Voice AI kill criteria: when to stop a pilot, in writing, before it starts
- VP / COO
- CX directors
- Heads of Ops
A pilot without kill criteria is not a pilot; it is a permanent project waiting to be re-labelled. Pre-commit the five binary gates below, signed by the four people who can call the no, before the first integration ticket is opened.
The five kill gates
Each gate is binary: pass or fail. A single fail at the decision date triggers a stop conversation with the four named decision-makers. Two fails is an automatic stop.
| Gate | Pass criterion | Measured at |
|---|---|---|
| Containment vs baseline | +5pp or better on the in-scope intent set | Day 60 and day 90 |
| Re-contact within 7 days | Equal to or better than pre-AI baseline | Day 60 and day 90 |
| Cost per resolved call | Within 25% of business case at modelled containment | Day 90 |
| Operating cadence | Decision log present for at least 10 of 12 weeks | Day 90 |
| Compliance gates | No open finding from compliance, security, or legal | Continuous; assessed at day 60 and 90 |
Who can call the no
Four roles, signed at kickoff, named in the success contract. Any one can call the conversation; consensus of three is needed to actually stop.
- Contact-centre operations lead — closest to the caller experience
- Finance sponsor — owns the business case
- Transformation sponsor — owns the programme delivery
- Compliance lead — owns the regulatory exposure
What 'failing the wrong way' looks like
Some pilots fail the right way: the gate is hit, the metric is honest, the decision is no. Those are useful. Other pilots fail the wrong way — they drift past the gate, the metric is contested, the decision is postponed. The drift state has three recognisable signs.
- Methodology debates appear in steering committee at the same time as failing numbers
- Scope is quietly redefined to exclude the intent where the AI underperforms
- Decision date slips by 'just two more weeks' more than once
The reset, not the failure
A killed pilot is not a failed programme. The reset has a defined shape: smaller scope (one intent class, not three), tighter timeline (eight weeks, not twelve), narrower vendor list (the one that did not lose on integration depth). The reset starts faster than the original because the operating model, observability, and compliance work survive the kill.
Open the success contract. If kill criteria are not in it, add the five gates above and circulate for signature today.
- Pre-commit the five gates in writing, signed by four named decision-makers, before the first integration ticket.
- Two failed gates is an automatic stop; one is a stop conversation.
- Re-contact within 7 days is the most commonly failed gate; containment is the most commonly contested.
- Methodology debates plus failing numbers plus a slipped decision date is the drift state — call the no.
- A killed pilot is not a failed programme; the reset starts faster than the original.
Frequently asked questions
- Why pre-commit kill criteria before the pilot starts?
- Because in-flight criteria are unenforceable. The team that designs the criteria once the numbers are bad cannot help but design ones the numbers pass. Pre-commitment removes the conflict of interest.
- Five gates feels like a lot — why not three?
- Because each gate covers a different failure mode. Containment alone hides re-contact, cost alone hides the operating model, operating cadence alone hides compliance. The five together are the smallest set that catches the realistic failures.
- What is the most common kill-gate failure?
- Re-contact within 7 days. Containment looks fine in week eight; re-contact tells you in week ten that the contained calls were not actually resolved.
Terms used in this guide
- Voice AI— Voice AI is software that answers the phone, understands what the caller wants, and takes action — not just a smarter IVR.
- Containment rate— Containment rate is the percentage of calls the automation finished on its own.
Lewis Crook — 20 years in enterprise technology, from FTSE 100 voice deployments to over a million AI-handled minutes a month across Asia-Pacific. Buyer, builder, and now working with CX leaders on enterprise voice AI. Writes The Voice AI Brief. Connect on LinkedIn. More about Lewis.
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