8×8 AI Studio Adds OpenAI’s GPT Realtime 2 to Support Production Voice Agents

8×8, Inc. , a leading global business communications platform provider, has added support for OpenAI’s latest voice AI mode, GPT Realtime 2, to 8×8 AI Studio, providing businesses running live voice agents a more dependable foundation for customer interactions. The update is available today for customers in the 8×8 AI Studio early availability. Existing agents continue running on the current model until customers explicitly opt in via the agent editor.

The most visible changes are designed to enable voice agents that handle requests more reliably, conversations that are transcribed more accurately, and a record of every interaction that is clean enough to use. GPT Realtime 2 brings GPT-5-class reasoning and a 128K context window – so AI agents can stay on track through longer, more complex conversations without losing the thread. Supervisors can review interactions with confidence, book appointments, or route calls to the right team to complete those tasks with fewer errors – fewer dropped lookups, missed transfers, and incomplete bookings – backed by a model that is materially more reliable at tool calling.

More control over how AI agents think. For teams running agents that handle multi-step requests – verifying an account, checking inventory, escalating a case – GPT Realtime 2 introduces a per-AI agent reasoning effort control. Most customer interactions work best at the standard setting; more complex, tool-heavy workflows can be dialed up when the situation calls for it, with the tradeoff of added response time – giving teams the ability to optimize for speed or thoroughness depending on the use case.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview With Jay H. Lee, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer @ Five9

More accurate transcription, automatically. Every voice session now defaults to Realtime-Whisper in 8×8 AI Studio, OpenAI’s latest transcription model. Customer service teams see cleaner records in the call log and in the live advisor interface without changing any AI agent settings. Accurate transcription means supervisors can review interactions with confidence, AI agents have the full picture when picking up a conversation, and businesses can act on what customers actually said.

No disruption to existing AI agents. Agents currently in production continue running on their existing configuration until teams choose to update them. The 8×8 AI Studio already recognizes GPT Realtime 2 and will recommend it for tool-heavy or reasoning-intensive use cases on request. When switching models in the agent editor, AI Studio now automatically substitutes a compatible voice if needed and logs the change – without interrupting workflows.

“When a voice agent conversation doesn’t go as planned – it can’t pull up the account, drops the transfer, loses the thread – the customer feels it immediately,” said Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8, Inc. “This update targets these failure modes that matter in live customer interactions.”

To learn more, see the 8×8 AI Studio user guide at docs.8×8.studio or existing customers can contact their 8×8 account team.

8×8, Inc. is committed to the responsible use of artificial intelligence and the protection of customer data. The 8×8 Platform for CX is developed and operated in accordance with established security standards, applicable compliance frameworks, and internal governance policies, including privacy-by-design principles that safeguard personal data on the 8×8 platform.