Your AI agent can handle most of what customers get in touch about, but payments usually still go to a person. So a customer who's ready to pay waits in a queue for an agent to take their card details, and some give up before they get through.

That handover is there for a good reason. Without it, customers would be reading their card number out loud to an AI, on a recorded line, where it ends up stored in recordings and transcripts.

There's a way round both problems. An AI agent can take the payment itself, as long as the card number never reaches it. So how do you set that up without sending customers back to a queue?

Why most AI agents hand payments to a person

A card number read out to the AI passes through speech recognition and the AI model before it lands in transcripts and call recordings, and each of those systems comes into PCI DSS scope. Pausing the call recording doesn't help, because the AI still has to hear the digits to take them.

So most teams transfer the customer to a person at the payment step. In TCN's survey of 1,000 UK adults, 31% said they'd wait on hold for five minutes or less, so every minute they stay on hold puts the payment more at risk.

The real hurdle is trust, and it's one you can fix. In the same survey, only 9% were comfortable with AI collecting their payment details, and 53% would rather give secure information to a live person, against 16% for an automated phone system. What worries them is being overheard or recorded. With Ciptex Pay, customers key in their card number privately and the AI never hears it, so the payment step becomes one they can trust.

Keeping the card number away from the AI

When the customer types their card number on the keypad, the digits go straight to the payment provider and are masked on the line, so neither the AI nor anyone listening hears them. The transcript and recording hold the conversation and the payment result, and no card details.

That means the AI can handle the whole call, payment included. A customer paying a bill or clearing an overdue balance never gets transferred, and your agents are free for the calls that need a person.

When someone does need a person, perhaps because they're struggling to pay, your agent can join and talk them through it while the customer keys in their details. The agent hears nothing either.

Four checks before an AI agent takes payments

1. Does the card number ever reach the AI? If customers say it out loud, it ends up in transcripts and recordings, and those systems join your PCI scope.

2. Can one of your agents join the call without restarting the payment? Customers who are struggling to pay or querying a charge often need to speak to someone, and starting again means the customer repeats everything.

3. Does the payment system work with your current payment provider? If not, you'd be forced to change payment gateways first.

4. Who carries the compliance? Ask whether the provider is PCI DSS compliant and what stays in your scope, then check the answer with your QSA.

Where Ciptex Pay comes in

Ciptex Pay adds secure payments to the contact centre you already run, and it works alongside MAIA, Ciptex's AI agent, so a payment can happen inside the AI conversation. Customers enter their card details on a masked keypad. MAIA, your agents and your recordings never receive them, and card data stays out of your environment altogether.

Your agent can stay on the call while the customer pays, so a conversation about a payment plan and the payment itself happen together. Ciptex Pay connects to more than 30 payment gateways, and every transaction has an audit trail for disputes. It also works on web chat, email and social, so customers can pay on whichever channel they're already using.

It's PCI DSS 4.0 compliant and takes card payments out of your contact centre's PCI scope.

How to make customers comfortable paying with an AI

Keeping the card number away from the AI solves the security side. How the AI asks for payment decides whether customers go through with it.

Tell customers before the payment step that they'll type their card number on the keypad and that nobody, AI or person, will hear it.

Keep a person one step away. A customer who knows they can ask for an agent at any point is more likely to carry on with the AI, because they don't feel stuck.

Confirm the result straight away, in the conversation and in writing, such as a text or email receipt, so nobody hangs up wondering whether the payment went through.

Book a demo and we'll show a card payment taken inside a MAIA conversation, with the card number never reaching the AI or your agent.