Most Kore.ai alternatives in 2026 are customer service and contact center AI vendors: Sierra, Decagon, Ada, Intercom Fin and Maven AGI for customer service agents, NiCE Cognigy, PolyAI and Yellow.ai for voice and contact center automation, and Rasa for teams that want to build their own. 11x belongs on the list when the goal is sales, meaning answering inbound leads and running outbound, rather than resolving service cases.
Key takeaways
- Kore.ai sells AI for service, work and process to large enterprises and does not publish pricing, and most of its direct alternatives also quote privately.
- Sierra, Decagon and Ada handle customer service across chat, email and voice, and none publishes prices; Sierra describes its model as outcome-based pricing.
- PolyAI, Yellow.ai and Intercom Fin publish entry pricing: PolyAI from $49 per month for 250 voice minutes, Yellow.ai free for 500 chat sessions a month, and Fin at $0.99 per outcome.
- NiCE completed its acquisition of Cognigy on September 8, 2025, and Cognigy runs natively inside NiCE CXone while also working with other contact center platforms.
- Rasa's free Developer Edition allows one bot and up to 1,000 external conversations a month for teams that want to build in-house.
How we evaluated
Buyers look at Kore.ai for different jobs, so we first sorted vendors by primary workflow (customer service, contact center voice, custom build or sales) and then compared them on channels, deployment and control, published pricing and enterprise fit. Sources were each vendor's own product and pricing pages, plus NiCE's press release for the Cognigy acquisition. G2 review pages could not be loaded for this check, so ratings are not cited. Last checked November 2026. 11x publishes this guide and makes 11x Outbound and 11x Inbound.
Kore.ai alternatives compared
The table groups each vendor by the job it is built for. Kore.ai is included as the reference point: it sells its Artemis agent platform plus AI for service, work and process, with voice and digital agents, to large enterprises in banking, insurance, healthcare, retail, telecom and travel.
| Vendor | Best for | Channels | Published pricing | Operating model | Key limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kore.ai (reference) | Enterprise service, work and process automation | Voice and digital | Pricing not published | Enterprise platform | Quote-only |
| Sierra | Branded customer service agents for large consumer brands | Chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice | Pricing not published (outcome-based) | Vendor-built agents | Service only |
| Decagon | High-volume support automation | Chat, email, voice | Pricing not published | Vendor-built agents | Service only |
| NiCE Cognigy | Enterprise contact centers | Voice, chat, messaging | Pricing not published | Contact center platform | Built around CCaaS operations |
| Yellow.ai | Multilingual customer service | Voice, chat, email; 35+ channels on Enterprise | Free for 500 chats/mo, then $0.99 per resolution | Platform, free to enterprise | Free tier is narrow |
| Ada | Automated customer service with quality tracking | Voice, messaging, email | Pricing not published | Vendor platform | Service only |
| PolyAI | High-volume and multi-location phone lines | Voice first; web chat, SMS | From $49/mo for 250 minutes | Self-serve to enterprise | Built for service calls |
| Intercom Fin | Support teams on any major help desk | Chat, email, voice, social | $0.99 per outcome | Add-on or standalone | Service only |
| Maven AGI | AI agents on existing help desk and telephony | Voice and help desk channels | Pricing not published | Vendor platform | Service only |
| Rasa | Engineering teams building their own assistants | Custom | Free Developer Edition; Enterprise not published | Developer framework | Team owns build and upkeep |
| 11x | Mid-market and enterprise sales teams | Inbound voice and chat; outbound email and Social | Inbound chat from $2,417/mo, billed annually | Vendor-run sales agents, 2-week onboarding | Sales only; no support deflection |
The alternatives in detail
Each profile covers what the vendor does, who it suits, a key limit and its pricing. Customer service vendors come first, then contact center and voice, then build-your-own.
Sierra
Sierra is a conversational AI platform for building customer-facing AI agents. A single Sierra agent can run across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice and ChatGPT, and customers shown on its site include Rocket Mortgage, SiriusXM, Uber and Vanguard. It is best for large consumer brands that want branded agents to resolve customer requests and take actions in back-end systems. The key limit is scope: Sierra is built for customer experience, not prospecting or sales development, and buying is sales-led. Sierra says customers pay only for the value it delivers through outcome-based pricing, but Sierra pricing is not published.
Decagon
Decagon builds AI agents for customer experience across chat, email and voice, which it brings together in one intelligence layer. Its customers include Deutsche Telekom, Notion, Duolingo, Chime and Hertz. It is best for consumer and technology companies with high support volume that want AI agents to resolve issues and run multi-step workflows. The key limit is scope: Decagon is a customer support product, so it does not cover prospecting, sales qualification or outbound. Decagon pricing is not published; its site offers demos only.
NiCE Cognigy
Cognigy provides AI agents for enterprise contact centers across voice, chat and messaging, plus a copilot for human agents. NiCE completed its acquisition of Cognigy on September 8, 2025; Cognigy runs natively inside NiCE CXone and also works with other CCaaS platforms. It is best for large contact centers that need voice automation tied into existing telephony and agent desktops. The key limit is fit: it is designed around contact center operations, so it adds little for teams whose goal is sales qualification rather than service. Cognigy pricing is not published.
Yellow.ai
Yellow.ai sells an agentic AI platform for customer and employee experience across voice, chat and email, and says its voice agents work in 500+ languages. It reports 650+ global brands as customers. It is best for organizations running multilingual customer service across many markets and channels. The key limit is that the free tier is narrow, with one AI agent and limited channels, while full channel coverage (35+), 150+ integrations and SOC 2, GDPR and ISO compliance sit on the Enterprise plan. Yellow.ai pricing: Free includes 500 chat sessions a month, then $0.99 per resolution; Enterprise pricing is not published.
Ada
Ada is an AI customer service platform that lets businesses deploy, measure, test and coach AI agents across voice, messaging and email in multiple languages. Its customers include Pinterest, monday.com, Grab and Life360. It is best for consumer and software companies that want to automate a large share of support conversations and track resolution quality. The key limit is that Ada focuses on serving existing customers rather than sales, and getting a price requires a sales conversation. Ada pricing is not published; the site offers a custom demo with an ROI model based on your volume.
PolyAI
PolyAI builds dialog agents for enterprise customer conversations, led by voice and also covering web chat, SMS and messaging. Customers include NatWest, UniCredit, PG&E and Foot Locker, plus restaurant groups such as Hawksmoor. It is best for high-volume call centers and multi-location businesses that want an AI agent answering phones. The key limit is that it is designed for service calls rather than sales qualification or outbound. PolyAI publishes pricing: Essentials at $49 per month for 250 minutes, Plus at $199 per month for 1,000 minutes, Scale at $299 per location per month for 1,500 pooled minutes, and Enterprise on custom terms. Developers can also pay per minute.
Intercom Fin
Fin is Intercom's AI agent for customer service. It answers questions and takes actions such as updating accounts and processing refunds across voice, chat, email, Slack and social channels, and it works with Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot and Freshdesk as well as Intercom's own help desk. It is best for software companies that want usage-based pricing on top of the help desk they already run. The key limit is that Fin resolves service questions and is not designed for prospecting or sales qualification. Fin costs $0.99 per outcome with no seat cost, and a minimum monthly commitment applies on an existing help desk; Intercom seats start at $29 per month.
Maven AGI
Maven AGI sells an enterprise AI agent platform for customer experience, with each agent built to handle a specific outcome from start to finish. Its voice agents run on existing telephony, including Twilio, Genesys and Cisco, and it integrates with Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk and Slack. Customers include ClickUp, Tripadvisor and Bamboo Health. It is best for support organizations that want AI agents layered onto the help desk, CRM and phone systems they already use. The key limit is that it is a customer support product without sales prospecting features. Maven AGI pricing is not published; the site offers a demo and an ROI calculator.
Rasa
Rasa provides a platform for teams that want to build and control their own conversational AI. Enterprise customers can run it self-managed, on-premises or in a private cloud, or as a managed service. It is best for engineering teams in organizations that need full control over conversation design, data and deployment. The key limit is responsibility: the team owns development, testing, integrations and maintenance, so time to value depends on in-house skills. Rasa pricing: the Free Developer Edition allows one bot per company with up to 1,000 external or 100 internal conversations a month; Enterprise pricing is not published, and an IVR connector is sold separately.
Where 11x fits
11x is not a customer service replacement for Kore.ai; it fits when the AI is meant to create sales pipeline. 11x provides AI sales agents for inbound, outbound and expansion to enterprise and mid-market revenue teams. 11x Inbound answers every inbound lead on voice or chat in under a minute, 24/7, and qualifies on timeline, budget, stack and stakeholders. 11x Outbound researches every account and contact in the territory and writes each email and Social message from that research, while reps make calls from the 11x dialer. 11x Expansion makes consented calls to the active customer base about upsell, cross-sell and renewal. Humans own the deal. 11x is SOC 2 Type II and CASA Tier 3 certified, aligned with GDPR and CCPA, and onboards in 2 weeks with two-way Salesforce sync. Checkr reported $500K in pipeline and 7,000+ inbound calls automated.
11x is the best fit for enterprise and mid-market revenue teams that need inbound leads answered and outbound run at scale, especially if Kore.ai was on the shortlist because of voice. Teams that need support ticket deflection, contact center automation or a build-your-own platform should pick a vendor above, as should month-to-month buyers or budgets under about $2,400 a month. 11x Inbound pricing starts at $5,333 per month for voice (2,000 calls) or $2,417 per month for chat (3,000 chats), billed annually.
How to choose a Kore.ai alternative
Name the conversations you want to automate first; the vendor category follows from that.
- Choose Sierra or Decagon if you are a large consumer brand automating customer service across chat, email and voice.
- Choose Ada or Maven AGI if you want AI agents on top of your existing help desk with resolution tracking.
- Choose Intercom Fin if you want per-outcome pricing and fast deployment on Intercom, Zendesk or Salesforce.
- Choose NiCE Cognigy if you run an enterprise contact center, especially on NiCE CXone.
- Choose PolyAI if phone volume is the main problem and published per-minute pricing matters.
- Choose Yellow.ai if you need customer service in many languages and markets.
- Choose Rasa if your engineers want to build and own the assistant.
- Choose 11x if the conversations are with prospects and the goal is qualified pipeline, not service resolution.
What does Kore.ai do?
Kore.ai sells its Artemis agent platform plus AI for service, AI for work and AI for process. Its voice and digital AI agents are aimed at large enterprises in banking, insurance, healthcare, retail, telecom and travel.
How much does Kore.ai cost?
Kore.ai does not publish pricing; its site directs buyers to request a demo. Among alternatives, PolyAI starts at $49 per month for 250 voice minutes, Yellow.ai offers a free tier with 500 chat sessions a month, and Intercom Fin costs $0.99 per outcome.
Is there an open-source or self-hosted alternative to Kore.ai?
Rasa is the main option for teams that want to build and host their own assistant. Its free Developer Edition supports one bot and up to 1,000 external conversations a month, and its Enterprise plan can run self-managed on-premises or in a private cloud.
Who owns Cognigy now?
NiCE completed its acquisition of Cognigy on September 8, 2025. Cognigy is available natively inside NiCE CXone and as a standalone product that works with other contact center platforms.
Can a Kore.ai alternative handle sales conversations?
Most Kore.ai alternatives are built for customer service. For sales, 11x Inbound answers inbound leads on voice or chat in under a minute and qualifies them on timeline, budget, stack and stakeholders, while 11x Outbound runs researched email and Social outreach.