Session economics
The cost and outcome of a single customer contact with an automated channel — what this interaction cost and what it resolved. It is the narrow, current-contact half of AI service ROI.
Session economics looks at one contact at a time. What did this interaction cost, and what did it resolve? It is the familiar way to judge a chatbot or voice agent: cost per conversation, resolution, handling time, whether the interaction stayed inside automation.
It is necessary and, on its own, incomplete. A chatbot can save money on this interaction and still make the service operation more expensive, because the customer remembers the channel, not just the session.
The second horizon
Session economics measures the current contact. Repeat-channel economics measures what that contact does to tomorrow's channel choice. Both belong in the ROI model. Without the second, a metric such as containment rate can look excellent while customers quietly learn not to use automation.
A practical companion metric is the return-to-automation rate.
Read more in Your chatbot is borrowing from the next interaction.
Related terms
Repeat-channel economics
The effect an automated interaction has on whether the customer will choose automation again — the future-facing half of AI customer service ROI that session metrics miss.
Return-to-automation rate
The share of customers who choose the automated channel again after an earlier automated interaction — a measure of how today's experience affects tomorrow's automation choice.
Containment rate
The share of customer interactions that stay inside automation without moving to a human agent. A common chatbot KPI that can look healthy while the channel itself weakens.