OpenAI has officially launched Presence, a new platform designed to facilitate the deployment of AI agents for enterprise use, particularly in customer support and internal service request handling via voice and chat. The company characterizes Presence as a deployment platform rather than a standalone AI model.
Presence integrates several key components necessary for running AI agents in a production environment. These include mechanisms for defining policies and standard operating procedures, built-in guardrails, approved actions, simulation tools, evaluation capabilities, and a Codex-powered improvement process. These combined features enable organizations to connect their existing systems, dictate agent behavior, assess performance, enforce established policies, and manage updates post-launch.
Before an agent deployment goes live, Presence allows teams to conduct thorough testing against a range of scenarios, including common requests, edge cases, and high-risk interactions. The platform utilizes simulations and graders to evaluate whether agents achieve correct outcomes, adhere to policies, appropriately use tools, and escalate conversations when necessary. Guardrails are designed to intervene if an interaction deviates from the company's defined boundaries.
Following deployment, Presence is designed to continuously learn from live production sessions and escalations. OpenAI's coding agent, Codex, analyzes these interactions and proposes improvements to the agent's behavior. These suggested changes are then reviewed and approved by staff members before being implemented, allowing the agent to adapt to evolving company policies or customer behavior without requiring manual rewriting.
OpenAI states that Presence is currently managing its own English-language phone support line, claiming it resolves 75% of inbound calls without human intervention. The platform is being rolled out via a limited general availability program for enterprise clients, supported by OpenAI Forward Deployed Engineers and selected partners. Presence is not offered as a self-service product; interested companies must engage with their OpenAI account team to access it.
