Grit The Truth Behind Automation Claims in Customer Support | Cresta CEO Ping Wu
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Feb 9, 2026 Ping Wu, CEO of Cresta and former Google conversational AI leader, applies generative AI to contact centers to blend AI with human workflows. He discusses scaling support without burning out agents. Conversation covers when to eliminate, automate, or augment interactions. He outlines three real-world limits on automation and how to boost agent productivity with AI-assisted tasks.
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United Airlines Uses Cresta Extensively
- United Airlines uses Cresta across 9,000 agents for notes, workflows, QA, and insights.
- Their 'insight to action' team spends all day on Cresta to find root causes and reduce calls.
Three Buckets Of Customer Conversation
- Customer interactions fall into three buckets: fix-the-root-cause, automatable low-emotion tasks, and high-emotion complex cases.
- Each bucket requires different AI roles: elimination, automation, or human augmentation respectively.
Eliminate Calls By Fixing Root Causes
- Fix operational root causes to eliminate avoidable support calls instead of automating them.
- Use AI observability to surface issues and feed operations teams to prevent repeat contacts.