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.

Average Handle Time (AHT)

Average Handle Time is the average total time an agent spends on a ticket, including investigation, response drafting, customer communication, and post-ticket documentation. It shows how much labor is required to move one ticket through the full support workflow.

Why it matters for B2B support

AHT in B2B technical support ranges from about 15 minutes for simple configuration questions to 4+ hours for production incidents. The investigation phase alone usually consumes 55–70% of AHT on technical tickets because agents are jumping between logs, billing systems, and bug trackers. Optimizing message templates or macros without fixing investigation speed produces shallow gains: agents type faster but still wait on diagnosis. Well-run B2B teams target 25–35 minutes for Tier 1 tickets and usually exclude P1 incident work from standard AHT reporting because it distorts the average.

Key benchmarks

25 min

target AHT for Tier 1 B2B technical support tickets

55–70%

of AHT consumed by investigation on technical tickets

35%

average AHT reduction when investigation is automated

4.2 hrs

average AHT for P1 production incidents in B2B SaaS without investigation tooling

How Altor helps

Altor reduces AHT by compressing the longest part of the workflow: multi-system investigation. Agents spend less time hunting for evidence and more time resolving the ticket.

FAQ

What is a healthy AHT target for B2B support?

For Tier 1 technical tickets, 25–35 minutes is a strong target. Lower numbers can signal efficient workflows, but they can also hide rushed handling or incomplete documentation.

Why is investigation the main driver of AHT?

Because technical tickets require evidence gathering across multiple systems. Querying ClickHouse, checking Stripe state, and matching against Linear bugs can take longer than the customer conversation itself.

Should P1 incidents be included in AHT?

Usually no. P1s are operationally important but statistically distortive, so most B2B teams track them separately from normal ticket-handle benchmarks.

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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