Cresta Deputy Agent: back-office AI for refunds and disputes
Cresta's Deputy Agent runs refunds, disputes and claim appeals for days or weeks after the call ends. Before you automate, decide what needs a human's approval.
Cresta launched Deputy Agent, a back-office AI agent that keeps working on a customer's problem after the call ends. Its targets are refunds, transaction disputes and insurance claim appeals: the work that takes days, touches several systems, and is why customers call back. The hook for operators is not the agent. It is the approval line you have to draw before you turn it on.
What actually happened
Per Cresta's October 13 announcement, Deputy Agent runs an operational workflow until the goal is met. That can take seconds or several weeks. It pauses while it waits for documents, replies or approvals, then continues.
A workflow can start during a live call, from a handoff, or from a back-office queue, with no customer on the line. It works with Cresta's existing products: Agentic Assist for calls that a human leads, and Cresta AI Agent for calls that AI leads. It uses the conversation, customer records, business rules and your standard operating procedures to decide the next step.
On control, Cresta says the business sets what the agent can do alone, what needs approval, and who can step in. There is an audit trail, a view of each running workflow, and alerts when an integration breaks. Escalations arrive with the case details and evidence.
Two lenders, Aqua Finance and Sunbit, gave quotes. The release does not include pricing, a release date, named integrations or performance numbers. Treat it as a direction, not a benchmark.
Why back-office AI agents matter for your business
The call is the cheap part. Most small businesses that tried AI in support started with chat or voice. The cost is in the follow-up: checking the order, matching the payment, emailing the carrier, and remembering to do it again on Thursday. An agent that holds state for weeks goes after that cost.
Write the approval line first. "Refund under $50 on a delivered order with photo proof: agent does it. Anything else: a human signs off." If you cannot write that rule on one page, an agent cannot follow it. Your SOPs become the product spec.
Long-running means long-running failure. A broken integration in week two of a dispute is quiet. Make sure someone gets the alert, and that each case has an owner who is a person.
Key takeaways
- Cresta's Deputy Agent runs back-office workflows like refunds, disputes and claim appeals end to end
- Workflows can run for seconds or weeks, and pause for documents and approvals
- Businesses set what the agent does alone and what needs human approval
- No pricing, release date or performance data in the announcement
- Write your approval rules and SOPs before you automate the follow-up work
Is your team still chasing refunds by hand on Thursdays? We build follow-up automations around your own rules and systems, with approval thresholds a human sets and an audit log you own. Run the numbers on your back office or tell us which workflow hurts most.
Sources: Cresta via PR Newswire.
- #cresta
- #back-office-ai
- #ai-agents
- #customer-service
- #refund-automation
Tommy Rush — Founder, Rush Commerce
Operator turned builder. 15+ years running operations — now shipping the systems businesses run on. More
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