The customer experience market is entering a new phase where enterprises are moving beyond isolated AI pilots and toward integrated operational deployments. That shift is driving new alliances between business process outsourcing providers and enterprise AI vendors, as companies look for ways to combine automation with human-led service delivery at scale.

Against that backdrop, Atento and Cresta announced a multi-year strategic partnership focused on hybrid human-AI customer experience solutions across the United States and Latin America. The agreement combines Atento’s CX management and outsourcing infrastructure with Cresta’s conversational AI platform to help enterprises deploy AI agents alongside human customer service teams.

The partnership reflects a broader trend reshaping the customer experience management market: enterprises increasingly want AI systems that operate inside existing workflows rather than standalone automation tools that create operational silos.

Atento said Cresta’s customer experience AI platform will become part of its Atent.AI offering, allowing clients to deploy AI-assisted customer support models that combine automated interactions, real-time agent assistance, and conversation intelligence. The companies are positioning the joint solution as a unified operational layer for enterprise contact centers rather than a narrow chatbot deployment.

The announcement comes as enterprise demand for AI-enabled CX infrastructure continues to accelerate. According to Gartner, generative AI is expected to influence the majority of customer service interactions over the next several years, while McKinsey & Company has estimated that AI-powered automation could significantly reduce customer care operating costs while improving response consistency and personalization.

For enterprise marketing and customer experience teams, the strategic value lies in operational integration. Many organizations already use fragmented stacks involving CRM platforms, marketing automation systems, customer data platforms, and separate AI applications. The challenge has shifted from adopting AI to orchestrating it across enterprise workflows.

That is where partnerships like this are gaining traction.

Cresta has built its platform around AI-assisted customer conversations, including real-time coaching for agents, automated quality monitoring, and AI-generated customer insights. The company competes in an increasingly crowded CX AI market that includes platforms from Salesforce, Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services, all of which are investing heavily in conversational AI and contact center automation.

Unlike many software vendors, however, Cresta is pairing its technology with a large-scale outsourcing and CX operations provider. That distinction matters because enterprises deploying AI in customer service environments often struggle with implementation complexity, workforce adaptation, governance, and multilingual support.

Atento operates across multiple international markets and has deep operational exposure in Latin America, where AI-enabled customer service transformation is accelerating but remains uneven across industries. The partnership could give Cresta broader access to enterprise clients seeking managed AI deployments rather than standalone software procurement.

The companies said the integrated model will support AI agents, AI-augmented human agents, and enterprise conversation intelligence within a single architecture. In practice, that means routine inquiries can be automated while human agents receive live guidance and analytics during more complex customer interactions.

The concept of a “hybrid workforce” is becoming central to modern CX infrastructure strategies. Instead of replacing agents outright, enterprises are increasingly using AI to reduce handling time, improve compliance, surface customer intent signals, and assist agents during conversations.

That operational model aligns with broader enterprise software trends. Platforms across the martech and enterprise SaaS ecosystem are increasingly converging around unified intelligence layers that connect customer data, automation, analytics, and AI decision-making.

For marketers, this evolution has implications beyond customer support.

Customer conversations generate high-value first-party data that can influence audience segmentation, retention strategies, personalization, and predictive analytics. As AI platforms become more deeply integrated into CX workflows, customer service operations are becoming a more important source of actionable marketing intelligence.

The partnership also signals continued momentum in Latin America’s enterprise AI market, which has become an emerging growth region for CX modernization. Businesses operating across multilingual customer environments are under increasing pressure to improve automation capabilities without sacrificing service quality or regulatory compliance.

Industry analysts have noted that enterprises are becoming more selective about AI investments after an initial wave of experimentation. Rather than deploying multiple disconnected AI applications, organizations are prioritizing platforms that integrate directly into business operations and deliver measurable productivity gains.

Atento CEO Dimitrius Oliveira described the partnership as a response to changing enterprise expectations around AI deployment, while Cresta CEO Ping Wu emphasized the need for operational scale and unified AI-human collaboration.

The broader competitive landscape suggests more partnerships of this type are likely ahead. As enterprise buyers push for operational AI rather than experimental deployments, technology vendors and outsourcing providers are increasingly aligning to deliver integrated customer experience transformation services.

For the CX industry, the shift may redefine how enterprises evaluate AI adoption — not simply as a software purchase, but as a long-term operational strategy tied to workforce design, automation governance, and customer engagement infrastructure.

Market Landscape

The global customer experience AI market is becoming increasingly competitive as enterprises accelerate investments in conversational AI, contact center automation, and AI-powered analytics. Major enterprise platforms including Adobe, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 are embedding generative AI capabilities directly into CRM and customer engagement platforms.

Research from IDC indicates that worldwide AI software spending continues to rise sharply as enterprises prioritize operational automation and intelligent workflow orchestration. In parallel, BPO and CX outsourcing providers are evolving into AI transformation partners rather than traditional call center operators.

The Atento-Cresta partnership reflects this convergence between enterprise AI software and operational service delivery.

Top Insights

• Atento and Cresta are combining enterprise CX outsourcing infrastructure with conversational AI technology to create hybrid human-AI customer service operations across the U.S. and Latin America.
• The partnership focuses on operational AI deployment rather than isolated automation pilots, integrating AI agents, live agent assistance, and conversation intelligence into unified CX workflows.
• Enterprises are increasingly seeking AI platforms that integrate with existing CRM, marketing automation, and customer engagement systems instead of fragmented standalone AI tools.
• The agreement highlights growing demand for multilingual, enterprise-scale AI customer support solutions, particularly in Latin American markets undergoing digital transformation.
• Hybrid workforce models are emerging as a dominant enterprise CX strategy, allowing businesses to automate repetitive interactions while augmenting human agents with real-time intelligence.

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