8x8, a business communications platform provider, has added support for OpenAI's latest voice AI mode, GPT Realtime 2, to 8x8 AI Studio for businesses running live voice agents for customer interactions.
Among the changes are the following:
- More control over how AI agents think. For teams running agents that handle multi-step requests, like verifying an account, checking inventory, and escalating a case, GPT Realtime 2 introduces a per-AI agent reasoning effort control. More complex, tool-heavy workflows can be dialed up when the situation calls for it, with the tradeoff of added response time, enabling teams to optimize for speed or thoroughness, depending on the use case.
- More accurate transcription. Every voice session now defaults to Realtime-Whisper in 8x8 AI Studio, OpenAI's latest transcription model.
- No disruption to existing AI agents. Agents currently in production continue running on their existing configuration until teams choose to update them. The 8x8 AI Studio already recognizes GPT Realtime 2 and will recommend it for tool-heavy or reasoning-intensive use cases on request. When switching models in the agent editor, AI Studio now automatically substitutes a compatible voice if needed and logs the change without interrupting workflows.
"When a voice agent conversation doesn't go as planned—it can't pull up the account, drops the transfer, loses the thread—the customer feels it immediately," said Hunter Middleton, chief product officer of 8x8, in a statement. "This update targets these failure modes that matter in live customer interactions."