Conversation Intelligence Terminology

An actionable signal is a detected pattern in calls that clearly points to a specific operational step to take. It is tied to an owner and a measurable outcome, not just an observation.

Agent performance evaluation is the process of reviewing agent interactions and work metrics against defined standards. It identifies strengths, gaps, and coaching needs to improve customer outcomes and compliance.

An Audit Trail (AI) is a time-stamped record of what an AI system did during a customer interaction, including key inputs, outputs, and configuration used. It supports review, investigation, and compliance reporting.

Auditability in AI systems is the ability to trace how an AI output was produced, using recorded inputs, model/version details, and decision logs. It lets you reconstruct and explain what happened for a specific call and time.

Automated Quality Assurance (AQA) uses software to evaluate customer interactions against defined quality criteria without relying only on manual scorecards. It helps teams review more calls consistently and flag issues faster.

Behavioral consistency is how reliably an agent uses the same key behaviors across calls, not just on their best calls. It shows whether coaching and standards are sticking day to day.

Call flow deviation is when an agent or IVR path strays from the expected call steps for a given issue. It can be intentional (to handle an exception) or unintentional (missed steps or wrong routing).

Call quality monitoring is the process of reviewing recorded or live calls against defined standards to assess agent performance and customer experience. It typically uses scorecards and targeted feedback to identify issues and coach improvements.

A coaching opportunity is a specific, observable moment in an interaction where an agent behavior can be improved or reinforced. It is used to target coaching to a clear skill and outcome.

Compliance monitoring is the process of reviewing customer interactions to confirm agents follow required scripts, disclosures, and policies. It identifies missed steps and risky behavior so teams can correct them quickly.

Concept drift is when the patterns in your call data change over time, so a model or rule that used to work starts missing or mislabeling things. It often shows up after policy, product, customer, or channel changes.

Confidence scoring (AI evaluation) is a numeric estimate of how certain an AI system is about an evaluation result, such as whether a compliance step was completed. It helps teams decide which calls need human review versus which results can be trusted for reporting.

Context carryover is the ability for an agent or system to retain and use relevant details from earlier in a conversation or prior contacts. It prevents customers from repeating information and reduces rework.

Context drift is when a conversation AI gradually loses track of the caller’s goal or key details and starts responding based on the wrong topic or assumptions. It often shows up after long calls, interruptions, or multiple transfers.

Context persistence is the ability to carry key details from earlier in a customer interaction into later turns or follow-up contacts. It keeps the conversation consistent without forcing the customer or agent to repeat information.

Context truncation is when a conversation analysis system drops earlier parts of a call because it can only process a limited amount of text. This can cause summaries and insights to miss key details that happened earlier.

Controlled learning is a supervised approach where models are trained and updated using labeled examples and explicit rules about what “good” looks like. It limits drift by requiring human review and approval before changes affect production outputs.

The conversation context window is the span of prior and current interaction data used to interpret what a caller and agent mean in the moment. It defines how much history (minutes, turns, or past contacts) is considered when generating signals or summaries.

Conversation segmentation is the process of splitting a call into labeled parts, such as greeting, verification, problem description, troubleshooting, and wrap-up. It makes it easier to measure what happens when and where time is spent.

A conversation turn is one uninterrupted stretch of speech by one participant before the other person speaks. Turns are used to measure how back-and-forth a call is and where interruptions or long monologues occur.

An insight created by analyzing what customers and agents say in calls, not just what was clicked or logged. It summarizes patterns like recurring issues, sentiment shifts, or process breakdowns.

Cross-turn reasoning is analyzing meaning across multiple back-and-forth turns in a conversation, not just a single utterance. It links earlier context to later statements to infer intent, issues, and outcomes.

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy or difficult customers say it was to get their issue resolved. It’s typically captured with a short post-contact question after a call.

A customer signal is a detectable cue in a call that indicates intent, sentiment, risk, or next-best action. It can come from what the customer says, how they say it, or what they do during the interaction.

Dead air detection identifies extended periods of silence on a live call when neither the agent nor the customer is speaking. It flags moments that may indicate hold issues, confusion, or a dropped connection.

Edge-case amplification is the practice of intentionally surfacing and reviewing rare, high-risk call scenarios more often than their natural frequency. It helps teams find compliance and process failures that routine sampling can miss.

An escalation trigger is a defined condition in a customer interaction that requires the case to be handed off to a supervisor, specialist, or another team. It can be based on what the customer says, what the agent does, or specific risk indicators.

Evaluation consistency is how reliably different evaluators (or the same evaluator over time) score the same interaction using the same rubric. High consistency means similar calls get similar scores and coaching outcomes.

Evaluation coverage is the share of total customer calls that receive a quality evaluation in a given period. It is usually expressed as a percentage by team, queue, or agent.

Event detection is the process of automatically identifying specific moments in a call, like a cancellation request, a compliance disclosure, or an escalation. It turns unstructured conversation into time-stamped signals you can track and act on.

The explainability threshold is the minimum level of explanation required before an AI-driven score, alert, or recommendation can be used in operations. It defines what evidence must be visible (e.g., transcript snippets, timestamps, policy references) to support decisions.

Explainable evaluation is a way to score calls where each score is backed by clear evidence, such as the exact transcript lines, timestamps, or policy rules used. It lets supervisors and auditors see why a call passed or failed a requirement.

False confidence is when an agent sounds certain but is wrong or missing required checks. It increases compliance risk because the call may proceed without verification, disclosures, or accurate information.

A false positive in conversation analysis is when the system flags a signal or event in a call that didn’t actually happen. It creates noise in reports and can send QA or coaching to the wrong calls.

Hallucination risk is the chance that a conversational AI will state incorrect or made-up information with confidence during a customer interaction. In contact centers, it can create compliance, financial, and customer-harm exposure if agents or customers act on it.

Human override is a control that lets a supervisor or agent intervene to stop, change, or approve an automated action during a live interaction. It is used when automation could create compliance, safety, or customer-impact risk.

Human-in-the-loop review is a workflow where a person checks, corrects, or approves AI-generated outputs before they are used or recorded as final. It is used when accuracy, policy adherence, or risk requires manual oversight.

An on-screen panel that shows real-time prompts, next steps, and reference info to an agent during a live call. It updates based on what’s happening in the conversation.

Inference latency is the time between when a live call signal is captured and when the AI returns a result (like a transcript, intent, or next-best action). Lower latency means the output is usable during the conversation, not after it ends.

Intent detection identifies what a caller is trying to accomplish (for example, cancel, pay a bill, dispute a charge) from their words and context. It helps route, assist, and measure calls based on the customer’s goal.

An interaction phase is a defined segment of a customer conversation, such as greeting, discovery, resolution, or wrap-up. Phases help teams evaluate what should happen at each point in the call.

Issue resolution is whether a customer’s problem is fully solved during or after an interaction. It’s tracked by confirming the outcome and whether follow-up contact is needed.

A Knowledge Validation Layer is the set of checks that confirms whether an agent’s answer matches approved knowledge and current policy. It flags gaps, outdated guidance, or risky statements before they spread across calls.

Latency to Insight is the time between a customer interaction and when the contact center can act on what it revealed. Lower latency means issues, coaching needs, and process gaps are addressed sooner.

The latency-accuracy tradeoff is the balance between how fast an AI assistant responds and how correct or complete its output is. Lower latency often means less context or checking, which can reduce accuracy.

Live call analysis is the real-time monitoring and interpretation of an active customer call using audio, transcripts, and interaction signals. It surfaces what’s happening now so supervisors or systems can guide the agent during the conversation.

A missed opportunity is a moment in a customer call where the agent could have taken an action that would improve the outcome but didn’t. It includes gaps like not clarifying needs, not offering a relevant option, or not preventing a likely follow-up contact.

Model drift is when an AI model’s accuracy changes over time because customer behavior, policies, or data patterns shift. It can cause missed or incorrect detections in QA and compliance monitoring.

A model feedback loop is the process of using real contact outcomes and human review to correct and improve an AI model over time. It links what the model predicted or recommended to what actually happened on calls.

Evidence based on what did not happen in a conversation, such as a required disclosure or action that was expected but missing.

Operational guardrails are the rules, checks, and escalation paths that keep agents within approved boundaries during customer interactions. They define what must be said or done, what must not happen, and what to do when a call falls outside policy.

Over-generalization is when an agent makes a broad claim from limited information, such as assuming a policy, outcome, or customer intent applies in all cases. It can create inaccurate promises and compliance risk.

Partial compliance is when an agent follows some required steps in a policy or script but misses or misstates others. It often passes a quick check but still creates risk or rework.

Policy drift is the gradual gap between written policies and what agents actually do on calls. It often happens as scripts, tools, and coaching change without updating the official rules.

Post-call analysis is the review of a completed customer call using recordings, transcripts, and interaction data. It identifies what happened, why it happened, and what to change in coaching, process, or routing.

Post-call enrichment is the automated step after a call that adds structured data to the interaction record, such as reason for contact, disposition, sentiment, and required follow-ups. It turns the conversation into searchable, reportable fields for operations.

Prompt drift is when an AI assistant’s instructions or tone gradually shift over time due to accumulated context, edits, or inconsistent guidance. It can cause the same customer issue to get different answers across calls.

A QA scorecard is a standardized set of criteria used to evaluate agent interactions for quality and compliance. It turns call reviews into consistent scores and coaching notes.

Quality drift is the gradual change in how calls are handled or scored over time, even when processes and policies haven’t officially changed. It shows up as inconsistent evaluations, shifting agent behaviors, or slow declines in customer experience.

Real-Time Agent Assist is in-call guidance that listens to a live conversation and surfaces prompts, knowledge, and next-best actions to the agent as the call unfolds. It aims to help the agent respond correctly and consistently without putting the customer on hold.

A real-time constraint is the requirement that a system detect, decide, and respond during the live customer interaction, within a strict time limit. If it misses the window, the guidance is no longer useful.

Real-Time Decision Budget is the maximum time and compute allowed to choose and deliver the next best action during a live customer interaction. It sets the latency limit for guidance so it arrives while the agent can still use it.

Regulatory compliance is meeting the laws and rules that govern how a contact center handles customer interactions, data, and required disclosures. It includes following mandated scripts, consent requirements, and recordkeeping standards.

A required disclosure is a statement an agent must deliver during a call to meet legal, regulatory, or policy obligations. It often has specific timing and wording requirements.

A risk event is a specific moment in a customer interaction that could create compliance, legal, financial, or reputational exposure. It’s typically tied to what was said, what was done, or what was missed during the call.

Sampling bias in QA happens when the calls you review aren’t representative of overall customer interactions, so QA scores and insights don’t reflect reality.

Script adherence is how closely agents follow the required call script, including mandated disclosures and approved wording. It’s typically measured as a percentage of calls or script elements completed correctly.

Sentiment analysis is the automated detection of emotional tone in customer and agent speech or text (for example, positive, neutral, negative). It helps quantify how conversations feel over time and where they shift.

Signal Confidence is a score that indicates how likely a detected signal in a conversation is correct. It reflects the strength and consistency of the evidence behind that detection.

Signal decay is the loss of accuracy or usefulness of a conversation signal over time as language, processes, or data sources change. It shows up when a metric or detector that used to track reality starts drifting.

Silence analysis measures and categorizes periods of no speech during calls, such as holds, dead air, and long pauses. It helps identify where conversations stall and whether the silence is expected or avoidable.

Streaming transcription lag is the delay between what a caller says and when those words appear in the live transcript. It’s typically measured in milliseconds or seconds and can vary during a call.

Time-to-First-Insight is the elapsed time from when interaction data is captured to when a usable, actionable finding is available. It measures how quickly leaders can move from calls to decisions.

Time-to-First-Token (Voice AI) is the time from when a caller finishes speaking to when the AI produces its first piece of spoken output. It’s a practical measure of perceived responsiveness in a voice interaction.

Topic boundary detection identifies the moments in a call when the conversation shifts from one subject to another. It segments the interaction into topic-based sections for easier review and analysis.

A topic shift is when a caller or agent moves the conversation to a new subject that is not a direct continuation of the current one. It can be abrupt ("Actually…") or gradual, and it changes what the next best response should be.