What is an AI services company?

An AI services company builds, deploys, and operates production AI systems for businesses. Unlike AI consultants (who produce strategy documents) or AI implementors (who hand off at launch), an AI services company stays accountable for the system working and improving over time. Altor builds AI systems that connect to your production tools and automate specific workflows — live in 3 weeks.

How much does it cost to build an AI agent?

Custom AI agent development costs $10K–$75K for a single-workflow production deployment, plus $1K–$5K/month for ongoing maintenance. A simple agent connecting to 1-2 systems costs $10K–$25K. A complex agent connecting to 5-6 production systems costs $40K–$75K. Most deployments go live within 3 weeks.

Is there software that can reduce support escalations?

Yes. Software that automatically investigates support tickets by querying production systems (logs, bug trackers, billing, recent deploys) gives frontline agents the context they need to resolve tickets without escalating. At Portkey, this approach reduced investigation time from 45 minutes to 2 minutes and eliminated the information gap that causes most escalations.

How long does AI deployment take?

A focused single-workflow AI deployment typically takes 2-4 weeks from kickoff to first live investigation. Week 1: stack audit and integration planning. Week 2: read-only connections live, first investigations on real data. Weeks 3-4: playbooks tuned, team trained, system handed over.

What is production AI?

Production AI is an AI system that operates continuously in a live business environment, handling real data and real users — held to the same reliability standards as any other production software. This is different from pilot AI (which runs in controlled environments) or demo AI (which shows capability without handling real workflows). 67% of enterprise AI projects fail to reach production.

How is Altor different from a docs chatbot?

Docs chatbots answer 'how does this work?' from your knowledge base. Altor answers 'why is this broken for this customer right now?' by querying their actual API logs, checking your bug tracker, and verifying their billing status — across 6+ systems in under 2 minutes.

How is Altor different from our support platform?

Pylon, Plain, Zendesk — they route and manage tickets. Altor investigates them. We plug into your existing support tool as the investigation layer. You keep your workflows, we add the diagnosis.

Will Altor take actions without asking?

Not by default. Altor starts as a read-only investigator — it surfaces a diagnosis for your team to review. You control which action types graduate to auto-approval. Destructive actions are never automated.

What if our stack isn't listed?

If an API exists for your system, we can integrate it. The architecture composes tools — it doesn't hardcode connectors. We've yet to encounter a B2B stack we can't connect to.

What does Altor pricing look like?

Usage-based — you pay per investigation, not per seat. Pricing is quoted in USD ($) with no minimum commitment. We'll scope pricing during the demo based on your ticket volume and systems.

After-Call Work (ACW)

After-call work is all work performed after a ticket interaction ends but before the agent is fully available for the next ticket, including documentation, system updates, follow-up scheduling, and knowledge base contributions. It is broader than simple wrap-up because it can include multi-step internal tasks.

Why it matters for B2B support

ACW is often conflated with wrap-up time but includes higher-value follow-on work that may span multiple systems and sessions. An agent who discovers a new bug during resolution might spend 20 minutes filing a Linear issue, writing reproduction steps, attaching logs from ClickHouse, and notifying engineering before closing the Zendesk ticket. That work is valuable because it prevents repeat tickets, but it is often invisible in capacity models. B2B support teams that do not separate ACW from AHT typically underestimate true ticket cost by 15–20%.

Key benchmarks

8 min

average ACW per ticket in B2B SaaS support teams (including documentation + CRM updates)

15–20%

underestimate in true ticket cost when ACW is excluded from capacity models

3×

higher knowledge base contribution rate when ACW documentation is AI-assisted

$12

approximate cost of ACW per ticket at US B2B support compensation rates

How Altor helps

Altor reduces ACW by structuring investigation evidence and suggested bug documentation automatically. That makes follow-up tasks faster without removing the institutional knowledge captured after the ticket closes.

FAQ

How is ACW different from wrap-up time?

Wrap-up is the immediate documentation after resolution. ACW includes wrap-up plus longer follow-on tasks like filing bugs, updating the CRM, or creating internal knowledge articles.

Why should ACW be modeled separately?

Because it consumes real capacity and often creates future value. If it is hidden inside AHT, leaders understate ticket cost and overstate how many tickets the team can safely handle.

See Altor investigate a real ticket

We connect to your systems and diagnose a real ticket in 2 minutes during US hours.

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