Why Tandem Care Is the New CX Operating Model

Too many AI conversations in customer experience (CX) still assume automation and human service are opposing choices. But at Avaya, we see a different story unfolding, specific to how AI is changing the division of contact center work.

As AI lowers the cost and latency of interactions, the real challenge becomes how to keep service coordinated when work moves between automation and a human agent. That is where tandem care comes in. In CX, it describes an operating model designed for the handoff between AI and people.

That matters even more now. In a recent article, Gartner said that by 2028, over half of all enterprises will stop paying for assistive intelligence and instead favor platforms that commit to workflow results. 

Here’s why that shift in thinking is important to organizations, how tandem care works in practice, and what it changes for the future of CX.

Defining Tandem Care for Customer Experience

In a world where customer journeys are often fragmented across siloed bots and disconnected agents, tandem care provides a continuous, real-time engagement model. It is a CX operating model where IVR, self-service AI, agentic AI, and human agents operate as a single, coordinated system.

While the term "tandem care" is sometimes used in clinical healthcare settings to describe patient-provider models, in the world of enterprise CX, it represents the seamless handoff between AI and humans where full context is preserved so the customer never has to repeat themselves or start over. The goal is the best outcome for the customer, with the right resource stepping in at the right time.

From Automation to Augmentation

The hype around a purely "agentless" future is meeting a hard reality. Gartner further predicts that by 2027, 50% of businesses planning major AI-driven job cuts will reverse course because they underestimated the complexity and value of human interactions.

At Avaya, we fundamentally believe that human empathy is irreplaceable. 

Tandem care is designed to elevate the human agent in three distinct ways:

• Moving up the value chain: As AI handles routine tasks like balance verification or password resets, the human role shifts toward subject matter expertise, emotional intelligence, and risk-sensitive decisions.
• The "intelligent amplifier:” AI acts as a silent partner, surfacing insights and handling backend execution so the agent can focus on negotiation, empathy, and building genuine relationships.
• Defining the AI strategy: Keeping humans in the loop isn’t just a safety net. Human agents strategically define the role AI plays within the organization.

Think about a card decline in financial services. The challenge is coordinating fraud signals, account status, and next best action without forcing repetition across channels. Or take a healthcare billing call, where the interaction may depend on payer eligibility, scheduling, and account history all at once. These aren’t just routing problems; they’re coordination problems.

At that point, augmentation becomes operational. It gives organizations a way to think beyond isolated AI features and start designing services around continuity, context, and execution in the moment. It’s a shift from automation to augmentation, and it’s unlocking a new tier of intelligent, high-touch support. 

To learn more about how building AI workflows can improve customer outcomes, I also  invite you to listen to a recent interview with Patrick Dennis, CEO at Avaya, discussing “Tandem Care: Training AI & Empowering Agents.”

How It Works: The Avaya Infinity^® Foundation

Tandem care is operationalized through Avaya Infinity, our unified CX platform designed for the AI age. It works through three critical enablers:

• Model Context Protocol (MCP): We’ve built Avaya Infinity to support MCP, acting as the "USB-C for AI.” It replaces custom-coded API integrations with an open standard that allows AI to securely access enterprise systems and real-world context in real-time. This means AI can work in tandem with human agents to surface insights, anticipate needs, and take action in real time. 
• Enterprise Data Activation: Many CX tools still rely mostly on transcripts and CRM notes. Through our partnership with Databricks, Avaya Infinity activates deep enterprise data — billing, order history, usage, and fraud signals — during the live interaction.
• Agentic AI: Unlike traditional bots that just answer questions, Agentic AI can reason, plan, and execute workflows. It can trigger a refund or update a policy across your CRM and ERP while the customer is still on the line with the human agent. 

The Road to Infinite Adaptability

The future of CX depends on how well organizations orchestrate AI and its people. By bringing together data, AI, and human expertise into one coordinated enterprise layer, we help organizations become infinitely adaptable to changing market demands.

Tandem care is how we turn every interaction into a personalized, effective, and rewarding experience. It’s how we make the customer feel seen, understood, and cared for. 

It’s time to stop thinking about what AI can replace and start thinking about what we can achieve when humans and machines work in tandem.

Learn how Avaya Infinity can help your organization put tandem care into practice with AI, human agents, and enterprise data working as one coordinated system.