A virtual agent is the software that serves as an online customer service representative for an organization, capable of responding to customer questions as if they were actual people. Virtual agents are used in CRM to help people perform tasks such as locating information from databases (finding tel. numbers, company address etc.) providing map directions,   document management and alerts,  reading of emails and collection and distribution of any kind of information that is well-structured and easily accessible. This function provides leverage to an organization by ensuring it is able to constantly provide assistance via the virtual agent for trivial tasks where it’s representatives are otherwise engaged.