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.

Agent Occupancy Rate

Agent occupancy rate is the percentage of an agent's paid working time spent actively handling tickets, including investigation, communication, and documentation, rather than idle time, training, or administrative work. It measures how full the agent workload is during scheduled time.

Why it matters for B2B support

Target occupancy for B2B support agents is 75–85%. Below 75% usually indicates overstaffing or weak queue management; above 85% creates burnout, diagnostic mistakes, and higher SLA risk because agents start rushing. The critical pattern is that occupancy and quality become inversely correlated once teams run above 85% for sustained periods. B2B teams operating at 90%+ occupancy commonly see CSAT drop 12–18 points and FCR decline 8–15 points because there is no buffer for complex investigations or surge demand.

Key benchmarks

75–85%

target occupancy range for B2B support agents — above and below has costs

90%+

occupancy level where CSAT drops 12–18 points and FCR declines 8–15%

35%

increase in ticket throughput possible with same occupancy via investigation automation

$2,100

monthly cost per agent of running at sub-60% occupancy (excess idle time)

How Altor helps

Altor lets teams handle more tickets at the same occupancy by removing manual investigation time from the workflow. That improves throughput without forcing agents into burnout territory.

FAQ

What is the difference between occupancy and utilization?

Occupancy measures how much of scheduled support time is actively spent on tickets. Utilization is broader and may include non-ticket work, so the two should not be treated as interchangeable.

Why is high occupancy dangerous?

Because B2B technical support needs slack for hard investigations, escalation coordination, and sudden queue spikes. When agents sit at 90%+ occupancy, quality and customer experience fall fast.

How do teams raise throughput without raising occupancy?

Reduce the time each ticket consumes, especially investigation time. That lets the same team resolve more tickets while staying inside the sustainable 75–85% range.

See Altor investigate a real ticket

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

Book a Demo