Sierra
Sierra is a conversational AI platform (Agent OS) for building and managing customer service AI agents across every channel.
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What is Sierra?
Sierra is a conversational AI platform designed to transform customer service for enterprises. It enables companies to build AI agents that are personalized to their business and customers, offering human-level reasoning and natural language communication. The platform solves the tension between better customer experiences and higher costs by connecting with more customers in more personalized ways, 24/7/365.
Key features include building once and deploying everywhere across voice, chat, email, and WhatsApp in 58 languages. The AI agents handle complex use cases by securely connecting to systems of record like order management and CRM, allowing them to process insurance claims, return orders, or originate mortgages from start to finish. The platform features intuitive and authentic conversations where agents understand context, sense frustration, and respond appropriately while staying on brand. Sierra also offers Ghostwriter, an agent that creates and optimizes other agents by turning ideas into production-ready customer experiences without clicks, code, or complexity. Explorer is another product that acts as an agent-optimizing agent, analyzing customer conversations to provide answers and actionable recommendations.
Sierra is designed for enterprises in financial services, telecom, tech, healthcare, travel, and retail. 40% of the Fortune 50 partner with Sierra, including brands like ADT, DIRECTV, AOL, and others. The platform is simple to use yet deeply capable, empowering all team members to build and optimize AI agents. It provides clear visibility and complete control with built-in testing, automated monitoring, and proactive insights to drive performance.
The platform emphasizes fast deployment, launching in weeks with agents that grow in sophistication as ambitions grow. Sierra operates as a long-term partnership priced by outcomes, with an expert agent development team that has supported hundreds of deployments. The company was founded by Bret Taylor, former Salesforce CEO, adding top-tier credibility to the platform.
Sierra pricing
Pricing model: Free
Sierra pioneered outcome-based pricing, a new business model where customers pay only when the software achieves specific, valuable outcomes. Examples include resolved support conversations, saved cancellations, upsells, or cross-sells. If a conversation is unresolved, there is typically no charge. When an AI agent successfully resolves an issue without human intervention (call deflection), Sierra earns a pre-negotiated fee. If escalation to a person is needed, it is free in most cases. Outcomes are not one-size-fits-all, and Sierra provides clear, agreed-upon criteria for each outcome upfront for transparency. For cases where outcome-based pricing isn't the best fit, Sierra offers blended pricing approaches, such as consumption-based pricing for routing or greeter-style interactions based on conversation count regardless of outcome.
Sierra pros
- Human-level reasoning and natural language communication
- Handles complex multi-step use cases end-to-end
- Deploy across voice, chat, email, and WhatsApp in 58 languages
- Build once, deploy everywhere for consistent experiences
- 24/7/365 availability for customers
- Securely connects to systems of record like CRM and order management
- Ghostwriter builds agents from SOPs, transcripts, and plain English descriptions
- Explorer continuously optimizes agents by analyzing customer conversations
- Built-in testing and automated monitoring for agent behavior
- Sense customer frustration and respond appropriately
- Stays on brand with configurable tone and guardrails
- Understand context, jargon, typos, and adapt to customer needs
- Fast deployment in weeks rather than months
- Outcome-based pricing aligns incentives with business value
- 40% of Fortune 50 companies already partner with Sierra
- Empowers all team members to build and optimize agents
- Expert agent development team with hundreds of deployments
- Continuous learning from customer interactions
- Excellent human handoff experience for escalations
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance features
Sierra cons
- Premium pricing not suitable for SMBs
- Requires significant setup and configuration
- Enterprise sales process with no self-serve option
- Limited public pricing transparency
- Deployment can take months due to vendor configuration
- Users cannot easily edit logic or prompts themselves
- Latency from constellation architecture checking multiple models
- Closed platform makes auditing agent decisions difficult
- Slow iteration when market shifts require weekly changes
- Opaque operations create accountability gaps for compliance teams
Frequently asked questions about Sierra
How is Sierra AI different from a basic chatbot?
Sierra goes beyond scripted FAQs by using brand-aligned reasoning and grounded knowledge to handle multi-step, contextual conversations. It adapts as policies and products evolve, utilizing human-level reasoning rather than simple rule-based responses.
How does Sierra stay aligned with our brand and policies?
You configure tone, constraints, and guardrails, and ground the agent in approved documents and processes. Updates to that content flow through to the agent's behavior automatically, ensuring continuous brand alignment.
Does Sierra AI replace human agents?
Sierra automates common and complex repetitive tasks, but human experts remain important for exceptions, high-risk issues, and continuous improvement of policies and flows. It provides excellent human handoff when escalation is needed.
What data is needed to get started with Sierra?
Provide your core knowledge sources including policies, process documents, product information, and FAQs, along with guidance on tone, escalation rules, and any compliance constraints. You can also upload SOPs, transcripts from support calls, and audio recordings.
How quickly can Sierra adapt the agent to business changes?
When you update the underlying knowledge and rules, the agent reflects new policies and messaging rapidly, enabling real-time alignment with business changes. Deployment happens in weeks with agents that grow in sophistication over time.
What languages does Sierra support?
Sierra supports 58 languages for consistent experiences across voice, chat, email, and WhatsApp. Ghostwriter specifically deploys agents across over 30 languages with sophisticated guardrails built-in.
What industries does Sierra serve?
Sierra is proven at scale in complex use cases across financial services, telecom, tech, healthcare, travel, and retail. 40% of the Fortune 50 already partner with Sierra, including companies like ADT, DIRECTV, and AOL.
How does Ghostwriter work?
Ghostwriter is the agent-building agent that takes your direction by uploading SOPs, transcripts, whiteboard photos, process documentation, and audio recordings, or by describing what you want in plain English. It identifies key behaviors and edge cases, then creates a production-ready agent with guardrails built-in.
What is Explorer and how does it help?
Explorer is the agent-optimizing agent that works alongside Ghostwriter to proactively tell you what needs fixing or improving. It analyzes customer conversations like deep research, delivers weekly briefings with what changed and recommendations, and allows you to implement improvements in one click with Ghostwriter.
How does outcome-based pricing work exactly?
You pay only when the AI agent resolves an issue autonomously for your customer. Sierra earns a pre-negotiated fee for each resolved conversation, saved cancellation, upsell, or cross-sell. If the conversation remains unresolved or escalates to a human, there is typically no charge, ensuring aligned incentives between Sierra and your business.