Faster right-party verification on proAgent calls

Why we built it

Every proAgent call starts by confirming the consumer's identity. The agent asks for a date of birth or an address, and the consumer waits for a reply. If that wait drags on every turn, the conversation sounds robotic before it has even reached the account.

Some verification turns were taking three to almost five seconds. Each answer needed two AI steps back to back before the agent could speak. The first decided which detail the consumer had given, and the second wrote the reply. Those pauses added up. Some consumers hung up partway through verification, and some who got through asked for a person soon after.

How it works

proAgent now runs a fast mode during verification.

• A small decision model starts at the same moment as the first AI step. In about a tenth of a second, it works out which detail the consumer just gave.
• When it is confident, it takes over and the slower step is cancelled. When it isn't sure, the call runs exactly as before.
• The reply itself now comes from a faster main model on every turn.
• Fast mode handles between 28% and 45% of verification turns, depending on the agent.

What you get

In a production comparison across three customers and thousands of calls, typical reply times fell by up to 26%. The slowest turns came down by 12% to 23% on every agent.

Verification rates held steady, so the speed came without letting the wrong person through or turning the right one away. Paired with sound-based name matching, the agent confirms identity faster and gets it right just as often.

Fast verification has been live since late October and is becoming the default for every proAgent agent.