indicates that companies deploying agentic systems see, on average, a 33% higher rate of customer issue deflection to self-service channels and a 20% reduction in resolution costs. Furthermore, nearly two-thirds of these companies report higher customer satisfaction scores.

A hypothetical use case in the banking sector, where both firms have a strong presence, illustrates the potential. A customer calling to dispute a complex fraudulent charge could interact with an AI agent that autonomously accesses transaction records, cross-references fraud detection systems, initiates a formal dispute, and communicates the next steps—all within a single, seamless conversation. This level of efficiency dramatically reduces handling time and customer frustration.

Crucially, the strategy is not to eliminate the human touch but to enhance it. The same AI that powers autonomous agents also serves to empower human agents. Through 'AI Agent Assist' functions, contact center professionals gain real-time support, with the AI providing instant access to knowledge bases, suggesting next-best actions, and analyzing customer sentiment. This frees human agents from repetitive tasks to focus on high-empathy, complex problem-solving where their skills are most valuable.

“Together, we support Atento’s ambition to bring the power of Agentic AI to organizations around the world, helping them transform customer interactions in a measurable and sustainable way,” stated Dimitris Vassos, CEO and co-founder of Omilia.

Navigating a Complex Global Rollout

The partnership's ambition is global, with an initial focus on strategic markets in the United States, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), and Latin America, where Atento already has a formidable presence with over 90,000 employees. Each region presents a unique combination of opportunity and challenge.

The U.S. market, with its high customer expectations and significant investment in technology, is ripe for advanced AI solutions. In contrast, the EMEA region demands sophisticated multilingual capabilities and strict adherence to data privacy regulations like GDPR. Latin America offers immense growth potential but requires solutions that are both cost-effective and capable of navigating diverse cultural nuances and variable infrastructure.

Deploying a self-learning AI across these jurisdictions requires a careful approach to governance. Navigating the patchwork of data privacy laws, from GDPR in Europe to CCPA in California, is paramount. Omilia's emphasis on an "Agentic AI Adoption Framework"—which includes progressive controls, human-in-the-loop oversight, and multi-layered security features—is designed to mitigate these risks. This structured approach will be critical for building trust and ensuring compliance as Atento begins offering these next-generation services to its global client base, setting a new benchmark for responsible and effective AI integration in the customer experience industry.