What is Sierra?
Sierra is a conversational AI platform that lets companies build branded customer service agents for chat, voice, email and messaging. It was founded in 2023 by Bret Taylor, former co-CEO of Salesforce, and Clay Bavor, a longtime Google executive. Its agents run across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice and even ChatGPT, and the company lists customers such as Rocket Mortgage, SiriusXM, Vanguard and Wayfair.
Sierra differs from simple chatbot builders in two ways. First, it charges on outcomes, so companies pay for resolved conversations or completed actions rather than seats. Second, it ships tooling for the whole agent lifecycle: Ghostwriter builds agents from standard operating procedures, transcripts or plain English, while Explorer, Monitors and Experiments help teams analyse conversations, catch problems and test changes. Typical use cases are order changes, returns, account management, troubleshooting and proactive outreach for large consumer brands.
Main Features
- Deploy one agent across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice and ChatGPT.
- Build agents from SOPs, transcripts or plain English with Ghostwriter.
- Connect agents to back-end systems so they can take actions such as updating orders.
- Analyse conversations with Explorer and flag issues with Monitors.
- Run multivariate Experiments to compare agent versions.
- Track agent actions through built-in observability tools.
- Meet compliance needs with SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, HIPAA and GDPR coverage.
How to Get Started with Sierra
- Visit sierra.ai and request a demo with the sales team.
- Share your support workflows, policies and the systems the agent needs to access.
- Build and test the agent with Sierra's team using Ghostwriter and the testing tools.
- Launch on your first channel, then monitor results and expand to voice or messaging.
Sierra Pricing
Sierra does not publish plan prices. It uses outcome-based pricing, meaning customers pay for the results the agent delivers, such as resolved conversations. Pricing is agreed with the sales team after a demo.
Who Should Use It?
- Large consumer brands with high customer support volumes.
- Customer experience leaders who want one agent across voice and digital channels.
- Regulated companies in finance or healthcare that need strong compliance.
- Support operations teams that want analytics and testing for AI agents.
- Enterprises that prefer paying per outcome rather than per seat.
Sierra Alternatives
- Decagon: similar enterprise AI support agents with a focus on chat and email
- Fin: easier start for teams already on Intercom
- Zendesk AI: better fit if your help desk already runs on Zendesk
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Sierra free?
No. Sierra is a paid enterprise platform with outcome-based pricing, and you need to book a demo to get a quote.
What is Sierra used for?
Sierra is used to build AI customer service agents. Companies deploy them to handle support conversations across chat, voice, email, SMS and WhatsApp.
Who founded Sierra?
Sierra was founded by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor in 2023. Taylor was previously co-CEO of Salesforce and Bavor led several products at Google.
Is Sierra secure?
Sierra states it holds SOC 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certifications and supports HIPAA and GDPR requirements, which suits regulated industries.