Seth Van Sickel and Jana Johnson of Sling TV joined Pypestream CEO Richard Smullen to explain how a phased, customer-first rollout lifted resolution from 36% to 71% and turned support chat into a sales channel
NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / November 12, 2026 / Pypestream, which builds AI agents that finish the job for Fortune-class enterprises, and its client Sling TV shared how Sling TV nearly doubled its AI Agent resolution rate. Pypestream CEO Richard Smullen joined Seth Van Sickel, SVP Video and Streaming Services at EchoStar Corporation, and Jana Johnson, Senior Manager of Digital Care and Operations at EchoStar Corporation, for VUX World’s “Kill the IVR, Keep the Conversation” webinar on November 10. Kane Simms of VUX World moderated the session. VUX is the front door to the world of AI-powered customer experience, helping business leaders and teams turn conversational, generative and agentic AI into measurable business results.
The session opened with a 90-second recording of the Sling AI Agent, a scripted recreation of the live experience with fictional customer details. A fan asks when a game is on and how to watch it. The AI Agent then guides the fan through package selection, account creation, payment and a change to the order in one conversation.
Sling TV did not set out to adopt AI. Its goal was to stop customers from getting trapped in rigid flows and let them explain the issue in their own words. On web and mobile chat, the AI Agent now resolves questions, completes signups and hands off to a human agent with full context when needed. Comparing Q3 2026 with Q3 2025, resolution rose from 36% to 71% and CSAT rose from 42% to 72%. Escalations fell 29%, and chat sales conversion rose 9 points, from 15.7% to 24.9%.
“The phone menu was built for the enterprise, not the customer. Sling TV turned that around. Its customers describe what they need in their own words and get an answer or a signup in the same conversation. When a person is needed, that person picks up with full context,” said Richard Smullen, founder and CEO of Pypestream.
Sling TV has been a Pypestream client since 2016, and the experience was built one phase at a time over that 10-year partnership. Sling TV began with AI summaries for its human agents, then validated intent accuracy before launching customer-facing conversational AI. It launched generative AI for single-turn FAQ answers in August 2025. In March 2026 it launched multi-turn, contextual conversational AI that remembers the conversation. Nothing goes live without defined success metrics. Sling TV grades every experience on accuracy, relevancy, tone and next best action.
The AI Agent also helps with issues Sling TV does not own, such as diagnosing a customer’s internet connection and checking geolocation. When Sling TV does not carry a fan’s game, the AI Agent says so and points the fan elsewhere. Deep integration with Sling TV’s core systems, including Adobe Commerce, supports end-to-end automation across an ever-growing list of 50 use cases, powered by 18+ system integrations including account and programming data, enabling human agents to spend their time on more meaningful conversations.
During the session, Van Sickel said Sling TV goes after customer pain points first, not cost savings, and that a business can achieve both when it starts with the customer. Live TV raises the stakes. Sports and news drive viewing on nights and weekends, and in the run-up to a major game the AI Agent has to scale from zero to thousands of conversations within seconds. Van Sickel said Sling TV moves at the pace of its customers, so every new capability is vetted and tested with human agents and employees before customers ever see it.
Johnson said the work started with data, not a push for AI. A large group of customers kept escalating, and when Sling TV asked customers how they wanted to be served, most said they simply wanted an answer. At Sling TV, she said, care is sales and sales is care, so the AI Agent sets out to inform customers fully and let the purchase decision follow. Grounding answers in Sling TV’s public help center made approval from legal and other teams straightforward, and the payment form customers see today replaced an earlier version after data suggested it was costing customer confidence. Johnson stressed that AI is not set and forget. A Sling TV content analyst works with Pypestream weekly, and daily in peak seasons, and her advice to other enterprises is to set baseline metrics and a success goal before launch, then keep monitoring them.
The approach reflects what customers ask for. In a Gartner survey of 3,566 customers published August 4, 2026, 87% said companies using GenAI must offer an option to reach a human agent.
The full session, including the opening demo, is available on demand from VUX World. Watch “Kill the IVR, Keep the Conversation” on demand. CX leaders can watch Sling TV and Pypestream walk through the rollout, the measurement framework and the move from support into sales.
About Pypestream
Pypestream builds AI agents that finish the job. Its agents work over voice and chat, answering customers, completing the request in the systems behind it, and handing off to a live person on the same call when a situation calls for human judgment. Autonomous resolution and live human escalation on one platform, with no second vendor at the seam. Pypestream has been in production with Fortune-class enterprises since 2017. The platform runs more than 500 AI agents and has handled over 2.5 billion interactions, more than 50 million a month, across 82 countries and more than 90 languages. Its architecture is covered by 13 issued US patents filed from 2015, and it is SOC 2 and PCI DSS Level 1 certified, both audited annually. Fortune 500 leaders in insurance, financial services, telecom, media, travel and retail rely on Pypestream, alongside public programs including California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Media Contact
Julie Bilinkas
PR@Pypestream.com
SOURCE: Pypestream Inc.
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