Customer service knowledge platform Stonly has launched Business Process Agents (BPAs), a new AI-driven tool designed to automate multi-step customer service procedures by leveraging an organization’s existing standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Unlike standard conversational AI solutions that primarily address straightforward, single-turn FAQ queries, BPAs are built to navigate complex customer journeys. Powered by structured Stonly Guides, the agents follow defined decision logic, intake rules, policy checks, and system actions.
This underlying architecture means the exact same workflow can guide human contact center agents, assist customer self-service, or be executed autonomously by the AI agent.
Moving Beyond Simple Q&A
As contact centers increasingly deploy generative AI to deflect basic tier-one inquiries, many organizations hit an automation plateau when dealing with nuanced workflows—such as complex troubleshooting, eligibility checks, account adjustments, and policy-governed escalations.
Typically, automating these operational processes requires teams to translate existing documentation into bespoke AI prompts, intent models, and separate orchestration workflows. This frequently results in teams maintaining two distinct knowledge silos: one for human staff and another for automated systems.
Stonly aims to eliminate this operational split by having AI follow the established procedures already in use across the floor.
Alexis Fogel, Founder and CEO of Stonly, said:
Alexis Fogel, Founder and CEO, Stonly
“AI has gotten very good at answering questions, but customer service is not just a collection of questions and answers. The most important support work follows processes: check this, ask that, apply this rule, take an action, and make a different decision depending on what happens. Business Process Agents let AI follow the actual process instead of requiring teams to recreate it separately for AI.”
Operational Flexibility and Co-Pilot Deployment
Business Process Agents are designed to handle procedural tasks either end-to-end or in tandem with human representatives. A BPA can run an entire process autonomously, complete preliminary intake and diagnostics before handing the case over to a representative, or execute operational tasks while awaiting human sign-off on sensitive decisions.
Because the AI runs directly off human-readable Stonly Guides, updates made to an organization’s internal process are immediately reflected across the AI deployment. This reduces the time technical and operations teams spend continuously updating and testing backend AI configurations whenever company policies shift.
Alexis Fogel, added:
“Without Stonly, teams end up recreating the same processes for AI that their support teams already know how to follow. The opportunity is much bigger than making prompts better. It is giving AI the ability to follow the same processes the business already trusts its people to follow.”
The launch of Stonly’s Business Process Agents reflects an ongoing shift across the contact center technology market away from basic conversational bots and toward workflow orchestration.
While contact centers have achieved high deflection rates for routine queries using generative AI, the total cost of ownership (TCO) often escalates when attempting to automate complex, back-office-dependent workflows due to the burden of managing dual knowledge silos for humans and bots.
By harmonizing standard operating procedures across both digital and human workforces, Stonly addresses a major operational bottleneck around governance and change management.
If this unified approach gains traction, it will put increased pressure on legacy conversational AI and CCaaS vendors to move beyond prompt engineering and point-and-click bot builders in favor of single-source-of-truth architectures that treat AI and human agents as co-executors of the exact same business logic.
